Various Artists - Final Song Vol.1 Review

Compiling an album according to the song you want played at your funeral, or the last song you’d want to hear before you shuffle, frug, pogo or vogue off this mortal coil, is an idea that, as Final Song #1 shows, proves both brilliant in conception and slightly insane in execution. Brilliant because everyone’s thought about their funeral at some point of craven self-absorption; insane because, however you choose your respondents, when you pose this question – which eschews considerations such as influence, genre, or everyone piling back to yours – you’re always going to end up with a tracklisting equivalent to numerous wildly divergent iPods set to shuffle.

So it is with Berlin electronic label Get Physical’s quixotic project, where asking the question of a selection of DJs and producers familiar to anyone with a passing interest in electronic music (Laurent Garnier, Gilles Peterson, David Holmes, Coldcut, Richie Hawtin), throws up selections ranging from classical (Get Physical label head chooses Erik Satie’s ‘Gymnopédie No.1’), top-40 pop (albeit the drug-obsessed pop of The Stranglers’ ‘Golden Brown’, as requested by Munich electroclash innovator DJ Hell), alternative rock (Laurent Garnier opts for ‘Sit Down, Stand Up’ by Radiohead) to Chilean folk (Ricardo Villalobos wants nueva cancíon practitioners Inti Illimani’s ‘Caramba, Yo Soy Dueño del Barón’)....full text It's a cracking concept if, you know, a trifle gloomy: which song would you choose to hear before you die? Here, 13 DJs stare into the void, among them David Holmes, who takes the literal approach, opting for the Beach Boys' Til I Die, and French spinner Chloé who, with minutes left to spare, would put on her own Paradise and exit, satisfied....full text Your final song: The ultimate curtain-closer, the one song you'll spin that you'll never hear get played. And the one in your life you'll play which will most likely be listened to with the most sincere attention and care. Final Song #1 asks some of the world's most recognized DJs to choose a tune to play at their own funeral—or on their deathbed. Not only does this result in an excellent compilation of songs (which you could probably have guessed from the idea alone) but the very character of its concept and the choices that follow open up a whole field of reflections on the roles that music plays in human life, starting with the question, "What is it that you're saying when you choose your final song?" Is it a expression, a testament, an attestation? Wouldn't it in a way be like sending a message, without any words, a message that says nothing yet remains infinitely compelling?

Because of the nature of the project, critical evaluation is difficult. Each selection has been made for the most singular, personal reasons imaginable, reasons that even the selectors can't explain, in spite of the revealing liner notes from each. These are people whose job it is to find the right song to play at the right time, but choosing not the last song, but the very, very last song, well, normal criteria of tune selection just don't apply. While the DJs can offer up their thoughts and describe their emotive attachments to each song, each choice is impossible to justify, because that place where the soul preserves its most intimate objects can't be defended in words. Music is able to enter into this innermost part of each of us because it can strike without warning, it can compel you to follow it without reason, it can simply puncture your life one day and remain by your side until you pass from this world....full text