Friday, July 9, 2010

Eclipse Music Review

I'd like to give MC a warm welcome here at the Electronic Bookshelf, she was kind enough to give a music review for the soundtrack and the score of Eclipse, enjoy!!


As my friend Ed knows, I am absolutely crazy about music. Not only songs with lyrics though: I love scores, probably even better than the music from the motion picture. Whenever I see a film with an outstanding score, I use all my faculties in order to obtain it. The original score, when I listen to it, paints a scene from the movie in my head. Listening to the entire album is like seeing the movie again, at least for me. So, when I found out that I could preorder both the original score and the motion picture soundtrack before the movie even came out, I was jumping around my room, only pausing long enough to click the preorder tab on Amazon.

When I heard that Howard Shore was going to compose the score, I went ballistic. Shore was the composer for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and that epic movie was made even more so by Shore’s rousing score. I didn’t pause to consider whether or not it was a good idea to order the score…Shore’s name being mentioned along the same lines as Eclipse original score made the buy an ‘of course’ moment. Shore has a definite knack for building the tension in a scene, slowing down a moment, making that moment special and unique. What Shore also does is give the different characters themes, their own melody that you can hear interwoven into different songs.

Since this particular book had us going into the characters of Rosalie and Jasper in their pre-vampire days, they needed their own melody: Rosalie’s was bittersweet, reflecting the supposed love that she had with Royce, while Jasper’s sounded dangerous, demonstrating what he said in Eclipse: that a newborn’s life was measured in months, not decades or centuries. Jacob got his own theme as well, and Shore’s choice of making it a guitar solo was genius. Piano was strictly for Edward, seeing that it is a timeless, classical instrument, like Edward himself. The electric guitar was perfect for Jacob; it was kind of angry, but beautiful, and definitely needed to be heard, much like his love for Bella. Victoria was given a choppy melody that got my heart beating faster.

I did not forget Bella and Edward…how could I? For their theme, Shore collaborated with Metric to create a song that he could take the melody from and layer into his work. The last song in the original score album was entitled “Wedding Plans,” when Bella and Edward meet at the meadow again after the battle and after she breaks Jacob’s HEART (I am not really a Team Jacob fan, but Ed claimed Edward before me, so I settled for Jacob…but I still get Robert Pattinson J), there is an orchestra playing Metric’s melody, and as Bella and Edward get up, and Edward slips the ring on Bella’s finger, since they are going to tell Charlie, and Edward wraps his arms around Bella, it morphs into Metric’s beautiful song, properly named “Eclipse (All Yours).” I was truly impressed with the score, and Shore truly was phenomenal with what he created for this international phenomenon.

The same goes for the original motion picture soundtrack. Metric was truly perfect, though it took me a while to get into their song. Muse, even though they usually impress the you-know-what outta me, they kinda fell flat. A song that really stood out amongst all of the others was Sia’s “My Love.” This is during the scene in which Bella tries to get into Edward’s pants. Right now, Ed and me are listening to the song from Sia on repeat, feeling our hearts break and mend simultaneously. I easily get swept into the music, into a song that is particularly heartfelt and gut-renching. Sia’s song is perfect for Bella and Edward, and to have it at such an important point really drove home the raw beauty and passion in Bella and Edward’s relationship, and the fact that they just took a giant step forward (i.e. the most sigh-inducing proposal, getting engaged, promising to wait for sex, so on). In the end, the music was truly stupendous, and I can’t say it enough. Without further ado, the lyrics for this burning, smoldering, beautiful, glorious song. If your heart doesn’t break either reading the lyrics or listening to it, I will seriously question your humanity.

My Love – Sia

My love, leave yourself behind

Beat inside me, leave you blind

My love you have found peace

You were searching for release

You gave it all

Give into the call

You took a chance and you took a fall for us

You came thoughtfully, and then faithfully

You taught me honor

You did it for me

Today you will sleep for good

You will wait for me my love

Now I am strong

You gave me all

You gave all you had and now I am home

My love leave yourself behind

Beat inside me, leave you blind

My love look what you can do

I am mending, I'll be with you

You took my hand

You added a plan

You gave me your heart

I asked you to dance with me

You loved honestly did what you could believe

I know in peace you go, I hope relief is yours

Now I am strong

You gave me all

You gave all you had and now I am home

My love leave yourself behind

Beat inside me, I’ll be with you.

0 comments:

Post a Comment