Wednesday, September 29, 2004

music for films

If you like the non-descript, funky background music of '70s cinema and TV, you should check out Cinemaphonic: Electro Soul, an album of what is called "library music" compiled by David Hollander, who, strangely enough, played Little Earl in the waning days of ABC's '70s sitcom "What's Happening!"

Much of this music formed the backdrop to the TV programs we all watched in our formative years, but was never released to the public because no one really thought much about it, much less sought it out. In addition, much of it was done by otherwise "serious" musicians to pay the bills and not as artistic expression.

Enter Hollander, featured in the latest edition of ReadyMade magazine, who became fascinated by the genre and searched out obscure albums all over the world to come up with Electro Soul and several other albums un the Cinemaphonic banner. He's far from the only fan. Rappers like Jay-Z sample music from this genre often, and the Beastie Boys strived to recreate some of it on recent albums.

It's not art, but Electro Soul is a wild ride through music that many of us know and sometimes love.

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