I love this beautiful mess of a movie. It's one of my favorites, and it's also one of the best soundtracks ever. David Bowie wouldn't let them use any of his songs, most likely because the film shows a fictionalized Bowie having an affair with a fictionalized Iggy Pop. This made the soundtrack 100 times more creative than it would have been: Interwoven with classic gems by Roxy Music and T. Rex are original songs by Pulp, Grant Lee Buffalo, and Shudder to Think that sound like they could have come from that era too.
The flashiest thing about the album are the covers recorded under the name of the two bands in the film, Wylde Ratttz (faux Stooges performing "T.V. Eye" with Ewan McGregor not doing terribly on lead vocals) and The Venus in Furs (the British glam band that alternates Thom Yorke and an also-not-terrible Jonathan Rhys Meyers on vocals).
The Venus in Furs:
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead)
Bernard Butler (Suede)
Andy Mackay (Roxy Music)
Paul Kimble (Grant Lee Buffalo)
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Wylde Ratttz:
Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth)
Ron Asheton (the Stooges)
Mike Watt (the Minutemen)
Don Fleming (Gumball)
Mark Arm (Mudhoney)
The movie is also basically one GIF after another waiting to happen, from Brian Slade pausing to sniff cocaine off of a girl's butt while fighting with his girlfriend to Ewan McGregor and Christian Bale's characters making out. Velvet Goldmine really answers the question "Is campiness still fun if it's completely intentional?" Yes, 1000 times yes.
1 comment:
100% agreed
Side note: I was so naive and uptight at age 16, when I first saw this movie, that my friend and I shut it off halfway through because we couldn't understand what was going on or what was appealing about it. Obviously my teenage self was terrible to be around, and it's a wonder I've retained any of the friends I had at that time.
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