In “A Lovely Night”, they channel the classic conceit of having two people who are clearly meant to be together singing about how wrong they are for each other. Yes, these are excited dreamers with a song in their hearts, but they’re also stuck on the freeway, going nowhere fast.Ĭhazelle and Hurwitz revel in being clever with La La Land’s music, but never to its detriment. While warm and sweet on its surface, “Another Day of Sun” also fills the pivotal opening role of laying out the crux of the story. Those who have seen the film will understand the long, sweeping musical interludes of building strings that soundtrack the more elaborate choreography.
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In the film, a massive production accompanies the song, as traffic-jammed drivers on a Los Angeles freeway abandon their cars to dance and sing. The lyrics speak of Hollywood’s allure, as one woman sings: “Summer Sunday nights/ We’d sink into our seats right as they dimmed out all the lights/ A Technicolor world made out of music and machine/ It called me to be on that screen.” Things kick off with “Another Day of Sun”, a fairly traditional, upbeat number complete with jumping piano chords and characters trading off verses. But by saving the songs for key moments and linking them together through Hurwitz’s opulent score, the results are a stunning elixir of golden age romance and timeless melodies. La La Land isn’t a musical in the traditional sense rather than being sung-through, the film sports plenty of dialogue between numbers. For Stone’s Mia, that means becoming an actress, while Gosling’s Sebastian is a jazzman who longs to open a club of his own. La La Land stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as Angelenos longing to realize their dreams.
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Instead, Chazelle and composer Justin Hurwitz have created a soundtrack of original songs that stand toe to toe with the great movie musicals of the past. It would’ve been easy to back scenes of moonlit tap-dancing and dark theater hand-holding with the work of Adele and Ella Fitzgerald. The same formula might’ve worked just fine for La La Land, the sophomore film from writer-director Damien Chazelle ( Whiplash). Ever since talkies found the value of song, the silver screen has had a penchant for pairing bursting hearts with the perfect tune. What would Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s prance through the streets in (500) Days of Summer have mattered without the bounce of Hall & Oates “You Make My Dreams”? Lord knows we only tolerate Ben Affleck awkwardly trotting animal crackers up Liv Tyler’s stomach in Armageddon because it’s paired with Aerosmith’s “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing”.
A lot of the source material comes from different eras and styles, so it’s surprising to hear how cohesively they blend together in a single project.Falling in love has always worked better with a soundtrack.
The video is scored by vocals from a bunch of performers we’ve loved over the years - Adele, The Beach Boys, Boyz II Men, Sia, and Nina Simone, among others - mashed up with La La Land music. Los Angeles DJ SLEEPER’s “La La Land Reimagined” features footage from the movie interspersed with clips from the film’s musical forefathers, including Broadway Melody of 1940, Shall We Dance, Sweet Charity, Singin’ In The Rain and West Side Story. One fan decided to honor La La Land with a medley that charmingly mashes up the film’s music with other beloved musicals and familiar songs. Composer Justin Hurwitz’s score and original songs are a striking tribute to the vintage musical and classic Hollywood, and now it’s his turn to be the object of praise. You could make the argument that La La Land was the best movie of 2016 ( we did), and a big part of that has to do with the movie’s jazz-inspired soundtrack, which sold enough copies to peak at No.