(1) It evokes a memory and feeling of the film.
(2) It stands on its own as a musical statement.
This album succeeds in doing both!
This is one of those rare soundtracks that feels more like the spirit of the movie than the movie itself-- if that is possible! So it covers the first point easily.
And besides that: Each of these songs is just really quite wonderful.
If anyone hasn't seen the movie, here's the gist: Woman's lover dies, she is comforted by an angel who subsequently falls in love with her (which he isn't supposed to do, and which has never happened before!), angel gives up his immortality to become human to be with her, woman dies, angel is left alone to learn human pain, love and compassion.
In short, it is a movie of essential contrasts: about loss and love, yearning and joy, sacrifice and pain, life and death. It is melancholy, uplifting, erotic, ethereal, earthy, depressing... and moving.
In short, it is about Heaven and Earth-- and whether these canexist together or must always be, now and forever, separate.
And this album magically captures all those feelings and tensions in an eclectic, but perfectly selected, group of songs.
Starting with the haunting lament by U2, "If God Will Send His Angels," and continuing to the moving forbidden-love song "Uninvited" by Alanis, with it's vaguely Middle-Eastern vibe fleshed out by a powerful and driving full-string orchestra, we are then brought to one of Jimi Hendrix's most powerfully sexual blues songs, "Red House"-- another song about love and loss, but with a more earthly conclusion. This leads as a transition to a song that drips with such physical sexuality that you wonder if Paula Cole had to wipe herself down after she finished singing "Feeling Love." Any soundtrack gets a plus with John Lee Hooker, as this one does with the unrequited love of "Mama, You Got a Daughter." "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan is another memorable song that must be called haunting. This leads to what I feel is the central song of the album, the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," a song that brings together all the main themes of the movie in one tortured, yet ultimately moving, song. "I Grieve" is one of the most depressing, moving and honestly disturbing songs about death that I have ever heard-- thanks a lot, Peter Gabriel! The Jude song "I Know" is pretty good, and not out of place, but my least favorite of the album. Clapton's "Further On Up The Road" is a a rocking blues song about love and karma. Finally, the Gabriel Yared instrumentals that end the album are just about perfect.
If you want to explore life and death, love and loss, joy and pain-- in short, Heaven and Earth--- those things that are Ultimately Important--- then you owe it to yourself to take a listen to this profoundly moving album.
Starting with the haunting lament by U2, "If God Will Send His Angels," and continuing to the moving forbidden-love song "Uninvited" by Alanis, with it's vaguely Middle-Eastern vibe fleshed out by a powerful and driving full-string orchestra, we are then brought to one of Jimi Hendrix's most powerfully [rendered] blues songs, "Red House"-- another song about love and loss, but with a more earthly conclusion... Any soundtrack gets a plus with John Lee Hooker, as this one does with the unrequited love of "Mama, You Got a Daughter." "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan is another memorable song that must be called haunting. This leads to what I feel is the central song of the album, the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," a song that brings together all the main themes of the movie in one tortured, yet ultimately moving, song. "I Grieve" is one of the most depressing, moving and honestly disturbing songs about death that I have ever heard-- thanks a lot, Peter Gabriel! The Jude song "I Know" is pretty good, and not out of place, but my least favorite of the album. Clapton's "Further On Up The Road" is a a rocking blues song about love and karma. Finally, the Gabriel Yared instrumentals that end the album are just about perfect.
