Eddie Vedder - Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Eddie VedderEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); Danish (Original Language); English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2007-09-18
Music Label: J-Records
Soundtracks:
- Setting Forth
- No Ceiling
- Far Behind
- Rise
- Long Nights
- Tuolumne
- Hard Sun
- The Wolf
- End of the Road
- Society
- Guaranteed
Free Music Notes for Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild
Free Music Review: Into the Wild: The Straight Dope (bonus tracks)
Hit: 5 Stars
For all those Pearl Jam fans out there, the release of what is essentially a solo acoustic Eddie Vedder album is manna from heaven. Of course, most PJ fans out there these days are in their 4th or 5th decade of life, and there are many young folks who view PJ as outmoded and other naysayers who have grown tired of Ed's gruff, mumbly baritone. But I belong to the first group, so I think this little album is pretty great.
"Into the Wild" is a 30-minutish album that has Eddie playing a variety of acoustic instruments over 11 short tracks. It's classic Vedder, but stripped-down and bare, kind of in the balladic "No Code" or "Binaural" vein with more acoustic strumming and minimal accompaniment. The tunes were written as a movie soundtrack, and having seen the film, it's hard not to picture Emile Hirsch traipsing over hill and dale during the songs. On the other hand, most of the numbers do have lyrics, which is a bit unusual for a soundtrack, and was sometimes distracting for me in the theater. But this review is about the music...
Many of the tunes are upbeat, rocky-mountain-high, kind of anthems, as on "Setting Forth," "Far Behind," and the all-instrumental "Tuolumne." The other half are more introspective, balladic numbers (in keeping with the kind of celebration of freedom/wasteful tragedy duality of Chris McCandless' tale), as on the banjo-inflected "No Ceiling," "Rise" (the ukelele invokes Ed's "Soon Forget" from Binaural or "Goodbye" from A Broke Down Melody -- I'm thinking an all uke-vocal album by Ed would be pretty great), "Long Nights," "Society," and "The End of the Road." "Hard Sun" is a stand-out in a number of ways -- clearly the one number that might either get radio-play or be released as B-side single. Also, it's written by Robert Peterson (aka Indio) and features some backing chorus vocals by Sleater-Kinney frontwoman Corin Tucker (it would be awesome if Ed made a proper single out of "Modern Girl" and released it with "Hard Sun"). It's definitely the big anthem of the album and the only tune over 4 minutes long. "Society" is the other track not written by Ed -- in this case, the author is Jerry Hannan who also sings back-up underneath. "The Wolf" features Ed doing his Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan inspired vocal howling (reminiscent of "Arc" without the overdubs) over an organ drone. And then there's "Guaranteed," a great tune that really has two versions embedded in the same song -- first the vocal version that has Ed singing over acoustic guitar (this was played during the end credits of the movie) and later, in a "hidden track," the "Humming Version" that starts around 4:40 after a minute or two of silence (who invented hidden tracks anyway? why would I want to endure two minutes of silence or have to press fast forward to get to more music?). The humming version is what opens the film, and features Ed humming the sweet soulful melody over the same guitar rhthym. So for me, the standout tracks are "Hard Sun," "Guaranteed," "Setting Forth," "Far Behind", "Rise," and "The Wolf." That's half the album, so you can see I think it's all pretty great and will leave fans itching for a real solo album someday.
This review wouldn't be complete without some discussion about iTunes. iTunes has available, for $2 more, the "deluxe version" of this album (NOT sold here at Amazon), which augments the original soundtrack with 4 more numbers -- "No More" (a cover) and "Photographs" (a short instrumental) lifted from the soundtrack to the documentary 'Body of War,' a live version of "No More," and a live version of "Here's to the State," one of Ed's concert staples that has him railing against various operatives in the Bush administration. iTunes also sells "Guaranteed (Humming Version)" as a separate track, but it's just the "hidden track" from the 7-minute "Guaranteed" that isn't available as a single downloadable track. Since the original soundtrack is only about a half-hour long, most fans will welcome the extra 12 minutes of music, but the truth is the tunes don't completely fit with the rest of the album and some will no doubt find the strong political messages of "No More" (War) and "Here's to the State," typical of Ed, tiring.
And so, "Into the Wild" is a short little album written as a movie soundtrack that is loaded with little gems by Eddie Vedder on vocals and acoustic strings. If you like Ed and can put up with the brevity of the songs themselves and the album as a whole, it's sure to please, and leave you wishing there were more. And there is a little more, only if you're interested you'll have to get it from iTunes... or somewhere else ;).
Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild Poster
track listing and sequence subject to changeTaking a break from his day job fronting rock heavyweight Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder immerses himself into the big-screen story of a young man who gives all his money to charity and hitchhikes to a new life--and his eventual death--in the wilds of Alaska. Prompted by the film's creator, Sean Penn, to contribute to the musical score, the Seattle musician tackled the entire project, playing every instrument on the soundtrack's nine original and two cover songs. Vedder contemplates the traveler "setting forth in the universe" in the opener "Setting Forth," then tracks in the remaining songs the realizations and disillusionments that follow. A wish comes true in banjo-plucked "No Ceiling" to "up and disappear," while affluence is questioned on the hard-rocking "Far Behind," with Vedder singing, "Empty pockets will/Allow a greater sense of wealth." No song in the album's first half exceeds two-and-a-half minutes, remedied by Vedder's pertinent five-minute stamp on the remake of Indio's "Hard Sun," complete with eerie backing vocals by Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. The songwriter puts wealth on the hot seat in "Society," questioning, "If less is more/How you keepin' score?" The darkly sung folk song bookends the reticent declaration "Guaranteed," wonderfully delivered and quietly strummed, in which the prodigal Vedder wraps the journey in one line: "Leave it to me as I find a way to be/Consider me a satellite forever orbiting." (The record is packaged like a hardcover book, with vivid photography and lyrics.) --Scott Holter
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