The Craft Soundtrack
Motion Picture Soundtrack (Columbia)
by Lex Marburger
Considering that The Craft is a major motion picture about pre-Christian beliefs (i.e. witchcraft), I was pleasantly surprised to find only two points, however major, that I had problems with. Firstly, the entity “Manon,” the fictitious higher power that the four Catholic school witches supplicate to, is classified as “He,” whereas if this creature were really responsible for the creation of the universe, or even the concept that the universe is contained within, it would undoubtedly be female, or at least androgynous. Secondly, I cannot believe that with all the reading and research these young women do, that not one of them comes across the Threefold Law (“whatever you do shall return to you three times”), or even the more basic, yet more complex, concept of Karma. Other than that, the movie is as accurate as it can be without delving too deeply into the metaphysical problems of drawing down the God into a human vessel. Unfortunately, the soundtrack that accompanies the album is as pale and boring as unflavored tapioca.
What the Columbia Records soundtrack shows is that today’s artists can in no way duplicate what better musicians have already accomplished. The opening track “Tomorrow Never Knows” by Our Lady Peace is a weakling, faded version of the psychedelic mind trip that the Beatles took listeners on several decades ago. For a better representation of what it should have sounded like, check out Sonic Youth’s version of “Within You, Without You” on the compilation Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father (a British benefit album on NME). To add insult to insult, Heather Nova attempts to reach Peter Gabriel’s genius with “I Have the Touch” and ends up with a bland and tepid song. Sponge contributes a forgettable number, and Letters To Cleo performs a terrible version of a bad song, The Cars’ “Dangerous Type.” Juliana Hatfield covers Marianne Faithfull’s “The Witches Song,” which is okay, but nothing great. A song that should have been covered by some sort of garage band with an overload of distortion (or maybe Bouncing Souls or NOFX) but instead is limply played by Tripping Daisy is Harry Nilsson’s “Jump Into The Fire” (you know this one, its got got the chorus “We can make each other happy!”). The offerings by Jewel, All Too Much, Elastica, and Spacehog all pretty much fall short of the mark as well, although Graeme Revell‘s “Bells, Books and Candles” has an incense-filled aura of mystery around it. I look at it like this: The purpose of a soundtrack is to support the movie, and the songs should be pretty much in the same vein, sounding alike and such. That much said, the only thing that makes sense is the theory that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and an album like this is only as good as its worst band. All the rest have to conform.
