CD Odyssey Disc 225: Soundtrack

Oops - I justed noticed that I had tagged review 224 as a second 223. What is next - cats sleeping with dogs? Chimps writing Shakespeare?

Not to fear, dear reader - this is why this whole blogosphere allows post edits. No one need ever know what happened - if it weren't for this admission that is. So, now knowing what actual review number I'm on, let's continue.

Disc 225 is...Hedwig and the Angry Inch Soundtrack

Artist: The Hedwig Cast under the direction of writer and performer Stephen Trask

Year of Release: 1999

What’s Up With The Cover?: Hedwig her/himself rocks out.

How I Came To Know It: I think Sheila and I saw a review for the movie on "At The Movies" and wanted to see it. Once we did, it didn't take long for us to find the soundtrack and bring it home.

How It Stacks Up: I have about 23 soundtracks. I just took a look through them and couldn't find one as good as this, so I'm going to say this one is the best.

Rating: 4 stars

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is a rock musical originally off Broadway, eventually made into a film. It has a strong cult following, but not much mainstream success. On this one, you can count me among the cultists.

The story is about a rock star, Hedwig, born a man, shorn to a woman in a botched sex change operation; ultimately both sexes and neither. The movie reveals Hedwig's life through a series of flashbacks, but the story is more accurately about exploring the nature of love between two people regardless of sex. Hedwig is neither man nor woman, but each of her relationships demands her/him to fit a specific role. It is an ambitious and risky theme, and isn't for everyone. Fortunately it hits every note with just the right amount of passion, tragedy and black humour. If you haven't seen this film, it is worth your time. I'd even like to see the musical - and I never say that.

As a musical, the album follows the movie plot faithfully, hitting the perfect tone throughout. The music itself ranges from pop through glam rock to a sort of punk/pop vibe in angrier moments. The songs are as good as anything you'll get on a more conventional rock album, and musically they hold their own even without the support of the film's visuals.

As you might expect in a musical about a rock star's life (even a made up one) the songs cover a variety of important points in Hedwig's life. In "Sugar Daddy" Hedwig meets Luther, the American GI who has the ticket for him/her to get out of Soviet East Germany as his wife. The catch is that Hedwig is a boy, and so to join Luther he has a sex change operation. In the track following, we meet the "Angry Inch", and it is not for the faint-of-heart listener:

"My sex change operation got botched
My guardian angel fell asleep on the watch
Now all I got is a Barbie Doll crotch
I got an angry inch."

There's a certain black humour in "Angry Inch", but the emotional core is true as just one of Hedwig's trials to find a way to love.

The story is a tragic one, of someone who doesn't fit in a single category, yet is constantly being pressured one way or another. Hedwig's 'apartness' allows him/her to become at times an almost mythological figure. Simultaneously an 'everyman and an 'everywoman' rolled into one.

The album's signature song, "Origin of Love" describes how Hedwig sees love from his/her perspective. Hedwig imagines a time in pre-history where people had two sets of limbs, and two heads, and two sex organs (some man/man, some woman/woman and some woman/man). The Gods, jealous of our happiness, split us apart, and what Hedwig perceives as love now is just our yearning to find our 'split apart' and be reunited.

"Origin of Love" brings together Hedwig's dreamer qualities as he/she imagines there was once a better world where we knew true togetherness - and where gender didn't interfere with our ability to care for one another deeply. At the same time he/she embitters the pursuit of that world as though we are all just broken, declaiming that love is ultimately just a band aid on a wound that won't close. The perspective on love is dark, but it is one hell of an insight into the character.

Every track on the record deserves this same type of exploration, but time and space (and attention spans) don't allow for this. I will simply end by saying that if you often look at your collection of soundtracks and wonder how you came to have so many mediocre ones (as I do) there is a remedy - buy this one. You won't be disappointed.

Best tracks: I like all the tracks, except maybe the badly phrased "Random Number Generation" which is funny, as that is the one song not in the original Broadway production.