There is nothing funnier to me than an inappropriate soundtrack to a film. For example, did you know that Aerosmith's “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” was written for a Michael Bay movie? Or Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” was written for “The NeverEnding Story III,” and used in the “Batman Forever” soundtrack the next year as well? What’s even funnier to me is the notion of an artist going, “Writing a single song for this isn’t enough … I need to write a whole album for this movie.” Now, typically these were just studio albums that coincidentally were inspiring movies with their source material. Prince’s “Purple Rain” and Whitney Houston’s “The Bodyguard” albums are examples of this phenomenon; even the Beatles did it with “Help!”, “Hard Day’s Night” and “Yellow Submarine” all serve as tie-ins to their film releases instead.
But not every film album follows this trajectory: there’s the Baz Luhrmann approach, slapping an “inspired by the music of the film” on an album with different artists featured in the film’s real soundtrack. His biggest offender is the TWO albums of “Moulin Rouge” music he did besides the real soundtrack, featuring artists such as Pink, David Bowie and Bono of U2 on one and leaving the actual actors from the film to be on the second. His “Elvis” soundtrack is a fantastic practice of bizarre crossovers: Eminem, Doja Cat and Maneskin remixing old Presley hits into new tracks, with the film itself (and the deluxe digital edition of the soundtrack) simply featuring “Toxic” by Britney Spears and something called the “Backstreet Boys Bossa Nova.”
However, sometimes when you get a big musician on a project, things might change. That’s how we got “Garth Brooks in the life of Chris Gaines,” a soundtrack for an alleged film starring Garth Brooks as the character Chris Gaines, a songwriter operating in completely different genres than Brooks’ normal country skillset. That was a soundtrack for a musical biopic for a musician that never existed, and the movie never even started production. That is hilarious, if not deeply confusing.
Every moment is a result of all events that came before; if it weren’t for all of these deeply odd musical side-projects to blockbuster films, we wouldn’t have the hottest new album out on the market this week: Lady Gaga’s “Joker: Folie a Deux” promo album “Harlequin,” released Sept. 27. Now, don’t get it twisted; this is NOT the film’s soundtrack. There is an actual soundtrack album scheduled for release Friday. “Harlequin” is simply an album featuring mostly songs already on the soundtrack sung solely by Gaga as opposed to the film’s full cast, alongside two original songs. I’ve come to report on the album, not review it. I honestly like Gaga’s music, and I appreciate her as an actress. Shadow-dropping — a surprise release of a work without any prior announcement — an album to promote the “Joker” sequel is one of the funniest things an artist can do, especially when the soundtrack is scheduled for release a week after the album’s debut.
Now, “Joker 2” is not the most ridiculous film to receive a tie-in album; a major artist plays a primary role, co-star Joaquin Phoenix is no stranger to singing either and no matter how hard the film tries to deny it, it’s a musical. However, an album that is entirely a copy of the soundtrack feels odd. Though, credit where credit’s due; this announcement made me chuckle, and is that not what the Joker is all about?
