Kill (Kill Bill Vol 1 - Soundtrack)

Member Name: berlioz II

Product:	Kill Bill Vol 1 - Soundtrack
Date:	28/08/08 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A surprisingly strong collection of music with a lot of diversity

Disadvantages: As with compilations always, it's a bit of a mixed bag

There are only a few directors who have basically made their careers out of homaging cult movies from the 60s and 70s with an aggressively violent hold with such consistency other than Quentin Tarantino. He is basically the ultimate cult director who loves his childhood movies, B-grade low budget sloch horror, kung-fu, and action films, as well as other cultish endeavours to make his own films stand in a very similar cultish light, yet with bigger budgets to make these films at the same time produced with a higher level of accomplishment without hiding their source of origins. Tarantino's double feature of Kill Bill was exactly this type of movie that relied a lot on references to old movies (and your knowledge of them) with a combination of clear homages and an energy level that rarely relented you from its grip. Essentially a simple revenge story, the film references a lot to many past movies with quotes, costumes and even actors, creating a strange hybrid cult action film that borders on a samurai/spaghetti western/kung fu film on high octane violence. In accordance to the stylistic choice of the film, the music likewise corresponds to a mix match batch of music largely originating from the 1960s and 70s, with a bit of a Mexican edge typical of a Morricone spaghetti western (clearly a musical voice much modelled after in here).

Just as always in a Tarantino movie, music plays a very big part in creating a certain feeling to the film's stylised setting. What is interesting in the practice when regarding this film is that, unlike what is a tradition for many other directors to just compile a bunch of favourite songs to play in the film, Tarantino actually compiles a score out of pre-existing music. There are still songs, but a large amount are not your usual pop, rock and rap songs you usually hear, but also contain tracks of score music written for other movies and the like. What is also unusual, is that all these disparate songs and score cues actually function pretty well as a unified whole, which is certainly not easy to accomplish. Of the 17 main tracks on the album, only six contain actual singing. The most remembered of these is most likely the opening Nancy Sinatra song "Bang Bang" which does a good job at setting the musical tone for the film with its quiet tone and accoustic guitar accompaniment, perfectly fitting with the spaghetti western theme. Too bad the quality of songs don't actually remain that high, though, with the following "That Certain Female" of Charlie Feathers is just an awful attempt at mimicking Elvis (with some weird moaning taking place later on in the song as if the singer got his playmate out), while Santa Esmeralda's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" is decent, but rather aimless over it's ten minute duration and could have used a lot of editing.

Meiko Kaji's ballade "The Flower of Carnage" is very beautiful and a high point, though not the most memorable song I've ever heard, but the song "Woo Hoo" that was performed on-screen in the film by the Japanese band The 5.6.7.8's is just incredibly silly and makes little particular impression. The rest of the music is more in line with score music and other straight instrumental pieces. For all the spaghetti western stylings, on the album only one actual track comes from a spaghetti western (though in the film there are futher Trovajoli and Morricone selections included as well), Luis Bacalov's "The Grand Duel" from the film of the same name is a fairly traditional western cue with harmonica and some sparse pop type percussion. The only other piece that really maintains this proper western sound is in the sublime "The Lonely Shepherd" of James Last, which features Gheorghe Zamfir on his pan flute, and sounds very much like an Asian take on the Italian genre of music (though of course it is neither). For me that is the absolute personal highlight of the entire album in that it somehow really encases the musical personality of the entire film in it's solitary yet determined progression. The actual signature piece for the film (or at least how it seemed to be identified popularly), though, comes in the track "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" that has become popular as trailer music following the film's success. It is characterised by punchy, though dry brass and a heavy percussion accompaniment, but I just don't find anything all that interesting in the piece to be honest. It's just a bit of a bob-pop piece reliant on its aggressiveness.

What is left is mostly eclectic stuff that doesn't essentially fit in any other definition. Bernard Herrmann's Georgie's Theme from the film "Twisted Nerve" is as psychological as he often was with its hypnotic whistling; Isaac Hayes' "Run Fay Run" sounds almost like something you could find from a James Bond film; Al Hirt's main theme for the TV series "Green Hornet" is as fun as it always is with its insanely fast and breathless trumpet work; and the track "Crane/White Lightning" of Charles Bernstein thrown through RZA's rap machinery is an absolutely pointless addition with no merit of its own at all. In fact, what is unusual for Tarantino, he also employs the rapper RZA to provide some original music to the film besides the source selections. However, a lot of his contribution is hardly impressive at all. The track "Ode to O-Ren Ishii" has a pretty good backing (probably sourced from somewhere else), but is utterly ruined by his voice on top of it, while "Yakuza O-Ren 1" and "Banister Fight" are both uninvolving bonus tracks. What is left on the album is largely uninteresting snippet work. There's a couple of pointless dialogue additions from the movie that don't do anything of value; there is the alarm sound from Quincy Jones' "Ironside" theme that works in the film, but not so much on album (it also cuts off pretty badly); the track "Super 16" from Neu! makes absolutely no sense to me (it sounds like a poor DVD bootleg rip in fact); and then tracks 18-22 contain a bunch of sound effects on top of the RZA bits, the last of these entitled "Axe Throws" being a particularly weak way to conclude the listening experince (talk about going out in a whimper - literally).

So, what we are left with the Vol.1 album is a fairly decent selection of music that has some very nice shining stars, a few pretty good ones and some utterly pointless inclusions. What is notable, though, that as far as compilation albums such as this go, the Kill Bill Vol.1 album is actually quite a good one in that it has plenty of music for many different types of people, and it is likely that everybody will find at least something to like on it. The downside of course is that it is essentially a mixed bag and there may really only be a few tracks in here that you'd really be interested in, though the plus is that it can at the same time introduce you to something you've never considered before and might like to explore further. Save for a few tracks here and there, the listening experince is surprisingly strong for such disparate material and is actually one of the best compilations I've heard that for once isn't just a bunch of unrelated pop, rock or rap songs strung together for commercial purposes, but actually source music that was actually used in the film. All in all, this is a highly enjoyable album and certainly provides some good music for any situation.


1. Nancy Sinatra: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) (2:40)
2. Charlie Feathers: That Certain Female (3:03)
3. Luis Bacalov: The Grand Duel - (Parte Prima) (3:25)
4. Bernard Herrmann: Twisted Nerve (1:28)
5. Dialogue: Queen of the Crime Council (0:57)
6. The RZA: Ode to O-Ren Ishii (2:06)
7. Isaac Hayes: Run Fay Run (2:47)
8. Al Hirt: Green Hornet (2:18)
9. Tomoyasu Hotei: Battle Without Honor or Humanity (2:29)
10. Santa Esmeralda: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (10:30)
11. The 5.6.7.8's: Woo Hoo (1:59)
12. The RZA/Charles Bernstein: Crane/White Lightning (1:38)
13. Meiko Kaji: The Flower of Carnage (3:52)
14. James Last/Gheorghe Zamfir: The Lonely Shepherd (4:21)
15. Dialogue: You're My Wicked Life (1:14)
16. Quincy Jones: Ironside (excerpt) (0:17)
17. Neu!: Super 16 (excerpt) (1:06)

Bonus:
18. RZA: Yakuza O-Ren 1 (0:23)
19. RZA: Banister Fight (0:21)
20. SFX: Flip Sting (0:05)
21. SFX: Sword Swings (0:06)
22. SFX: Axe Throws (0:09)

© berlioz, 2008

Summary: A strong set of music from the film that, despite the diversity, works well as an album