Will the New Moon Soundtrack Top the Music of Twilight? by Nadya Vlassoff
Fans of the Twilight sequel New Moon will finally see the official soundtrack listing for New Moon when the second Twilight Saga soundtrack is unveiled this week. Ever since the success of the first Twilight soundtrack, which was certified double platinum after selling more than 2 million copies and had a #1 debut on the Billboard 200, the music of the Twilight Saga helped to launch the little known band Paramore into the music mainstream when their lead-off Twilight single, "Decode," became a global radio hit. More importantly, however, "Decode" featured a music video that included clips from the Twilight film, which helped sell the first Twilight Saga film to a wider audience. Looking ahead to the New Moon soundtrack with reflective memories of the Twilight soundtrack, "Decode," along with other Twilight songs like Muse’s "Supermassive Black Hole", even a track from Twilight Saga star Robert Pattinson with "Never Think", were perfect matches for the somber, yet tragically romantic theme of Twilight.
Now that the Twilight Saga sequel New Moon has been garnering so much media coverage, the release of the New Moon soundtrack is perhaps one of the most anticipated albums of the year. There has been plenty of Twilight speculation and New Moon chatter in the media circuits thanks in large part to New Moon director, Chris Weitz, who spoke about the Twilight possibility of attaching familiar music acts to the New Moon soundtrack. Among those who up for New Moon soundtrack discussion were Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Kings of Leon, and Death Cab for Cutie who eventually found their way to the New Moon soundtrack.
Although the entire New Moon soundtrack listing has been kept under Twilight wraps, several artists have already emerged from the Twilight Saga related woodwork with attempted tracks for New Moon. Muse is set to return to the Twilight franchise along with the additions of Band of Skulls, Bon Iver, and, as mentioned, a song penned by Thom Yorke. New Moon also has Twilight music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas back on board, and with good reason, since Patsavas was a big reason for the success of the Twilight soundtrack, which she hopes to duplicate for the New Moon soundtrack. In recent Twilight months, Alexandra has also been bombarded with Twilight Saga fan requests for songs to appear on the New Moon soundtrack, with Twilight sequel suggestions that range from unknown and underground bands, to friends and multiple New Moon song lists. A rough demo from every garage band in the world? If the competition for potential bands on the New Moon soundtrack comes down to Indie, garage, or unknown cutting edge, things are looking good for The Used who stated on their Myspace page that they were to begin work on a remix for the New Moon soundtrack.
Australia’s Lee Safar will not be on the New Moon soundtrack after MTV published a statement from Safar herself about the possibility of appearing on the third Twilight Saga film, Eclipse. Safar is not the only artist who staged an online plea to appear on the New Moon soundtrack, and with good reason. If Twilight was able to help Paramore climb the charts into becoming a momentary household name, imagine what the New Moon soundtrack could do for an unknown artist, especially in the United States.
When you look at New Moon from an opportunity standpoint, it’s very much like the Twilight competition that we saw last year among young actors and actresses vying for a role in New Moon. It comes down to a question of where certain Twilight Saga stars and bands would be without Twilight and New Moon. Given the success and hype of Twilight and New Moon, we all know who they are, where they came from, and where they are now. There’s little doubt we’ll see the same thing play out on the New Moon soundtrack.
But how will these artists fit with the tone
of New Moon? Like Muse and Paramore, bands like
Death Cab for Cutie and The Used have been known
to write heart wrenching, painful songs with
intense baselines, even in ballads. The recent
release of Death Cab’s title track "Meet me
on the Equinox" for the New Moon soundtrack
was launched after the MTV Music Awards. With
the lead-off single for New Moon, Death Cab
for Cutie is at the helm of perhaps the biggest
soundtrack of the year. And if you didn’t know
who Death Cab was two weeks ago, even though
they’ve released six studio albums since 1998,
every young Twilight fan born from 1998 to 2000
knows who they are (or soon will) thanks to
New Moon.
Unlike Twilight, New Moon appears to be much more cinematically diverse thanks in large part to Weitz’s decision to focus on the action and lighting of the Twilight sequel. With three trailers for New Moon already in Twilight Saga circulation, fans of New Moon recently got a chance to get a much closer look at the film at the MTV Music Awards this past Sunday. Stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner have all mentioned in Twilight interviews the darker tone that New Moon follows, which is reflected in the third New Moon trailer. As Twilight fans can see, the scenes in New Moon are striking while the enhanced special effects go to new levels with transformations of New Moon werewolves and the action-packed Twilight Saga fight scenes between the vampires and wolf pack. Surely a soundtrack with more intense music would befit a sequel production seeking to change the somewhat docile demeanour of the first Twilight film.
A bigger questions surrounding the New Moon soundtrack aren’t reflective of whether it WILL be successful, but rather HOW successful and what bands we’ll see propelled to the top of the charts. What unknowns can we expect to see become household Twilight names from the New Moon soundtrack? The biggest question, however, is whether the New Moon soundtrack will top the sales the Twilight soundtrack.
The New Moon soundtrack listing will be unveiled on Friday, September 18.
