ELVIS (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) ALBUM REVIEW
If you wanna know my thoughts on the movie itself, click here!
If you anything about director Baz Luhrmann, he’s always used music in his movies in relatively weird ways, whether you like it or not. A prominent example is his adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which has heavy involvement from Jay-Z, serving as an executive producer for the film and its soundtrack. Oddly enough, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a movie recently is Tobey Maguire narrating over “No Church in the Wild” from Watch the Throne. We now have a similar soundtrack for Luhrmann’s latest film, a biopic of music icon Elvis Presley. The movie’s fantastic, but since the music is so tied to it, it’s gotta be judged on its own. Let’s see how the ELVIS soundtrack does.
There are a few distinct categories for the tracks: 1. Recordings of Elvis repurposed for the movie, 2. Austin Butler actually singing Elvis songs taken from the movie, and 3. Existing Elvis tracks being remixed by artists like Tame Impala, Jack White, Nardo Wick, and PNAU. The final two categories, which is likely the most star-studded, are either covers of Elvis tracks or completely original songs that are actually in the movie. There are songs from Doja Cat, Denzel Curry, and Nardo Wick that are in the movie itself, while a new song from Eminem [ironically enough] plays in the credits. The covers here are actually the best part to me, with Måneskin’s cover of “If I Can Dream” being the highlight here. Butler’s performance of Elvis is damn-near legendary in the film, but the music on its own really doesn’t do it justice. The actor who plays Big Mama Thornton, Shonka Dukureh’s, version of “Hound Dog” is here too, which flawlessly transitions into Doja Cat’s “Vegas” in the film, where “Hound Dog” is sampled.
Honestly, I’m getting way into the minutiae of this. Nothing is genuinely terrible here, surprisingly enough, but nothing really blew me away like Butler’s portrayal of Presley. I honestly view this as more of a companion piece to the movie, where you can see what was sliced up into the film and get separate tracks of each little moment that caught your ear. Baz Luhrmann’s soundtrack to ELVIS is just as overwhelming as the film itself.
7/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
ELVIS (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is an RCA Records release.
If you anything about director Baz Luhrmann, he’s always used music in his movies in relatively weird ways, whether you like it or not. A prominent example is his adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which has heavy involvement from Jay-Z, serving as an executive producer for the film and its soundtrack. Oddly enough, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a movie recently is Tobey Maguire narrating over “No Church in the Wild” from Watch the Throne. We now have a similar soundtrack for Luhrmann’s latest film, a biopic of music icon Elvis Presley. The movie’s fantastic, but since the music is so tied to it, it’s gotta be judged on its own. Let’s see how the ELVIS soundtrack does.
There are a few distinct categories for the tracks: 1. Recordings of Elvis repurposed for the movie, 2. Austin Butler actually singing Elvis songs taken from the movie, and 3. Existing Elvis tracks being remixed by artists like Tame Impala, Jack White, Nardo Wick, and PNAU. The final two categories, which is likely the most star-studded, are either covers of Elvis tracks or completely original songs that are actually in the movie. There are songs from Doja Cat, Denzel Curry, and Nardo Wick that are in the movie itself, while a new song from Eminem [ironically enough] plays in the credits. The covers here are actually the best part to me, with Måneskin’s cover of “If I Can Dream” being the highlight here. Butler’s performance of Elvis is damn-near legendary in the film, but the music on its own really doesn’t do it justice. The actor who plays Big Mama Thornton, Shonka Dukureh’s, version of “Hound Dog” is here too, which flawlessly transitions into Doja Cat’s “Vegas” in the film, where “Hound Dog” is sampled.
Honestly, I’m getting way into the minutiae of this. Nothing is genuinely terrible here, surprisingly enough, but nothing really blew me away like Butler’s portrayal of Presley. I honestly view this as more of a companion piece to the movie, where you can see what was sliced up into the film and get separate tracks of each little moment that caught your ear. Baz Luhrmann’s soundtrack to ELVIS is just as overwhelming as the film itself.
7/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
ELVIS (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is an RCA Records release.
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