About BarryF
Location: Dallas TX
Occupation: ne'er-do-well
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The soundtrack for Idlewild is far more than that simple appelation allows. Not so much a selection of music appearing in the movie itself, the soundtrack is an eclectic jumble of songs inspired by the movie and manages as such to not only stand but shine on its own merits. The album feels a little too long at twenty-five tracks, but the gems on here ("Mighty ‘O’”, “Morris Brown”, and “Hollywood Divorce” among others) far outweigh the uselessness of the filler tracks (the multiple interludes as well as “Buggface” and the nearly nine-minute finale “Bad Note").
While the music is seemingly anachronistic in meshing modern hip-hop styles over 20’s ragtime and jazz, especially considering its roots in the movie itself, the mutation works well. If anyone can pull off a project like this, it’s Andre 3000 and Big Boi, and they do so with the same class and style they’ve presented in previous releases. Spinning out of the hysteric musical heights of SpeakerBoxxx/The Love Below, the duo take their craft even further here, once more proving that simply classifying them as hip-hop or rap artists is doing them a severe injustice.
Idlewild is an ambitious effort to say the least, but Outkast look fit to take on the challenge. Things start with a very loud and brash pop, the aforementioned “Mighty ‘O’”, before diving headlong into a dizzying hour of musical pastiches that at times threaten to buckle under the strain. In the end, it becomes an enjoyable effort (but an effort nonetheless) to play along and on the whole will either delight or infuriate the ears. This album is by no means a quick and easy one to digest, but like its double-cd predecessor it withstands any negative assessments and serves as yet another winner in Outkast’s formidable library of eclectic and boundary-busting output.
