Nobody was as surprised as I was to see The Saint, one of the most heavily promoted films of the early 1997 film season fade quickly into the box office sunset (nobody, that is, except maybe the cast, crew, etc.). Consequently, nobody was as surprised as I was to open up Billboard one day and find Prodigy climbing the singles chart.
Electronica - which has been billed as everything for the soundtrack for the next millennium to this years grunge - has been sitting patiently in clubs and on college radio for a while now, just waiting for their chance at the brass ring. Grunge got its shot with the Singles soundtrack and hardcore got a giant boost from The Crow soundtrack. See a pattern here?
The soundtrack to The Saint is - you guessed it - almost exclusively made up of electronica artists. Or, as the promotional material puts it, an "unprecedented array of electronica innovators". And there are risks taken on this album - but not unprecedented ones. Sure, bands like Daft Punk and Sneaker Pimps get to go along for the ride (and even get their tracks released as singles - eight of which are coming off the disk), but tracks by Chemical Brothers, Moby, and the ever-evolving David Bowie are there too, just in case.
Interestingly enough, it's the new kids who really shine the brightest. "6 Underground" by Sneaker Pimps and "Da Funk" by Daft Punk are two of the highlights of the album, both packed with the kind of good, solid grooves that makes DJs and dance audiences alike salivate. And while all the tracks are solid, "Dead Man Walking" from Bowie and "Out of My Mind" from Duran Duran - now with only two original members - seem the most out of place ( oddly enough, "Dead Man Walking" is one of the better tracks from Bowie's Earthling album).
But perhaps most interesting thing about The Saint soundtrack is that the one track which is the furthest from electronica, Duncan Sheik's "In the Absence of Sun", is the best track on the disk. A lush ballad full of string arrangements, Sheik's performance is scaled-down in comparison to the rest of the disk, and certainly proves that sometimes, less is more.
Overall, The Saint soundtrack is almost air-tight in its composition. There is something for everyone interested in this new avenue of music expression, and the high number of singles should help sell the album pretty well if the majority of them catch on. This kind of commercialization of a new genre of music is usually unsettling, but you dont get that feel of the disk overall. Chemical Brothers on a movie soundtrack doesn't bother me - when they do a Ford commercial, then I'll be scared.
