Ready, Aye, Ready

I frequently buy soundtracks to films I've never seen, nor have any particular wish to see. A few years ago, a friend from Germany sent me a track called "Wish (Komm Zu Mir)" but no other information. I thought it was great, in a rather German industrial way. However, I didn't follow it up. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a track by actor Franke Potente called "Believe" which I ended up leaving on repeat for a few hours.

The commonality is that they're from a German film called "Run Lola Run". I've not seen it, but on the strength of those two tracks I bought a copy of the soundtrack.

The music varies a bit. The remixes and contibutions from outside sources are of the dancefloor trance style: very repetitive and very boring. I'm sure it suits the film perfectly but it makes for dull listening outside of that. There are some ok tracks like "Supermarket" by Clemek and Susie Van Der Meer's "Somebody Has To Pay" but by and large this is a bit of a miss. Sometimes you think things are going to get better -- Lee Spencer's "Running One (Large Mix)" has a great wah-wah guitar run but it's continually ruined by a very annoying endless loop of someone screaming. Even the remix of "Wish" is quite lacklustre as it drops most of the atmosphere of the original for a more dancefloor friendly version.

To be fair, the music from the director and friends (listed as "Tykwer, Klimek, Heil"), of which there are six entries, sound much more film-like. "Casino" is driven a rather good drumbeat and supported by the aethereal (and very dated) pan-pipe. "Running One", "Running Two" and "Running Three" also appear to be the origin of "Believe" and "Wish" as they share quite a few common phrases, both musically and lyrically. It's a hodgepodge of music; however with some judicious programming on the CD player (or playlist!) this could become a rather more listenable album.

Those first two tracks are still amazing though.