The soundtrack to the sequel to the sound of me pretending to sleep.
Kronomyth x.x: Zellweger, get her tonight.
Perhaps somewhere, maybe on a site called romcom.com, a heated forum discussion on Tales of Topographic Oceans takes place. At least that would assuage some of the guilt I feel wasting time on a site called Progrography with this piffle. Unfortunately, once I discovered that this soundtrack to the Bridget Jones sequel housed the only known version of Sting’s remake of We’ll Be Together with Annie Lennox, I was on the hook to bag and tag it. (It is, I assure you, a compulsion to complete the puzzle and not a misplaced man-crush that compels me.)
Despite its groovy, growling techno touches, the new version of “We’ll Be Together” should be read as a warning. The pair do not have complementary voices, but in fact sound very similar, so that I would have preferred a version from one or the other but not both together. However, at 15 tracks (20 in the UK version), there are other songs to occupy our mind.
The soundtrack occasioned new material from nearly a dozen artists: Rufus Wainwright and Dido, Mary J. Blige, Jamelia, Jamie Cullum, Robbie Williams and Will Young among them. The remake of I Eat Dinner is an icy wonder, Jamelia pulls out all the stops for Stop, and Cullum’s jazzy version of Everlasting Love is pleasant. Conversely, Blige’s blithe reading of Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word is a disappointment. Then there are the romantic standards old and new, from 10cc’s I’m Not In Love to Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head.
The real surprises for me, since I tend to live under a prog rock most of the time, were Crazy in Love and I Believe in a Thing Called Love. I’d put both of them on my iPod if I owned an iPod and could say the word “iPod” without wincing like a stake was being driven through my groin by little demons who want to distract us from the Mass of Man with shiny metal objects. Oh kkkkk enuv.
The Songs
- Will Young: Your Love Is King (Sade Adu/Stuart Matthewman)
- Jamelia: Stop (Sam Brown/Gregg Sutton/Bruce Brody)
- Kylie Minogue: Can’t Get You Out of My Head (Cathy Dennis/Rob Davis)
- Joss Stone: Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin’ on Me?) (Willie Garner)
- Mary J. Blige: Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (Bernie Taupin/Elton John)
- Robbie Williams: Misunderstood (Robbie Williams/Stephen Duffy)
- Jamie Cullum: Everlasting Love (Mack Gayden/Buzz Cason)
- *Barry White: You’re the First, the Last, My Everything
- Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z: Crazy in Love (Beyoncé Knowles/Rich Harrison/Shawn Carter/Eugene Record)
- Rufus Wainwright featuring Dido: I Eat Dinner (When the Hunger’s Gone) (Kate McGarrigle)
- 10cc: I’m Not in Love (Eric Stewart/Graham Gouldman)
- Carly Simon: Nobody Does It Better (Marvin Hamlisch/Carole Bayer Sager)
- *Primal Scream: Loaded
- The Darkness: I Believe in a Thing Called Love (Justin Hawkins/Dan Hawkins/Ed Graham/Frankie Poullian)
- *Amy Winehouse: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
- Minnie Riperton: Lovin’ You (Richard James Rudolph/Minnie Ruperton)
- *Aretha Franklin: Think
- *Leona Naess: Calling
- Sting featuring Annie Lennox: We’ll Be Together (Sting)
- Harry Gregson-Williams: Bridget’s Theme (Harry Gregson-Williams)
* Tracks appear on the UK version only.
The Players
Track 5 produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and co-produced by James “Big Jim” Wright, track 10 produced by Rollo, track 18 produced by John Shanks and mixed by John Shanks and Jeff Rothschild, and track 20 produced by Harry Gregson-Williams.
The Plastic
Released on expanded compact disc on November 8, 2004 in the UK (Island/Universal, CID-8180) and on compact disc on November 16, 2004 in the US (Geffen, B0003655-2). Reached #72 on the US charts.
