The Dust Brothers -- Fight Club: Original Motion Picture Score

10/10

Fight Club's soundtrack is the graveyard of the Twentieth Century. The ghosts of music inspired by 100 years of war, economic meltdown, more war, civil unrest, mass media, commercial jingles, and all of the freedom money can buy rest here. Through samples, instruments, and general electronic tomfoolery, The Dust Brothers, in their only full-length album, create an original soundtrack that is key to its film's success.*
The definite aura of fin de siècle that surrounds Fight Club is largely contributed by the work The Dust Brothers put into scoring the film. Thankfully, on its own, Fight Club's Original Motion Picture Score works in a self-contained world of atmosphere that makes for an impeccable listen. In the last decade, I've actually come back to it more than the film. The second track, "Homework," features everything I've described.

The creepy noises that begin the song, the retro beat and guitar sound, the odd, ominous sound effects underneath, the way the fun throwback keyboard and old Mexican café horns pop up from nowhere to join the beat, and the way everything falls out to be replaced by Gregorian chants in the final minute. It's completely, excellently unpredictable. This is a world I can live in, and thanks to a barely $3 purchase after shipping on Amazon, one I often do.

*I obsessed over Fight Club after its release, but I hadn't seen it in almost a decade. I recently re-watched it with my wife of nearly six years (and friend of many more), and was shocked that she deduced the film's major twist almost an hour before it was revealed. I've never met a guy who did that, and after analyzing, I've come to a pretty disturbing conclusion that highlights the faults in the current male psyche more than any of this film's hyper-exaggerated details and dialogue: to go along with what the film is originally presenting as the plot, the viewer must except and rationalize in their mind that the main female character is simply a slut. That she would have motivations for her actions beyond simply being an object is apparently beyond male comprehension. However, my wife immediately thought, this woman must be acting odd for a reason, and after only a moment of thinking, inferred the logical and correct conclusion. I'm not sure what that says for the film, or the male sex in general.

1999 Ryko/WEA
1. Who Is Tyler Durden? 5:03
2. Homework 4:36
3. What Is Fight Club? 4:44
4. Single Serving Jack 4:14
5. Corporate World 2:42
6. Psycho Boy Jack 2:57
7. Hessel, Raymond K. 2:49
8. Medulla Oblongata 5:59
9. Jack's Smirking Revenge 3:58
10. Stealing Fat 2:21
11. Chemical Burn 3:35
12. Marla 4:22
13. Commissioner Castration 3:06
14. Space Monkeys 3:18
15. Finding the Bomb 6:50
16. This is Your Life (Featuring Tyler Durden) 3:31