SANTAOLALLA GUSTAVO EL SECRETO DE LA MONTAÃ'A (BROKEBACK) Argentina-born, California-based Gustavo Santaolalla helped shape the rock en Español movement by producing Mexican bands Molotov and Café Tacuba , and Colombian singer Juanes. In the late 1990s he made a switch to soundtracks, working on well-received albums for Amores Perros and The Motorcycle Diaries. His instrumental contributions to Ang Lee's tale of two cowboys in love are acoustic guitar-based and, let's face it, a bit on the sonic-wallpaper side. The vocal tracks, on the other hand, are uniformly lovely, even if the selection of interpreters falls on the predictable side. Linda Ronstadt, Steve Earle, Willie Nelson, and Mary McBride on the soundtrack to a contemporary Western? What a shock! Still, they're all wonderful and Santaolalla wrote at least a couple of classic-sounding country ballads ("A Love That Will Never Grow Old," sung by Emmylou Harris, and "No One's Gonna Love You Like Me," sung by Mary McBride). And don't miss Teddy Thompson and Rufus Wainwright's sweet cover of Roger Miller's 1964 "King of the Road." --Elisabeth Vincentelli SANTAOLALLA GUSTAVO EL SECRETO DE LA MONTAÃ'A (BROKEBACK)
So often film scores that utilize songs from a period of time during which the cinema story happened are dismissed as 'non-original' or 'uncreative' or, worse yet, 'plagiarized''! But the charge of a composer assigned to provide music for a film is to support the mood, enhance the plot, identify certain motifs, and in general make the film more powerful without drawing attention to itself. Some film scores are so immediately accessible and beautiful that the audience stops thinking about the story to appr..
A fine collection of C&W songs performed by some great artists, with some evocative instrumental interludes from the film. The highlights are the moving A Love That Will Never Grow Old (next year's Oscar-winning song?) and I Don't Want to Say Goodbye, songs written by Gustavo Santaolalla and Bernie Taupin and performed by, respectively, the reknowned Emmylou Harris and Teddy Thompson, a talented young artist (check out his excellent self-entitled debut on Virgin Records). These songs do a great job of con..
I stumbled upon this soundtrack at a record store recently & decided to give it a shot, as the roster of artists impressed me. I'm glad I made my purchase. This soundtrack is easily one of the year's best.There are a number of distinguished country artists performing new tracks, some written specifically for the film. Willie Nelson is first up with a gorgeous cover of Bob Dylan's "He Was A Friend Of Mine." Emmylou Harris also turns in a poignant performance on "A Love That Will Never Grow Old," a beauti..