Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Music in a Foreign Language

Music in a Foreign Language

I know this is a film site, but please do yourself a favor and go out now
and purchase Lloyd Cole’s latest album, Music
in a Foreign Language. Any one of Cole’s albums deserves to
be the soundtrack to its own film (the way Aimee
Mann’s songs singehandedly inspired P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia into
existence), but this latest album of Lloyd’s is particularly beautiful
and filmic in its lush and melancholy tone—so I’m plugging it here
in hopes that some movie mogul will finally realize what an underappreciated
gem this guy is, and give him more than a one-song credit for the soundtack
to their next movie. If you’re already a fan, you know the films; if
you’re not, there are two that I know of: the title song on My
Beautiful Laundrette and “Margot’s Waltz” on There’s
Something About Mary. Two completely different films, one musician
to span the gamut—he’s that good. But oh, my, he’s so much
better than even that.