Hunger Games Month: A look at Songs from District 12 and Beyond

Happy West Coast Wednesday! Yeah, this one is a little late for me. First off, my latest review at Steampunk Chronicle went up and I can now confirm that I will be at The Steampunk Empire Symposium in late April! More on that later, but let’s get down to what you came here for.

Ever since T-Bone Burnett was announced as the music supervisor for The Hunger Games, I’ve probably been more excited for the soundtrack than the movie. Even more so when Glen Hansard revealed he had been writing songs for the movie. With the elements, it was assuring me that the soundtrack was going to be my anachronistic retrofuturistic dream come true.

Thank you, T-Bone Burnett, for answering my prayers.

While The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond is more of an official companion album to the book and the movie than a soundtrack, it’s so fitting for the overall feeling of the universe. As a Hunger Games fan, the running themes and references to the books make me so joyful to know that the artists involved actually tried to fit within the universe. As a retrofuturist, the sounds were a fantastic blending of the old of District 12 and the intruding future of the Capitol.

The main single for the album was ‘Safe and Sound’ by Taylor Swift and Civil Wars. When I first heard it, I was genuinely impressed by ‘Safe and Sound’ due to the fact it wasn’t a typical Taylor Swift song. It showed a lot of emotion and real growth for Swift. However, it might have been the assistance from Civil Wars that might have helped on that one. I wasn’t as impressed with ‘Eyes Open’ due to the shades of her usual wide-eyed-everything-is-cotton-candy-ness popping out during the song. However, maybe writing from the perspective of Katniss Everdeen is what makes her a better songwriter.

The soundtrack has an interesting mix of mainstream and independent artists on the listing. Arcade Fire opens the album with the haunting ‘Abraham’s Daughter’, which takes a turn on the story of Abraham and Isaac that’s ultra-fitting of Katniss. Glen Hansard has two tracks on the album. Well, two written by Glen Hansard. His track, ‘Take The Heartland’, is an intense track that feels like you’re right in the arena and holding your own in the Cornucopia. His other track, ‘Come Away to the Water’, is performed on the album by Maroon 5 and singer Rozzi Crane. Adam Levine’s voice isn’t as intense as Hansard’s, but it still carries across a strong emotional impact. It’s dark, fluid and fitting for the universe.

The most surprising track for me though was ‘The Ruler and The Killer’ by Kid Cudi. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the end result was a dark and reptilian track about totalitarian power. Very fitting for President Snow, the series’ main villain.

Along with that Cudi track, the ‘Beyond’ side of the title is covered fairly well. ‘Lover is Childlike’ by The Low Anthem reminds me a lot of Annie and Finnick of District 4 and ‘One Engine’ by The Decemberists is a high speed track that brings back mental images of the train ride into the Capitol.

The best tracks for me though are the one that really seemed to pay attention to the source material. ‘Nothing To Remember’ by Neko Case, while not mentioning Katniss directly, gets right into her head and puts her personality and emotional distance to song. My absolute favorite track on the album though is ‘Daughter’s Lament’ by Carolina Chocolate Drops. I’ve been a fan of the Drops for a while now (and will be reviewing Leaving Eden sometime soon), and I was extremely excited to see that they would be on the soundtrack. The Rhiannon Giddens written and lead track is about the death of Katniss father. Miranda Lambert and the Pistol Annies also have a song about it called ‘Run Daddy Run’, but the Drops do it in a style of an old folk song for District 12. It’s an amazingly emotional track that shows that the Drops just get District 12. If they make it onto future albums, I would not argue.

If you’re a fan of The Hunger Games and/or retrofuturistic folky music, I’d highly suggest The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. It’s an amazing companion album to the universe of The Hunger Games filled with solid tracks from artists all across the board. I hope that they will be keeping T-Bone Burnett for future films because he’s put together something great.

Come back on Friday, because I’ll finally be reviewing the movie I’ve been waiting ages for…

 

I’ll be at AnachroCon! And other various things…

February has been rather busy. And fast. I swear I had just posted the review for Her Majesty’s Explorer and BAM! It’s a week later. Perhaps Sephora is messing with the Temporal Bi-Resonator again. Perhaps I should have ranted about the Grammys, but they were just so dreadfully boring this year. It just wasn’t worth it, even with Adele’s success.

Anyway, I’m here to let everyone know that I will be at AnachroCon this weekend! I won’t be on any panels, but I will be working for The Extraordinary Contraptions for the two days I will be there. Feel free to swing by the table to chat and perhaps pre-order The Time Traveler’s Constant for $12. That is, if you didn’t already back the album on Kickstarter.

If I’m not at the table on Friday or Saturday, I will either be chatting with the other bands (or attending their shows), visiting Dim Horizon’s photobooth ($5 for one session, $10 for the weekend!), partaking of Emilie Bush’s Men Without Pants party or reading of Her Majesty’s Explorer (two vast ends of the spectrum there), or attending the Music of a Time That Never Was panel at 3 PM on Saturday. Or just wandering the con and visiting with friends. I’m good at that. I hope to see you there!

After that, I will be hopping out of this dimension for a week to visit a man and his mouse down in Orlando. My internet use will be short, but I will be back on schedule soon after that!

As for upcoming blogs, I will probably do an overview of AnachroCon and my Orlando trip. For pop culture stuff, I will soon be finishing up Avatar: The Last Airbender and starting Game of Thrones, so I will be offering my views on those series for sure. I’m also planning on doing an overview of the first 13 books I’ve read this year as part of my personal attempt of reading at least 52 books this year. And the lead up to The Hunger Games will be an absolute blitz. Stay tuned!

For now though, I will be leaving this blog off with six songs I’m digging right now.

1. ‘No Church In The Wild’ – Jay-Z and Kanye West – The amazing opener of Watch The Throne. Consider this album my #7 of my top albums from 2011.
2. ‘Used To Love U’ – John Legend – From Legend’s 2004 debut album Get Lifted. Might seem a bit inappropriate now due to it’s reference to Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, but it has been stuck in my head since seeing John Legend perform at Georgia State University.
3. ‘Synthesizers’ – Butch Walker and the Black Widows – Click the link to see the band perform the song on the Late Show with David Letterman. There were tears of pride.
4. ‘All Warmed Up Inside’ – Rebecca Sugar – From the Season 3 finale of Adventure Time. Rebecca Sugar songs have a way of getting in my head, and Jake’s Finn-proxy serenade to the Flame Princess is just so wonderfully cute. John DiMaggio’s performance is just as great as Rebecca Sugar’s demo.
5. ‘Barton Hollow’ – Civil Wars – Performed for 60 seconds at the Grammys, the duo of Joy Williams and John Paul White managed to be more impressive than most of the “big name” performers. Country music the way it’s supposed to be.
6. ‘Starships’ – Nicki Minaj – A fun and lovely piece of pop from one of the most controversial names in popular music today. I wouldn’t be surprised if this song becomes bigger than ‘Super Bass’.

-Liesel