This week it is more music from the soundtrack to Atomic Blonde. As noted last week, the film is an adaptation of the graphic novel The Coldest City. Each is a different experience, but both worth checking out. As much as I love the film, I really dig the graphic novel more. The setting is the city of Berlin just as the infamous Berlin Wall is about to get torn down, and the world was about to change.
In the meantime some music.
HEALTH did a cover of New Order’s Blue Monday – and made it sound even more bleak than the original. I’ll keep adding to this diary entry as time permits.
Remember The Politics of Dancing? It was quite a hit back in the early 1980s. Seemed to fit in pretty well with the film. Really, there were few if any mis-steps with the song selection of the soundtrack.
Sorry for being such an absentee host. I’ve been putting out a few fires lately. Eventually decided to put out one of those with gasoline – which reminds me of another song off the soundtrack!
The original video is always worth it. This same song was put to good use in Inglourious Basterds a few years ago.
Just like this week’s diary is continuing with the German theme, so is the drink feature. Today’s drink is the German Chocolate Cake Martini.
I plan on serving special drinks for tomorrow and Saturday for Star Wars Day and Cinco De Mayo, respectively.
In the meantime, the bartender is taking requests.
May the Fourth be with you.
And may the Fourth be with you.
Here’s the drink I promised for Star Wars Day, Star Wars Shots (Han Shot First).
Since this diary is still on the rec list (congratulations, Don Durito!) and today is The Revenge of the Sixth, the Dark Side of Star Wars Day, I’m posting some more Star Wars Drinks. As the theme is “the Dark Side of the Force,” here’s an image from Pinterest showing drinks for both The Force and The Dark Side.
Yes, those actually have been served at the Hollywood Studios park in Walt Disney World.
Actually amazed this diary stayed on the rec list this long. It wasn’t a slow news week – heck if Rachel Maddow is live Friday night, plenty of fireworks are going on. But I won’t complain. Get to meet up with some old friends soon. Some beers, burgers, and laughs. Troubles may not be over. But life can and does go on.
Thanks for keeping these going. It has been one hell of a week. Actually one hell of a last few weeks. I see an ending to a relationship that once had promise, but is now nothing but broken promises and disappointment. Regrettably, in my corner of the professional world, clean breaks are rare, and I doubt I will quite get that. But I will have the next best thing to a clean break within the next couple months. Undoing the damage will take years I perhaps don’t have, but at least the worst will be over.
It was my pleasure to keep this series going while you were occupied with life. Speaking of which, sorry to read about how things are going for you, although it at least looks like the situation will resolve itself. If you ever need me to take over for a week or two, just ask. I’ll be happy to do so.
We’ll call it a learning experience. Much of what has occupied me has involved a situation with this individual. Thankfully, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Usually people with any prominence in my area have little interest in the sort of work I do. I should have been a lot more suspicious when this person became (in hindsight) a bit too interested. The last year in particular has been hell. I’ll pick up the pieces and move on. The sort of work I do is way too fucking politicized, and those who get to live in their ivory towers have no idea how real people operate. Yeah, I am a bit bitter these days. Probably will be for a while.
For Cinco De Mayo, the bartender is serving Drunk Frutas by Tipsy Bartender.
Der Kommissar
Of course, if I am going to include the cover by After the Fire, I would be remiss to forget the original by the late, great Falco (I just love some of the early 1980s video production values!):
Something went a bid sideways with that previous comment so let’s try again:
Der Kommissar by After the Fire (the version in the film)
And the original by the one and only Falco:
Oh well, as much as I would love to delete my previous comment, the mistake is instructive – both as a reminder to watch what I am doing and as a reminder that it would be so much more convenient if we weren’t still stuck looking for workarounds for posting videos. Any way to whitelist my IP? I’m cranky but mostly harmless.
And another from the soundtrack – this one by Soiuxsie and the Banshees.
Although not on the soundtrack, here’s a single they released not long before the Wall fell:
Here’s some of the soundtrack music scored by Tyler Bates. This one would have almost fit in as a backing track for any of a number of mid-1980s post-punk acts. This would have potentially been a track on a This Mortal Coil album (although with perhaps a different mix) or I could almost imagine another old 4AD act, Dif Juz, composing something close to this.
I hope you all enjoy these. I enjoy curating music. Actually used to do some amateur radio DJing back in the day. If I could earn enough to justify it, if offered the chance to curate the songs for a film soundtrack, I’d jump at the chance. Something tells me that would be one of those experience of a lifetime things. Goes without saying that music is crucial to setting the mood of a film. Half the fun of Atomic Blonde was that the music selections really did send me back to a time when life seemed just a bit simpler (if still rather gloomy). Similarly, I love the Guardians of the Galaxy series of films in large part because of how the soundtrack is used to transport Star Lord to his childhood on Earth, before everything he knew got taken from him. Those old mix tapes…nothing like them. I think I ended up enjoying the film V for Vendetta more than the graphic novel because of the soundtrack. Whoever was working with the Wachowskis to put that one together hit all the right spots.
What is fascinating of the soundtrack is that much of the period piece music is more from the early to mid 1980s. The film required a bit of a balancing act – dark enough music to fit the action without being too dated. By 1989, most of us would have forgotten about this single among others. I am not sure that 1989 specifically would have had the needed singles to produce a desired soundtrack that would capture 1989 Berlin, and given the amount of time that has elapsed since the 1980s, I think it is much easier now to take some liberties. Our collective memory of that decade’s pop culture is steadily fading. I keep thinking that although there was a New Order remix of Blue Monday doing well on the club scene around that timem(1988-19889), most of us were focused on their then new album, Technique. I went to enough KROQ nights to know that among some of us the early and mid 1980s were still quite relevant, but it was obvious that pop culture was already moving on. I think it would have been interesting to do a soundtrack based upon Soviet Bloc-era hip-hop and electronica (I am aware of its existence, and have bookmarked quite a few relevant period pieces posted on YouTube). Note that is not to knock the folks behind the soundtrack to Atomic Blonde, because clearly the soundtrack works. I just want to note how our interpretation of pop culture changes over time.
By the way, I am thrilled that Charlize Theron took on Atomic Blonde as a project. She clearly was passionate about the graphic novel and the screenplay, and it shows. She has turned into one hell of an action hero in her own right (I still love her role as Furiosa in the long-awaited fourth installment of the Mad Max series), and I hope she continues to dazzle us.
Here’s some anarchopunk from around the period:
Didn’t make it to the official soundtrack, but was on the film. Still a shame that the pop band Berlin did not make an appearance. Perhaps if someone films the prequel, based upon the graphic novel The Coldest Winter, set in late 1981 and early 1982. Now that could be a fun soundtrack to curate.