Songs of the Day: The Devil Is In The Details/Beats from Hanna (by The Chemical Brothers)


To cap off the day I decided to take a lead from my favorite spring and summer past-time (baseball) and give everyone a double-header. The latest song of the day is actually two of them. While they’re really a single melody they’re done in two diverging ways that fit in with Joe Wright’s modern fairy tale action film, Hanna.

Once again these songs are from The Chemical Brothers who everyone by now have heard composed the score for Hanna. They did such a magnificent job scoring this film that I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re asked to do more of it in the future. I will admit that I actually like they’re work on Hanna than what Daft Punk did for Tron: Legacy. The songs I picked are called “The Devil Is In The Details” and “The Devil Is In The Beats” respectively.

The first song is a charming little melody that sounds like it’s being played on a calliope. It really underscores the fairy tale aspect of the film and Hanna’s own Grimm’s fairy tale like journey from the frozen wilderness of Finland to the rundown carnival (looking like something out of Bizarro World Grimm’s fairy tale) to end the film. This melody also becomes a sort of leitmotif for whenever Hanna became endangered from the assassins hired by her nemesis, Marissa Veigler, to chase her down. The leader of this group will begin to whistle this tune when they’ve caught onto Hanna’s trail.

The second song is a more aggressive version of this fairy tale melody done in the only way The Chemical Brothers know how. “The Devil Is In The Beats” is twists, distorts, remixes and adds a funky bassline to the original “The Devil Is In The Details” but without losing the original calliope tone. This version I liken to a fairy tale story seen through the eyes of someone tripping out on acid or LSD.

Both songs fit in well in the scenes they complement and just shows how well both filmmaker Joe Wright and The Chemical Brothers were on the same wavelength when it came to telling the story of Hanna.

Song of the Day: Container Park from Hanna (The Chemical Brothers)


Tonight I saw what would probably end up as one of the top films of 2011. I am talking about Joe Wright’s modern fairy tale, Hanna, and starring one of the industry’s finest young actress in Saoirse Ronan in the title role. The latest “song of the day” comes directly from this film which was fully scored by British electronica duo, The Chemical Brothers.

“Container Park” arrives close to the end of the second act of the film and perfectly accompanies one of the film’s best action sequences. The Chemical Brother’s give this song a very heavy and deep bassline which set’s the rhythm for the whole sequence. They begin the song very subtly with just a hint of dissonance creeping into the dark fairy tale-like melody. I just loved how they were able to combine not just the fairy tale aspect of the film, but also add in that sense of danger with subtle use of distortion and dissonance to unbalance the original melody.

This song went perfectly well with the action sequence it complemented and it was halfway through the song that I realized (like all of the music in this film) that the bassline was setting up the rhythm of the action itself. I saw this clip at WonderCon 2011 and the song was the same and as I look back to that clip to seeing the clip as part of the whole film I was impressed how The Chemical Brothers’ score for this film was very instrumental in setting up each scene and not just becoming background music.

“Container Park” is just one of several great songs from the Hanna soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers. First there’s the wonderful, cover-filled soundtrack for Sucker Punch and now this full-on electronica score for Hanna. It’s been a very good year, so far, for soundtracks and I do believe we’ve got more excellent examples coming down the pipeline.

Above is the original song used in the film while below is a remix done by the duo and found on the film’s website. The latter has been extended, but I really don’t see too much of a difference between the two other than their running times.

Hanna (Trailer)


Every year there’s always a film which seems to get little to no buzz leading up to it’s release date. One such film which seems to be sneaking up on the filmgoing public is a little action thriller called Hanna from British filmmaker Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement) about a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) being trained by her father (Eric Bana) into some sort of assassin in the frozen wilderness of Finland. The film also stars Cate Blanchett in a role that some of her fans may not be used to. A morally ambiguous role which may or may not make her into the villain of the film.

Outside of the people who cover the film industry year in and year out this film has bypassed the radar of most film fans and are only starting to hear about it. From some of the advance reports being mentioned about Hanna, filmgoers may have something to look forward to when it finally comes out in a little over a week. Hanna has been getting some positive talk of being one of the best, if not the best, film of the year to date. Those are some pretty bold statements, but even if the film only manages to live up to half of the talk about it the last week or so then it’s going to be a film that will entertain and one that may just get strong word of mouth to get more people to watch it.

One thing which may interest some people about this film is who will be in charge of scoring it. The film’s score will be handled by the electronica duo The Chemical Brothers.

Hanna is set for an April 8, 2011 release date.

Song of the Day: The Golden Path (performed by the Chemical Brothers and Wayne Coyne)


There’s no big story behind why I have selected this particular song for Song of the Day, beyond the fact that I love the Chemical Brothers and this song — The Golden Path — always brings me a certain amount of peace.  If nothing else, you must see the Chemical Brothers live at least once before you die.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Hey Boy Hey Girl (performed by the Chemical Brothers)


Some day, I’m going to make and publish a list that will entitled “Top Ten Songs To Dance To While Wasted.”  Until I get around to that, I’ll just take a few minutes to highlight the song that would probably come in at number 3 — Hey Boy Hey Girl by the Chemical Brothers.

I really wanted to put up the music video that features the kids in the museum and the skeletons having sex in the public restroom.  However, every version of that to be found on YouTube comes with one of those really annoying “embedding disabled by request” tags.  Bleh on that.

So, I’m including two videos.  The first one is simply the song as it appears on 1999’s Surrender.  The second is a clip of the Chemical Brothers doing the song live at Glastonbury in 2007.  Personally, I love the 2nd clip.  If you ever get a chance to see the Chemical Brothers live, you must take it as surely as you must breathe oxygen to live.