Twilight Sage “Eclipse” Soundtrack snatches Grammy nomination

The official motion picture soundtrack for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has nabbed a nomination for this year’sGrammy Awards.

The Eclipse soundtrack is nominated in the following category: “Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media.”

Also nominated are several of the Twilight series soundtracks’ artists, including: Cee-Lo Green, Muse, Florence + the Machine, The Black Keys, Paramore, Band of Horses, and Vampire Weekend.

The Twilight soundtrack was nominated in this category last year.

The Grammy Awards air on February 13th at 8:00 p.m. EST.

It should be interesting to see whether The Twilight Saga: Eclipse nabs this award. The album is nominated alongside the albums for Crazy Heart, Glee: The Music, Volume 1, Treme, and True Blood – Volume 2.

Two of the Eclipse album’s songs (“What Part of Forever” by Cee-Lo Green and “Eclipse (All Yours)” by METRIC) are also nominated for Satellite Awards (winners for which will be announced on December 19th)!

Original Post on Examiner.

Vampire Diaries Soundtrack Review

While the teenage vampire programme and film makers are in total overdrive to fulfil the current Twilight obsessed market, The Vampire Diaries has gone beyond this fad and made for strangely compulsive viewing. No mean feat for a cheesy teenagers programme whereby it’s difficult to differentiate between the popular and the geeks because everyone is so annoyingly beautiful. The music has in no doubt added to its popularity and for avid viewers there is now the soundtrack album.

In all seriousness, the makers of the show have to be commended for their taste as they have been responsible for putting some more of the leftfield music in our current music spectrum out there for public consumption . Indeed music from such rock’n'roll luminaries as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Black Angels has appeared in episodes. However neither of the former appear on this soundtrack.

Silversun Pickups are a more than welcome inclusion with ‘Currency of Love.’Smashing Pumpkins and Gorillaz ply their trade with a somewhat watered down version of what they used to be. Elsewhere Placebo covering Kate Bush’sRunning Up That Hill is nowhere near as bad as it could have been but is still pretty unremarkable anyway. Which leaves a Tori Amos – alike cover of Tears For Fears ‘Head Over Heels’ by Digital Daggers and Sleep Alone by Bat For Lashes to supply the albums highlights.

While the producers of the tv show should be commended for including some underground cutting edge acts in their series, the producers of the album could have complemented them and gone one step further. As a result they’ve missed an opportunity to lift certain bands out of semi-obscurity and have gone with the safe option ie what will be more likely to sell. All in all its not a bad album at all and will no doubt delight fans of the series. Its just that this could have been so much more.

6/10

Review by Scott Causer at Contactmusic

Trailer of the Week: Martin

Scary movie month continues with Martin.

George Romero, the man behind Day of the Dead wrote and directed this vampire tale. Before Twilight, before The Vampire Diaries, before Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was put on film, Romero introduced the haunting Martin. Martin sedates women with a syringe full of narcotics and then slices their wrists with a razor blade so he can drink their blood. He moves in with his granduncle and cousin in the dying town of Braddock, Pennsylvania and has romantic monochrome visions of vampiric seductions and torch-lit mobs, but it is impossible to tell how seriously he takes them.

His uncle treats him like an Old World vampire and tries unsuccessfully to repel Martin with strings of garlic bulbs around the home and a crucifix. Martin mocks these attempts and says bitterly, “There’s no real magic… ever.” When Cuda warns Martin that if he murders anyone in Braddock that he will be killed, Martin sneaks out at night into inner city Pittsburgh and instead begins targeting crooks and drug dealers and draining their blood, although he still focuses on seducing women. Martin seeks advice on women from a radio DJ, who calls him “The Count” and eggs Martin on to try and seduce girls when the DJ realizes his listeners consider Martin a hit.

The film score by Donald Rubinstein was released on Perseverance Records November 7, 2007.

On 1 May 2010 Richard P. Rubinstein announced to produce the remake of the film, though given the trend of current vampire films, it won’t carry the same implications as Romero’s did.

Trailer of the Week: Watchmen

Before Muse was bundled into the Twilight phenomenon, they were still making great music. In the Watchmen trailer, the song “Take a Bow” was featured from the album Black Holes and Revelations.

“Uprising”, from the album The Resistance, was featured in the TV spot for Night and Day.

Muse is a progressive rock band from the UK. They have appeared on all three Twilight soundtracks.

Muse didn’t really gain popularity in the US until they were mentioned by Stephanie Meyer, author of Twilight, as inspirational to her writing. Bassist Chris Wolstenholme recently commented on appearing on the Twilight soundtrack.

“I’m not sure how cool it is to be on those kind of things, but sometimes you’ve just got to get your music out there in different ways. It’s very difficult in America, because you don’t have anything like Radio 1, nothing is national. You have to take every opportunity you get over there, and sometimes you have to sell your soul.”

-Chris Wolstenholme on BBC radio 1′s Newsbeat column.

Glee, Twilight, and Soundtracks on the Charts

The finale of Glee is a week gone, but that doesn’t mean we have forgotten our favorite high school misfits. On iTunes, the Journey to Regionals (pun intended) album features six songs from the finale including Journey’s “Faithfully”, “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the mash-up of “Any Way You Want It/Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’”.

Glee: The Music Vol. 3 is currently ranked 12th in albums on iTunes. This is the Deluxe addition with 20 songs vs. the poor man’s version that only has 14 tracks. Before you decide, keep in mind that Deluxe has both songs that Broadway powerhouse Idina Menzel did for the show, while the regular version does not.

Meanwhile, holdout Coldplay has granted the Glee producers use of their catalogue for the show. It seems that Coldplay and Bryan Adams have so far been the only holdouts for the show.

If you are wondering if the score for Glee will be released, there is no word on that yet, but the vocals are provided by the Swingle Singers, who have several albums available for purchase. They have appeared on other soundtracks including Thank You for Smoking and Milk.

Also muscling its way into the Top Albums on iTunes is The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack. Currently ranked 9th, the soundtrack features an original song by MUSE written exclusively for the soundtrack.