High Fidelity
Released 2000
Hi…
So I am joining Daily Waffle with the intent of waffling mostly about music. I’ll warn you though, I get distracted easily. Tangent could be my middle name, but you know, it isn’t.
So I thought I would kick off with a series of blogs about films. See? I did warn you. In my defence I want to blog about films with amazing soundtracks.
I went to see High Fidelity on my 21st birthday and fell fully and lastingly in love with it. I want to be Rob Gordon. He has an apartment full of vinyl, a proper sound system complete with big earphones, a full understanding of how to make a proper compilation tape AND he owns his own record shop. Gordon’s propensity for making a top 5 out of every situation reeled me in and when I rebooted my own blog a couple of years ago top 5’s were the way forward.
It is hard to believe there are only 15 songs on the official soundtrack. Especially as the 70 music cues in the film were whittled down from around 2000 songs. I love ‘Dry The Rain’ by The Beta Band , it is so soft and slow and reminds me of getting caught in warm rain showers. If I was the kind of bride to indulge in such types of public humiliation, I might have chosen ‘I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever) by Stevie Wonder as our first dance and ‘Shipbuilding’ by Elvis Costello and The Attractions is a classic.
The album does also include Barry Jive & The Uptown Five’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ which accompanies the films uplifting finale. The trouble is, there is something sanitised about this version. I fear Jack Black is concerned too much with singing ‘properly’ and not enough with capturing the true spirit of being Barry.
I know it is 12 years later but they could still release a second official soundtrack. There is enough fantastic material. It could feature ‘I Want Candy’ by Bow Wow Wow, ‘Seymour Stein’ by Belle and Sebastian, ‘We Are The Champions’ by Queen and of course ‘Walking On Sunshine’ by Katrina and the Waves as choreographed by Barry.
Overall from a fantastic film, centered around music the soundtrack is actually a little disappointing. We have Barry Jive so why haven’t we got Marie DeSalle (Lisa Bonet) performing ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’? That’s an important bit of the film plot right there.
So now you are asking why start with this soundtrack if it isn’t a great soundtrack album? Fair point but as you will see a consistently good soundtrack is a rarity. Normally you buy it for the one song, the main song, ‘I Am The One And Only’ from Buddy’s Song for example. If you are lucky you find another song hidden on there that you really like, ‘Feel So Alive’ for example.
What?
Just me then?
OK. If you really want to enjoy and appreciate the breadth of music from High Fidelity, go watch the film. Then come back and tell me your favourite quotes
