UK's Guardian on "Open Season" soundtrack

[nowwesayitoutloud]

Paul Westerberg, Open Season (Lost Highway)
Michael Hann
Friday October 27, 2006
The Guardian

In the 16 years since splitting his great 1980s band, the Replacements, Paul Westerberg has become alt-rock's David Bowie: every album sees hopeful fans proclaiming his latest record "his best since ..." His new one sees Westerberg in his most unlikely guise yet - soundtracking a kids' cartoon - so hopes for an artistic revival are redundant before one even turns on the CD player. In fact, it's a perfectly serviceable record of eight Westerberg songs - think an edgier Tom Petty or John Fogerty - augmented with four tracks by other artists.

The problem is the saminess. While the crunch of Westerberg's guitar satisifies when the album opens, by the fifth mid-paced, drive-time rock number, one craves variety. And when it comes, in the form of the ballad Good Day, it doesn't work: Westerberg's refrain of "A good day / is any day that you're alive" loses any emotional impact when you remember he's singing about cartoon animals escaping cartoon hunters.

[kgp]

A good day / is any day that you're alive" loses any emotional impact when you remember he's singing about cartoon animals escaping cartoon hunters.

Research people. It's not that hard.

[nowwesayitoutloud]

I sent a clarification to the Guardian:

"Good Day" is the one Paul Westerberg song on the soundtrack CD not composed for the "Open Season" movie. Westerberg wrote it in response to the untimely death in 1995 of his former bandmate Bob Stinson. So it would be more precise to say that on the soundtrack for a movie about cartoon animals, the song loses emotional impact when you remember he's singing about a real human being who did not escape his chemical demons.


I already heard back:

Hi Chris,
I didn't know that ... but, to be fair, you;d never know that from the CD. And, presumably, Bob Stinson's life, incendiary guitar playing and untimely death are not the context in which the song is used in the film ...
Best,
Michael Hann

[FreeRider]

"...to be fair, you'd never know that from the CD"

Huh? Not all artistic endeavors are explained to the audience. But Paul has talked about the song before. So to be fair, how about Michale Hahn do some research.

And regardless of how the song was used in the film (I haven't seen the movie), the fact remains, Paul is singing about the life/death of someone he knew. Seems to me that it fits right in with the movie where animals are being hunted.

To me, I don't see any loss of emotional impact whether the song is used for a film sequence or if it stands alone by itself on "Eventually".