Blonde (soundtrack)

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Blonde (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film)
Film score by
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
ReleasedSeptember 28, 2022 (2022-09-28)
Recorded2020–2022
Genre
Length59:03
Label
Producer
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis chronology
Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
(2022) 		Blonde
(2022)

Blonde (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film)[a] is the score album composed and produced by Australian musicians Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.[1] It is the soundtrack to the 2022 biographical film Blonde, directed by Andrew Dominik. The film, which is based on 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, is a fictionalized take on the life and career of American actress Marilyn Monroe, played by Ana de Armas in the lead. The soundtrack album was released by Lakeshore Records and Invada Records on September 28, 2022.[2][3]

Background[edit]

Both Ellis and Cave, collaborated with Dominik for the fourth time, after scoring for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), and himself serving as a documentarian for Cave with the films, One More Time With Feeling (2016) and This Much I Know to Be True (2022).[4][5] In a statement to Rolling Stone, Ellis and Cave has said that "Working with Andrew Dominik is always a challenging, but ultimately mind-blowing experience [...] Creating the score for this terrifying and complex reimagining of the Marilyn Monroe story was no different, and, as always, it was a complete privilege to work with him. The darkest of films with a gorgeous spiritual score."[4]

In an earlier interaction to Rolling Stone, Dominik had said that "The most fascinating thing about how Nick and Warren is how quickly they work and yet how often they are in a space where they can’t tell whether what they are doing is ‘good’ or not [...] It's also interesting how their actual relationship finds its way into the music", and further added:[6]

"There’s this piece they did for Blonde — Warren singing into a vocoder and Nick playing this strident piano — when I said to Nick how unusual the two things were. He said, ‘I was just hitting the piano like that to try and get his attention. He’d been fucking around with that thing for hours.’"[6]

After the film's Netflix release, in October 2022, Cave called Blonde as "one of his favourite films" in response to a fan's interaction on the same.[7][8]

Track listing[edit]

No.TitleLength
1."Pearly"6:43
2."Shard"2:52
3."Fire In The Hills"3:58
4."Gemini"5:21
5."Abortion"2:31
6."Glass Sliver"1:00
7."Gemini Acoustic"6:05
8."Goddess Of Love On A Subway Grating"2:24
9."Strawberry"1:45
10."Bright Horses" (Instrumental)3:45
11."Peroxide"6:20
12."I Love Love Love You All"3:11
13."Wig"3:22
14."Nembutal"2:54
15."A World Of Light"6:46

Additional music[edit]

Additional songs were incorporated into the film, which includes songs from Ladies of the Chorus (1948), Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and Some Like It Hot (1959), starring Marilyn Monroe in the lead.[9][10] The tracks "Ev-ry Baby Needs a Da-Da-Daddy", "Kiss", "Bye Bye Baby", "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", "I Wanna Be Loved by You" and "Runnin' Wild" are performed by Monroe, whereas other songs: "Rose and Patrick" and "Strangled" are instrumental pieces composed by Sol Kaplan and "La Cumparsita" (1916) is a traditional song by composer Gerardo Matos Rodriguez. Nick Cave's singles "Warm and Tender" by Fiora Cutler, Tim Davies and Eldad Guetta, and "Bright Horses" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were also featured in the film.[11]

Reception[edit]

Critical reception for Cave and Ellis' score were positive, with reviewers highlighting as "one of the positive aspects of the film".[12][13] Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in called it as "an ethereal score that foreshadows Monroe’s fate".[14] Calling it as "a gloriously evocative score", Mark Kermode of The Guardian "a melancholy symphony of ambient electronica and eerie voices, interspersed with tinkling acoustic themes that sprinkle a hint of tearful stardust glitter upon a sea of mournful tragedy and despair."[15] Clint Worthington of Consequence had called the score as "arresting and hypnotic",[16] while Siddhant Adlakha of IGN called it as "gentle" and "glamorous".[17] Kaveh Jalinous of Under the Radar wrote that "the film’s score, composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, is hauntingly beautiful and perfectly connects with the images on-screen".[18]

Analysing the film's music, BBC's Rafa Sales Ross wrote "It is in great part due to the soulful empathy of Cave and Ellis's music that Blonde manages to prod at unyielding melancholia without ever needing to resort to a cheap tugging of emotional heartstrings. When Norma Jeane stumbles upon a calming love, the skin-tingling synthesiser beats employed to mark the pace of the woman's sexual escapades give way to the stirring falsettos of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Bright Horses, a song that plays like a hymn, written in memory of Cave's late son. It foreshadows the imminent sorrow doomed to drown all sense of joy and, still, for a brief moment in time, one gets a glimpse of what could have been."[19] Jeremy Urquhart of Collider, in defense of the film against its polarizing critical reviews, had praised the music, saying "the sparse, eerie pieces of music are perfect accompaniments to Blonde's story and visuals, with an instrumental from their 2019 song, "Bright Horses," proving particularly moving during one of the film's rare (semi) hopeful moments."[20]

Charts[edit]

Chart performance for Blonde
Chart (2022–2023) Peak
position
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[21] 177
Scottish Albums (OCC)[22] 92
UK Soundtrack Albums (OCC)[23] 5

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ mentioned as Blonde (soundtrack from the Netflix film) in digital album cover

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Blonde Soundtrack Announced For September 2022 Release Featuring Music By Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, Share New Song "Pearly" -". mxdwn Music. September 18, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  2. ^ Fu, Eddie (September 28, 2022). "Nick Cave and Warren Ellis release soundtrack for Netflix's Blonde: Stream". Consequence. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  3. ^ "Nick Cave & Warren Ellis Release 'Blonde' Score: Listen". Stereogum. September 28, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  4. ^ a b Kreps, Daniel (September 16, 2022). "Hear Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' 'Pearly' From Score for Marilyn Monroe Film 'Blonde'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  5. ^ Bergeson, Samantha (October 14, 2022). "Nick Cave: 'Blonde' Is My Favorite Movie of All Time". IndieWire. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  6. ^ a b Grow, Kory (July 8, 2022). "Warren Ellis on His Odd-Couple Relationship With Nick Cave and the Power of Vulnerability". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  7. ^ Starkey, Adam (October 12, 2022). "Nick Cave says 'Blonde' is his favourite film of all time". NME. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  8. ^ "Nick Cave boldly proclaims Blonde is his "favorite movie of all time"". The A.V. Club. October 14, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  9. ^ Fogarty, Paul (September 28, 2022). "Ana de Armas doesn't sing in Blonde as another actress performs Marilyn's songs". HITC. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  10. ^ Starkey, Adam (September 28, 2022). "Here's every song on the 'Blonde' soundtrack". NME. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  11. ^ "Blonde soundtrack: All the songs featured in Marilyn Monroe biopic". Radio Times. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  12. ^ "Review: 'Blonde' isn't really about Marilyn Monroe. It's about making her suffer". Los Angeles Times. September 26, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  13. ^ "Blonde review – Some like it rotten: Monroe biopic is moving, explicit and intensely irritating". the Guardian. September 8, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  14. ^ Ramnath, Nandini (September 28, 2022). "'Blonde' review: Ana de Armas is the biggest draw of Marilyn Monroe biopic". Scroll.in. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  15. ^ "Blonde review – a hellish vision of Marilyn and her monsters". The Guardian. September 25, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  16. ^ Worthington, Clint (September 20, 2022). "Andrew Dominik Hollows Out Marilyn Monroe For His Beautiful, Empty Blonde: Review". Consequence. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  17. ^ Adlakha, Siddhant (September 16, 2022). "Blonde Review". IGN. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  18. ^ Jalinous, Kaveh. "Blonde". www.undertheradarmag.com. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  19. ^ Ross, Rafa Sales. "Blonde film review: A 'hellish rereading of the Marilyn myth'". www.bbc.com. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  20. ^ Urquhart, Jeremy (October 1, 2022). "In Defense of The Year's Most Divisive Film: 10 Things 'Blonde' Does Well". Collider. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
  21. ^ "Ultratop.be – Soundtrack / Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – Blonde" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  22. ^ "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  23. ^ "Official Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50". Official Charts Company. March 3, 2023. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
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