Music and "Buffy"
Dec. 11th, 2004 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowThere are, in my collection, five albums which I bought, directly or indirectly, because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In two cases, the link is obvious: the soundtrack of the musical episode "Once More, With Feeling", and "Music for Elevators", an album of songs by Anthony Stewart Head (aka "Rupert Giles"). They aren't what this post is about.
The other three are by singers whose music was used in memorable moments of the show; in each case, I bought the album containing the featured song. (This is a sometimes risky practice, as the album may be otherwise loaded with duds. Anyone want a scarcely-used Cranberries CD?) All three are female solo acts, but it would be hard for them to be more different.
During the (three-hanky) final minutes of the season-two finale "Becoming, Part 2", Sarah McLachlan sings "Full of Grace". On that basis, I bought her "Surfacing" album. She has a smooth and occasionally ethereal voice, and her songs tend to be obscure. Perhaps they are needlessly so; a quick google reveals a website which claims to offer "the meanings" of some of her songs, apparently based on a VH-1 appearance. The meanings presented are brief and not particularly interesting. Despite this, I enjoy listening to the songs. "Full of Grace" is a particular favorite, along with "Building a Mystery" and "Witness".
In the third-season episode "Consequences", after Xander lets slip his one-night stand with Faith, there is a scene showing a devastated Willow, sitting in the girls' bathroom and crying; a snippet from Kathleen Wilhoite's "Wish We'd Never Met" plays. (Ms. Wilhoite is also an actress; she has a recurring role on Gilmore Girls as Luke's sister Liz.) The song appears on her album, "Pitch Like a Girl". Her voice is a little rough, and many of her songs are acidic character studies. They're amusing, the way the bitterest of Saki's stories are. I'm not going to try to describe them any more clearly than that, but I'm thinking in particular of "Olivia Says" and "Yard Sale". (She doesn't spare herself - or, rather, her "implied narrator" - either; "Wish We'd Never Met" is a fairly harsh self-dissection.)
The sixth-season episode "Tabula Rasa" ends with a montage of emotional desolation, as Tara moves out and Giles leaves for England. Michelle Branch appears as a singer at the Bronze, singing (naturally enough) "Goodbye to You". That prompted me to buy her album, "The Spirit Room". Now, Ms. Branch's voice is a little on the harsh side, and she does strange and terrible things to innocent vowels, but I rather enjoy several of her songs, as much for their energy as anything else. (Their content is on the banal side, full of adolescent angst.) I particularly like "Everywhere".
The other three are by singers whose music was used in memorable moments of the show; in each case, I bought the album containing the featured song. (This is a sometimes risky practice, as the album may be otherwise loaded with duds. Anyone want a scarcely-used Cranberries CD?) All three are female solo acts, but it would be hard for them to be more different.
During the (three-hanky) final minutes of the season-two finale "Becoming, Part 2", Sarah McLachlan sings "Full of Grace". On that basis, I bought her "Surfacing" album. She has a smooth and occasionally ethereal voice, and her songs tend to be obscure. Perhaps they are needlessly so; a quick google reveals a website which claims to offer "the meanings" of some of her songs, apparently based on a VH-1 appearance. The meanings presented are brief and not particularly interesting. Despite this, I enjoy listening to the songs. "Full of Grace" is a particular favorite, along with "Building a Mystery" and "Witness".
In the third-season episode "Consequences", after Xander lets slip his one-night stand with Faith, there is a scene showing a devastated Willow, sitting in the girls' bathroom and crying; a snippet from Kathleen Wilhoite's "Wish We'd Never Met" plays. (Ms. Wilhoite is also an actress; she has a recurring role on Gilmore Girls as Luke's sister Liz.) The song appears on her album, "Pitch Like a Girl". Her voice is a little rough, and many of her songs are acidic character studies. They're amusing, the way the bitterest of Saki's stories are. I'm not going to try to describe them any more clearly than that, but I'm thinking in particular of "Olivia Says" and "Yard Sale". (She doesn't spare herself - or, rather, her "implied narrator" - either; "Wish We'd Never Met" is a fairly harsh self-dissection.)
The sixth-season episode "Tabula Rasa" ends with a montage of emotional desolation, as Tara moves out and Giles leaves for England. Michelle Branch appears as a singer at the Bronze, singing (naturally enough) "Goodbye to You". That prompted me to buy her album, "The Spirit Room". Now, Ms. Branch's voice is a little on the harsh side, and she does strange and terrible things to innocent vowels, but I rather enjoy several of her songs, as much for their energy as anything else. (Their content is on the banal side, full of adolescent angst.) I particularly like "Everywhere".
