SPARKS - ANNETTE (CANNES EDITION - SELECTIONS FROM THE MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) Milian, 2021
Monday, August 30, 2021
The Annette soundtrack is very much an album by Sparks and the aural version of the film. It is similar to Sparks' The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman in that it is written for something other than a band's recording and performance. Still, it is a Sparks album, but having most of the lead vocals by the actors in the Leos Carax film. Russell Mael can easily sing the material, but there is something unique to hear the songs done by actors. The film itself distances itself from the viewer because they enter a different world and are aware of it. The listener also experiences this if they are long-term fans of Sparks. A Sparks song can exist even without the voice and keyboards of Ron Mael and Russell Mael. Sparks music will last forever.
Listening to Annette, one can obtain the narrative of the film. One misses the visuals that go with the sound, but still, you can imagine what is being displayed on the screen or stage. Nevertheless, this soundtrack is uniquely different from the film's actual score. There is more music in the movie, but the critical element is that the singers are singing live in the film. When you listen to the studio album, it reminds me of a classic Broadway score, where you can follow the story just by the song themselves. On the other hand, Sparks music has always been many-layered, with textural levels of words that convey playfulness but follow through in a narrative sense.
If one looks at the Annette soundtrack as a competitive work compared to other music, this is the number one album in heaven. The compositional skills of Ron and Russell are on a higher plan than most. The melodies are gorgeous, and if there is a comparison to be made, it would be more with the 20th-century theater music of Kurt Weill or Stephen Sondheim. I never think of Sparks as being rock. If I had a record store, and I could make up the categories, I would place them in the Genius section of the store. Beyond that, why put them in a category?
The actors, Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, Simon Helberg, are more than suitable in covering the songs, both here on the soundtrack album as well as the movie. Russell's voice is in the background with multi-choruses like the sea hitting the moon-lighted beach at midnight. Driver conveys naked rage in the song "You Used To Laugh," and heartbreaking regret in his duet "Sympathy For The Abyss" with the daughter Annette played and sung by Devyn McDowell. One has to think of The Who's Tommy as something so crazily ambitious, but nothing else captures the excellence of music by a band and their 'opera or musical as Sparks. Annette, both the film and soundtrack don't take any prisoners. You can loathe either one, but at the end of the day, you will look foolish—the Mael brother's music is made for the ages, and maybe even beyond that.
