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| Pitchfork |
 Comic books about rock music are usually cringe-inducing. The most common mistake cartoonists make is to oversell their fictional rockers' coolness, or to go heavy on "hip" references in the hope of either impressing or flattering their readers. Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series succeeds mainly because he was never overtly striving for coolness, and he clearly understood the lives of young indie rock musicians. Rock'n'roll was mainly just something his characters did for fun, and so that's what came through on his pages: Characters, fun. O'Malley's title character is the bassist in Sex Bob-omb, a garage band that is not especially good, but could believably get by on charm and a well-circulated mp3. The other bands in the series are familiar indie rock archetypes bent into fanciful, humorous abstractions-- The Clash at Demonhead are so arty and glamorous that they seem to exist primarily to make their audience feel insecure; Crash and the Boys are a noise-punk band blessed with inexplicable super powers.Getting this music right was one of the top challenges facing Edgar Wright in his film adaptation of O'Malley's comics. Putting comic book characters on the big screen is no big deal in the age of CGI, but making music that matched the imaginary sounds in reader's heads is a tall order. For the most part, Wright and his collaborators nailed it. Beck, who wrote all of the material for Sex Bob-omb, captures the ramshackle energy implied in the comics. Sure, his songs may be slightly better than Sex Bob-omb ought to be, but does anyone want to sit through inept music in a movie theater, much less at home while listening to a soundtrack? No way. Beck-sung versions of the Sex Bob-omb tracks appear along with the movie band recordings, and the latter are much more enjoyable. These songs are meant to be scrappy, and though Beck loosens up a bit, he still sounds like a pro. Also, while "Garbage Truck" and "Threshold" may be great tunes for a fictional garage band, they're mediocre at best by Beck standards....full text |
| Subba-cultcha |
| Much like its eponymous protagonist, Scott Pilgrim - Played by the always geeked out Michael Cera, The soundtrack to Edgar Wrights new brilliant 64-bit inspired comic book adaptation is full of moments of uncanny nostalgia... Frank Black lines up next to Beck (at his kooky jagged art-punk best) - alongside Blood Red Shoes and flashes of the aweosme Crash & The Boys... Its a smorgasbord of Alt-rock awesomeness that more than justifies the price for the epic double CD set, and will be a feature of fast cars driven by geeky boys and girls in stropy bursts for summers, and autumns and inters to come... The SCOTT PILGRIM Soundtrack sounds like what would happen if you were to fall into a trippy rainbow infused timearp back in time to the mid to late 90's, with over sized Lumberjack shirts, and jeans with turn-ups - its the musical equivalent of watching MY SO CALLED LIFE or SAVED BY THE BELL... so Nineties infused, and retor sounding that you yearn for those days when a single could be at Number 1 for 24 weeks, and a band could literally blow the world away with a single song... This is MUSIC. not this transcient pseudo-pop rubbish we have to imbibe for the thirty seconds popstars are famous for now... This is from a time when music was LIFE. Edgar Wright has chosen some dazzlers here... Sex Bob-OMB (aka: Beck writing for Scotts band in the Film) is all explosive out of the gates Pop-punk alt-rock - full of bubblegum attitude and middle finger to the mainstream... A delirious and beuatiful burst of joy in musical form. Frank Black of the Pixies throws his opus - I HEAR RAMONA SING into the fray, and it runs away wth your heart... Plumtree HAVE to make an appearance, with their brilliant SCOTT PILGRIM being the inspiration for the whole affair... Black Lips dazzle with their bass heavy O Katrina! - a blast of Pixie-ish/Beach Boys inspired Surf rock... Like The Ramones playing Beach Boy covers... All In All, its a soundtrack that deserves front of place in your collection - and if, like me, you remember a time when you could nary turn a radio on without music like this blaring out in all its glory... then you will fall head over converse allstar adorned feet for it... Scott Pilgrim may have fought the World... But this soundtrack saved my faith in its music......full text |
| Drownedinsound |
| Two things are clear from the advertising campaign for forthcoming indie-loser-flick-cum-superhero-blockbuster Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. They are: a) much of the script is lifted line-for-line from the original comic book series (hooray!), and b) it's going to make Lots of Money. Now, I don't want to get all True Art about it, but in this sort of scenario - where something you love is being reproduced via a more mainstream medium - we've become somewhat predisposed to expect (or even want) to dislike it. I do not want to give into this urge. I refuse to accept that there is any comparison to be had, because to even try to compete with literature's scope for character, complexity and sub-plot development, two hours is really Not Enough. However, that begins to change when music is integral to the story. Aside from some of the graphic novel series' pivotal fight scenes taking place during characters' gigs, the world of Scott Pilgrim is steeped in references to pop culture. Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness is named after the Smashing Pumpkins double-album. A chapter in said installment, 'Frail and Bedazzled', takes its title from a song by the band. Not to mention that Pilgrim himself was named after a song by Canadian pop-punk group Plumtree. It makes sense then, that Edgar Wright has been appointed as omnipotent project overseer for SPvsTW. Never one to shy away from intrusive film soundtracking, Wright, alongside series creator Bryan Lee O'Malley, has compiled a collection of fitting musical extremities, with music written and performed by Beck and Broken Social Scene but sung by actor Erik Knudson....full text |
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