In 16 days, I’ll reach the two-year anniversary of Random Weekends. Reaching 2,000 Songs of the Day was an impressive milestone, but somehow the two years of Random Weekends throws me even more.
That’s because I can remember very clearly deciding to move off of artist-specific weekends and into random mode. And it feels like that was just the other day.
Today’s Random Weekend selection is a demo version of one of my favorite Elvis Costello songs, ‘Riot Act.’
In his liner notes for two separate re-releases of Get Happy!!, the album on which ‘Riot Act’ appeared, Costello has high praise for this version.
This is his take:
Writer/director David O. Russell, once on Hollywood’s shit list for his antagonizing movie set antics, has turned his career around to an astonishing degree.
It started with The Fighter, which netted him Oscar nominations for both writing and direction and supporting acting wins for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo (the film was also nominated for Best Picture and two other awards).
Great movies invariably have great soundtracks.
Whether the music is original score or a compilation of existing songs, whether it’s in-your-face or subtle, it plays almost as big a role as the script, acting and camerawork. The best soundtracks are like another character in the film.
In a neat bit of confluence, the first day of 2014 coincides with my 2,000th Song of the Day post. Funny to think that’s been destined to be the case since I posted Song of the Day #1 on July 25, 2008, but I didn’t know it until now.
