Customer Reviews

Mulholland Drive: Original Motion Picture Score

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch haves produced an eerie and atmospheric soundtrack for Mullholland Drive. It's not quite the same effect as sitting in a darkened theatre, watching the opening moments with the black limo driving through the Hollywood Hills, but it's as close as you'll get.

Like the movie, the soundtrack has its darker and lighter moments. The opening music is lush and dark, setting the mood for the entire album.

The mixture of 50s pop, blues, jazz and orchestral colors makes for a varied listening experience, and one you can experience many times over, and feel differently about it each time.

Of course the piece de resistance is Rebecca Del Rio's performance of LLORANDO (Crying, by Roy Orbison) which I didn't recognize at first, because my Spanish is not that strong. What a performance in the film, and its haunting beauty IS captured on the recording.

Excellent!!

Mulholland Drive is David Lynch's latest in a long line of supercool freakout flicks, so it should be no surprise that the soundtrack to his latest movie is also more of the same. Are there lengthy ambient synth scores by Angelo Badalamenti? Check. Shuffling blues tunes? Check. Creepy guitar instrumentals that sound like a possessed Dick Dale? Check. A resurrected early Sixties pop nugget? Check. And what about the token Roy Orbison song? Check that too, amigo.

What ultimately makes it all work this time around is the fact that Mulholland Drive is the best film Lynch has ever made, and the music coalesces perfectly with his mesmerizing visuals. The dark, twisted 'Jitterbug' kicks the film (and the cd) off with an unsettling feeling (as well as a slight hint towards the denouement), while the next four songs by Badalamenti add to the sense of foreboding. The inclusion of the bubblegummy 'I've Told Every Little Star', placed in the movie and cd where it is, somehow adds to the feeling that everything isn't quite right. The movie's most unforgettable moment, the a capella performance of 'Llorando' (a Spanish version of Orbison's 'Crying'), is also the soundtrack's highlight, bringing the movie's powerful scene back to the mind of the listener. After that, I think it's pretty safe to say the movie gets a little nutso, and suitably, so does the music, with three of Lynch's own compositions making up most of the rest of the disc, before Badalamenti concludes things with his amazing 'Love Theme'.

If the soundtrack has a fault, it's that Badalamenti's atmospheric compositions go on too long ('Dwarfland/Love Theme' is ambient overkill), but that's why you're listening to the soundtrack, to relive such a mindbending film, so it's easy to let it slide. With music as freaky as the movie itself, the Mulholland Drive soundtrack does the job nicely, and only makes you want to see it again in an attempt to sort it all out...or at least to figure out what the deal is with that cowboy dude...

The sound track for Mulholland Drive, like the film itself, deftly veers between horror, farce, and tragic love story. With characteristic audacity, Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch weave a soundscape that pulls the listener from one mood to the next with little warning. This is music as sound effects, or perhaps sound effects as music; it's hard to tell. Even the more melodic tracks ("Jitterbug", "Mulholland Drive", the achingly beautiful "Diane and Camilla") have an undercurrent of hallucinatory kinesthesia, shot through with black veins of dread.

The spookier tracks ("Diner", "Dwarfland/Love Theme", and especially "Mountains Falling") sound as though stirred up from some pit of cold, dark water in the basement of the psyche. OK, so that's a little purple. But that's what they sound like.

Then there are the transparent little ditties tossed in from the film's contextual music cues - "I've Told Every Little Star", "The Beast", and "Bring it on Home". They provide much needed contrast and context for the original tracks, leavening the mix with a dash of satire. The weakest of these is Lynch's own "Dinner Party Pool Music", which is as bland and generic as something generated by Band In a Box. But then, that may have been the intent - to create a deliberately flavorless pastiche of the sort that the "Hollywood types" lampooned in that sequence would likely enjoy. That same sequence contains a more striking piece with a pulsing bass beat and trippy syncopated percussion section that is sadly missing from this CD.

Of course, I feel compelled to also mention the fine a capella work of Rebekah Del Rio for her rendition (in Spanish) of Roy Orbison's "Crying". It comes at point in the film when the Bunuel-O-meter is all the way in the red, and serves to ground the very surreal sequence in a solid framework of human emotion.

In all, Mulholland Drive is a CD certainly worth owning for David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti fans.

I can't believe they left out "Sixteen Reasons" by Connie Stevens! This is one of my favorite scenes in the movie (the first singer "Carol" played by Elizabeth Lackey).
Maybe they couldn't get the rights for the CD (although they got it for the mivie). I had to record it from the DVD myself.

After seeing the film and its amazing feel I felt the score may not live up to my expectations. I was, for anyone who buys this Cd's sake, dreadfully wrong. The CD begins with a blend of kitschy jive tracks which could be taken directly from the 50s ballrooms and hauntingly atmospheric strings which do nothing but affirm that this is Badalamenti at his best and oddest combined with the genius of lynch.
After the theme comes true Lynch. Track 3-5 see the resurrection of Industrial Symphony No.1's ideals and synthetic noises with tracks of nothing but musically induced paranoia and eventual euphoria with the introduction of "Betty's Theme" and its lushious strings. Continuing with the kitsch idea comes "The beast" and "Bring it on home" taking us back to the time when blues was "hip" which lifts the mood of CD immensely. Another increadibly catchy number insues with real viens running back to the 50s again.And, as you've probably guessed, more aural madness insues with badalamenti's darker side becomign apparent again.
The whole CD seems to build till track 11; Rebeka del Rio's "Llorando", a translation of Roy Orbison's "Crying" into spanish. Sung accapella and with haunting magnificance I thought the track would not be as powerful without the film. I again was incorrect. It is as, if not more, amazing that with the visuals. And this is truely music for the soul and something deeper which seems to represent lynch's ideas about life.
The CD seems then to take an almost psychedelic "Apocalypse Now" twist with tracks 11-13 until eventually returning to the atmospherics Badalamenti is known for.
The CD ends with an amazing climax of the "Love Theme" which is the last return to the amazingly emotive string section for a triumphant finale.

Simply put no real Lynch/Badalamenti fan should be without this. It is not nessecary to see the film for those who havent. And for those who aren't fans of either its still worth the money and the listening time.

badalamenti fans should own this one!...if you liked the calm synths melodies of "fire walks with me" , the mysterious & very dark "Lost highway"...than the "mulholland drive" soundtrack is a cd that you should add to your collection!...the music composed by badalamenti is simply p.e.r.f.e.c.t!

track 2 "mulholland drive" 4:46..the theme of the film could be a continuation of the "twin peaks" score.

track 4 "diner" is comparable any tracks badalamenti composed for lynch's "lost hightway"..only with a more ambiant sensations to it.

track 5 ,7 , 1 ,15 are all very jazzy and perfectly orchestrated.

track 11 "Llorando" (crying)..this spanish version of the song is also the reason why this cd is worth buying!

i could go on and on..but i would repeat myself...in other words,i firmly believe that the entire album of MULHOLLAND DRIVE is th best soundtrack of the year along with "LE FABULEUX DESTIN D'AMELIE POULAIN" (aka jean pierre jeunet's AMELIE)

and speaking of jeunet,be sure to own badalamenti's "city of the lost children" soundtrack...!!

other suggestion:
DAVID LYNCH & JOCELYN MONTGOMERY's debut album "LUX VIVENS"

After seeing the movie, it is impossible to digest a david lynch creation without angelo's ingenious scores. His music sets the tone of the dark, strange events that will occur. I won't give away any more details, suffice to say that this is one of lynch's best and of course badalamenti is in virtuoso form as always.

To start of, I regard "Mulholland Dr." as David Lynch magnum opus, his most masterfully created cinema of deceit, lust and darkness. Compelling, totally deranged, original, sometimes hilarious funny, and three minutes later scary as hell.

David Lynch's movies are always heavy set on atmosphere, and this is partly caused by the director's long time musical collaborator Angelo Badalamenti. From the jazzy, loungy tunes for the t.v. series "Twin Peaks" to the dark overtones of "Blue Velvet", Badalamenti knows wich buttons to push to make an eerie composition, a few notes of estrangeness and give the audience an unsetteling feeling.

"Mulholland Dr." is filled with music. Most of it is purely on the soundrack with Badalamenti's score coming very close to high quality dark ambient acts like Lustmord, Raison d'Etre or Hazard, others are sung "live" in the movie, like Linda Scott's sweet bubblegumish "I've told every little star", two very hip tunes ("The beast" by Milt Buckner and Sonny Boy Williamson's "Bring it on home") and of course Rebekah Del Rio's acapella performance of "llorando", the Spanish version of Roy Orbison's evergreen.

But the greatest surprise to me were three tracks by David Lynch himself in collaboration with one John Neff. And these three pieces are to be find on a solo cd by David Lynch called "Blue Bob".
I never knew before seeing "Mulholland Dr." that David Lynch is also a guiter player and singer. Now I know and I must say that his song "Mountains falling" is the most brooding, creeping, swirling and erotic sounding piece of electric guitar music I have ever heard.

So play this album and hit the road, Jack. And pray that indeed you will come back...

One of the most unforgettable scenes of the movie was the scene in Club Silencio where the music plays but "no hay bando." This scene was eerily haunting and heartbreaking at the same time. Who could forget Rebekah Del Rio's heartwrenching version of Roy Orbison's Crying sang in Spanish and a capella. This soundtrack will transport you inside David Lynch's film noir where everything is not what it seems.

After seeing MULHOLLAND DRIVE, one of the best movies this year, one of the things that stuck with me most was of course the superb soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti and some of the other songs in the movie. I bought this CD immediatly and it's a great intro to the other great Lynch/Badalamenti soundtracks like BLUE VELVET and TWIN PEAKS. It's done in a similar style as the TWIN PEAKS soundtrack but this one is much more low key, ominous, and film noirish. The first track which is a great but short jitterbug piece shows Badalamenti's versatility since one would think he can only do a certain type of music. Same thing with track 12. Most of the other tracks employ the use of some jazzy sounds, low key piano sounds, and synthisizers. This score is an essential part of this amazing movie and I hope Badalamenti gets more and more recognition for it.