Pitchfork Reviews the New Moon Soundtrack and the Boys Pay a Visit to Their Favorite Fashionista After a Long Absence!

The premiere of the new Twilight film, New Moon, is still a few weeks away, but luckily the soundtrack has arrived to satisfy us all until we can get our cinematic fix of tween-age vampires who don't have sex. The soundtrack features a roster of heavy-hitter hipster bands such as Grizzly Bear and St. Vincent. Does this mean we must completely reject these bands as having sold their souls in the name of mainstream mediocrity (Richard: "Certainly it does.") or should we perhaps give the album, and perhaps even the film, a chance (Chip: "Perhaps.").

Let's see what Pitchfork thinks.

They give it a 5.4 and write:

"New Moon's soundtrack is melancholy and nocturnal, as befits the book where Edward leaves protagonist Bella for her own good, but it repeats some mistakes from past indie OST close-ups. Yeah, of course, indie rock is "just" pop music, but the companion CDs to Garden State, and TV shows such as "The O.C.", "Gossip Girl", and "Grey's Anatomy" (all at one time helmed by New Moon music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas) over-emphasized indie's adult-contemporary streak. By contrast, the Slumdog Millionaire, I'm Not There, and Sofia Coppola film soundtracks work partly because they share the same restless disregard for boundaries that indie listeners-- ideally, at least-- aspire toward."

Chip: "Did they just give away the ending of the film? However, they do reference some of my favorite recent albums here, such as the soundtracks to Grey's Anatomy, so I'll probably pick this up the next time I'm at Starbucks."

Richard: "Sharp analysis here in the final lines. Take the Transmittens, for instance. Those adorable fuckers could easiy write a blockbuster adult-contemporary hit but instead they choose to challenge a listener's expectations by replacing the sacharine melodies and banal metaphors of that tripe with the plinks of toy guitars and obscure references to things such as 'sparklemittens.' So I say let Grizzly Bear become the soundtrack to the boring vampire sex-dreams of millions of tweens if that's what they want. There's better stuff out there than them anyway."


---

It's been a long time since we've checked in with our friend Katy over at www.kansascouture.com, but if you're anything like the boys a single question has been nagging you since Halloween: what was Katy's costume?

As it turns out, she was Mad Men's Betty Draper:













Richard: "I'd like to be her Don Draper for an evening or two, if you catch my meaning."

Chip: "I don't, but I love this frock!"