15 Minutes

Fifteen Minutes. Unfortunately, that wasn't the running time of the film. Okay, okay… I'm being a bit harsh, but everything about this film seemed a bit passé to me. The characters were poorly painted and one dimensional, the pacing was odd, and the fact that DeNiro (the most likeable character in the show) is killed off when the movie still has about 45 minutes to go made me go, "What? What were the producers thinking putting DeNiro in this role?" However, the film for the most part, was shot and edited (in most cases) very well. The music played a big role in the editing and I have to admit that, while watching the film, I thought the music was good - even great in parts. There are a lot of urban sounding sample based loop pieces on the soundtrack and that sound is always fun to cut to.

The soundtrack to the album has none of the score on it, but rather a collection of pop songs that showed up throughout the film. A great cover of "Fame" (the Bowie/Lennon - and Alomar) tune by God Lives Underwater. Great guitar sounds at the top and throughout. You know the song. It's a good solid piece of songwriting and craftsmanship by two of pop music's best writers. Hey the CD starts off with a bang.

Next comes a remix of Moby's song "Porcelain". You know the one. It's everywhere. What can be said about Moby that hasn't already? His music sounds great against picture. Maybe that's why last year the guy licensed over 800 films, advertisers and television shows to use his music. This Rob D. remix of "Porcelain" sounds great and drives harder than the original.

The rest of the CD can be summed up very quickly: Good atmosphere, but not a collection of "songs" you want to listen to in your car. I know, I know. This is my own personal preference coming across. I do appreciate good songwriting. Don't get me wrong, all these pieces work extremely well against picture. But, take away the picture and most of them seem pretty flat. Not a lot of colors here. There are the tracks with the cool grooves and ethereal vocals on top ("Gun" by Gus Gus and "Out Run" by David Holmes) and the tracks that you rewind (do you really rewind a CD?) to hear a particular sample again. The problem for me, though, is that so much of it sounds similar. I guess that goes with the territory when everything is so groove based.

"Hey, lets lay down a two chord vamp and build a great drum and bass groove into it. We'll let that go for four or five minutes and… voila! Oh, yeah, we'll break it down here and… here. There. Pure genius." said the engineer/producer. "Why would we ever need to call in a musician/songwriter?"

I hate to admit it, but in taking my notes I actually wrote the following about fifteen seconds into a new track (I'm not saying which one!): "Did a new song begin?"

My recommendation? If you're a fan of soundtracks with a collection of songs that you want to find yourself humming, or playing more than once, don't bother with 15 Minutes. But, if you're looking for some good beds to add to your library of music to cut picture to, jump on it.