Song of the Day: Gipsy Danger (by Ramin Djawadi)


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This latest “Song of the Day” will be the second of what will be a trifecta of my favorite tracks from the Pacific Rim soundtrack by composer Ramin Djawadi. The first one was the main theme from the film and featured Rage Against the Machine lead guitarist Tom Morello providing lead guitar work. This second track I’ve chosen is siply titled “Gipsy Danger”.

Where the main theme has been everyone’s favorite in the entire soundtrack it’s difficult not to enjoy the motif for the main character of the film. Let’s be honest and just admit to ourselves that the main character in Pacific Rim is the jaeger christened Gipsy Danger. The track which introduces her theme in the film actually precedes the main theme. We actually hear the “Gipsy Danger” theme right from the start of the film. It combines some of the hard rock melodies and chords from the film’s main theme, but also expanding on the deep bass tone (sounding like a fog horn blowing) that punctuates throughout this theme more than it did in the main theme. This deep sound I always thought of as the “monster arriving” musical cue. It appears not just when Gipsy Danger makes her initial appearance but also whenever a kaiju emerges from the ocean and makes landfall to cause destruction. It’s a sound cue similar to classic giant monster flicks from Japan that announces either Godzilla or one of his kaiju brethren which was followed-up by the iconic monster scream.

We get both the rock and roll and heroic sound from the main theme combined with the more ominous musical cue in this chosen track. It pretty much focuses on one of the film’s taglines about creating monsters to fight monsters. The Gipsy Danger jaeger is a monster in her own right. But then she’s our monster and we always have a fondness for monsters as long as it’s our own.

AMV of the Day: Let Them Eat Rei (Neon Genesis Evangelion)


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In honor of GLaDOS’s cameo in Pacific Rim as the A.I. voice of the American Jaeger, Gipsy Danger, I’ve chosen an oldie, but goodie AMV from 2008 as the next “AMV of the Day”.

This has to be the very first AMV I’ve ever seen and it was in the spring of 2008 when I attended my very first anime convention with Anime Boston 2008. The video had won Best In Show and Best Drama. It used scenes from the very popular mecha anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, but more important to the convention attendees was the song used for the video: Jonathan Coulton’s “Still Alive” featuring the voice of GLaDOS herself, Ellen McClain.

“Let Them Eat Rei” was the name of the video and it does a great job in combining some of the dark humor from both the song and the anime, but also it’s more darker dramatic aspects. When I think about it I’m not even sure if this video had won Best Drama or Best Comedy, it could’ve won either in addition to Best In Show.

Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion (Death & Rebirth), Neon Genesis Evangelion (End of Evangelion)

Song: “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton feat. Ellen McClain

Creator: jbone

Past AMVs of the Day