Coffee & Cigarettes [Soundtrack]

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 11, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Milan Records
• ASIN: B0001XAO7U
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,242 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Louie, Louie - Richard Berry & The Pharaohs

2. Nappy Dugout - Funkadelic

3. Crimson and Clover - Tommy James & The Shondells

4. Down on the Street - The Stooges

5. Nimblefoot Ska - The Skatalites

6. Baden Baden - Modern Jazz Quartet

7. Hanalei Moon - Jerry Byrd

8. Fantazia 3 in G Minor - Fretwork

9. Enna Bella - Eric "Monty" Morris

10. Saw Sage - C-Side/Tom Waits

11. A Joyful Process - Funkadelic

12. Louie, Louie - Iggy Pop

13. Ich bin der Weit abhanden gekommen - Janet Baker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Music Makes The Movie, July 2, 2004

By 

Kathy Fennessy - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coffee & Cigarettes (Audio CD)

There are directors you can count on to put together a good soundtrack--if not a good movie--like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Aki Kaurismaki. Jim Jarmusch earned his stripes from the start. Who can forget "I Put a Spell on You" (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) in "Stranger Than Paradise" (or Neil Young's guitar score for "Dead Man")? It makes the movie! "Coffee and Cigarettes" is an omnibus film made over the course of several years. It features a few musicians, such as RZA (of the Wu-Tang Clan) and the White Stripes, and some are even on the soundtrack, such as Tom Waits and Iggy Pop. This is just a great compilation of great music--and the movie isn't bad either.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully mixed bag, June 2, 2004

By 

Gulley Jimson (Bethesda, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coffee & Cigarettes (Audio CD)

I remember Stranger Than Paradise being hailed as a masterpiece, and being so intensely bored with most of it that I refused to see any more Jarmusch movies. But luckily when a friend wanted to see this I broke my promise, and loved a lot of it. Parts of it, of course, were boring, but it didn't have the long static segments that Jarmusch's other movies occasionally have - and it didn't continually assume that showing the audience something bizarre and surreal is the same thing as entertaining them, with the exception of the Jack and Meg White from the White Stripes talking about a Tesla coil.

Which brings me to the soundtrack. All throughout the coffee houses in the movie, songs are playing on the jukebox. It's hard to hear most of them, and except for Crimson and Clover and the two versions of Louie Louie I didn't recognize many of them. There is an emphasis on tunes from the 60s and 70s and a general sort of fun garage rock party vibe (Iggy Pop, Parliament) to most of the tracks, which make me a little disappointed that there aren't any White Stripes songs on here -Jarmusch's tastes clearly lie in that direction, since Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "I Put a Spell On You" was featured in Stranger Than Paradise.

If you're already familiar with a lot of this music, this CD probably isn't worth getting. But it's unlikely that many people are, considering that it ranges from funk to jazz to Mahler (a beautiful song, maybe the loveliest he ever wrote). Like many cooler-than-thou directors, Jarmusch only seems to let himself get sentimental when it comes to music, and delivers many of his most emotional moments through songs instead of onscreen. It's not always clear if he's being serious (or, let's say, totally committed) when he writes his movies, but his soundtracks are a labor of love - sort of like Tarantino's, but dipping into an even widen pool.

One of the nicest phrases in the movie is Tesla's idea that the world is a conductor of acoustical resonance. What does it mean? I dunno. Maybe you can listen to the soundtrack and figure it out.