Music review: The Great Gatsby soundtrack is hit and miss

A soundtrack with songs by Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Jack White, Lana Del Rey, The xx, Florence + the Machine, André 3000 and will.i.am (among others) for a film by Baz Luhrman, executive-produced by Jay-Z – it’s enough to get most music lovers excited. Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, set in America in the Roaring Twenties, comes out next week in India. Until then, we can focus our attention upon the soundtrack, which has been as eagerly anticipated as the film itself. Luhrmann has the reputation of being something of a maverick when it comes to the musical choices he makes for his films. It’s unlikely that anyone would have thought Verdi’s famous opera, La Traviata, could belong in the same album as the disco-ready Lady Marmalade, or imagined Radiohead accompanying William Shakespeare’s tragic romance, Romeo and Juliet. Luhrmann did, and despite a few misses, the soundtracks are usually one of the strongest aspects of his films. That’s why there’s been so much anticipation for The Great Gatsby. What could Luhrmann do to the crackling energy of the jazz music that was so lovingly woven into the novel by Fitzgerald?    [caption id=“attachment_763355” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A cover of The Great Gatsby soundtrack[/caption] Bring in Jay-Z as executive producer, for starters.  Luhrmann said in interviews that he felt jazz was now almost classical while hip hop has that edgy rawness that characterised jazz in the Roaring Twenties. “Gatsby was intoxicating everyone in New York with Champagne and music, drawing them into his Venus’ flytrap,” Luhrmann said in an interview to the Los Angeles Times . “Now there’s another form of African American street music — hip hop — that speaks in exactly the same way to our lives.” It’s a delicious idea, but (like many of Luhrmann’s films) the actual soundtrack doesn’t quite come together. On the plus side, it won’t alienate those who aren’t fans of hip hop because many genres make their way into the album. From ‘it’ girls Lana Del Rey and Florence Welch to old timers like Bryan Ferry, they’re all in The Great Gatsby. Even rock gets a look-in with Jack White wailing out a rather melodramatic cover of Love is Blindness. The songs are about either about partying or heartache and very little in the album is surprising. Jay-Z kicks off the soundtrack with $100 Bill, which is typically Jay-Z and has only the most fleeting reference to Jay Gatsby. He does, however, liken himself to Albert Einstein, among other people. André 3000 manages to outshine Beyoncé in Back to Black (who’d have thunk?) and while will.i.am sounds characteristically annoying when you hear Bang Bang the first time, the song does grow on you. Hear it a few times and even his playful imitation of Louis Armstrong will sound more fun and less annoying. On the other hand, his band-mate Fergie’s track, A Little Party Never Killed Nobody, doesn’t improve with repeated listening. Despite Jay-Z being hip hop royalty, it’s the alternative camp that delivers more hits. If there is a down side, then it is that the songs sound precisely like you’d expect them to, given the artists recording them. Lana Del Rey’s Young and Beautiful is insipid and breathy, but it makes for easy listening and her voice is the perfect medium for Daisy Buchanan. The xx, Nero and Gotye do their bit to ensure the alternative banner flies high. Listen to the drip that pulses through The xx’s Together and you feel the melancholy and an undercurrent of anxiety that’s perfect for Jay Gatsby and Daisy’s love story. Florence + the Machine relies mostly on Florence’s vocal acrobatics, which are impressive as always but for all the melodious fury and misery, the song isn’t particularly memorable. The most fun in The Great Gatsby comes from the songs that shuffle playfully between vintage musical influences and the contemporary. Coco O’s Where the Wind Blows, with its ragtime piano loops and modern drum shuffles, will have you swaying to its beat. Incidentally, as authentically Southern belle-esque as Coco O may sound, she’s actually half of the Danish duo, Quadron. Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love by Emeli Sandé is an inspired cover and tremendously infectious. The song probably wouldn’t have been as much fun if The Bryan Ferry Orchestra didn’t provide such superb back up to  Sandé’s confident vocals. The Great Gatsby also has one Bryan Ferry song, Love is the Drug. Listening to Ferry, you can’t help wishing there was more of Ferry’s clever brand of pop with its many influences and less of the laboured cockiness of present-day hip hop in the soundtrack. Still, thanks to the likes of Emelie Sandé and The xx, the good songs are more memorable than the not-so-good in The Great Gatsby.