Music: CD Reviews

'Rent' is back, boiled down but still smoldering

Movie soundtrack: "Rent"
(Warner)

When it premiered a decade ago, "Rent" articulated the building frustrations of an increasingly fragmented generation. Left unfinished by the untimely death of composer Jonathan Larson, the stage musical still captivated the nation in its incomplete form. Now, director Chris Columbus has brought Larson's masterwork to the big screen, enlisting six of the eight original New York actors to recreate their roles.

If Larson were alive today, he would be around Madonna's age. This is important to note because, although "Rent" is based on Puccini's opera "La Boheme," Larson's score more closely resembles the popular rock of the 1970s and 1980s. The motion picture soundtrack precedes the highly anticipated film by two months.

In the stage version, "Rent" is largely sung through, rather than broken up by spoken dialogue, with only the slightest of books stringing the songs together. For the movie, Columbus has cut nearly all of the incidental music, retaining 27 of the show's 42 songs. The resulting soundtrack is like a compilation of Larson's greatest hits, and, for the most part, the cast delivers them masterfully.

Though overproduced, this soundtrack honors both the composer and the original production. Actors Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, now 10 years older than Mark and Roger, the characters each respectfully created, imbue their duets with an assertiveness absent on the original recording. Idina Menzel, who has justifiably met the most theatrical success among the cast since her professional debut in "Rent," winning a Tony Award for "Wicked," exhibits a thrilling vocal control here. Only newcomer Rosario Dawson, inheriting the role of Mimi from Daphne Rubin-Vega, fails to meet the material. Dawson's limited range prohibits her from tapping into either Mimi's raw sexuality or naïve vulnerability. The role remains in Rubin-Vega's sturdy possession.
— Tommy O'Malley

Against Me!: "Searching For A Former Clarity"
(Fat Wreck Chords)

Tom Gabel's heart belongs to ramparts-storming folk, from Woody Guthrie to Billy Bragg. But you can only reach so many with a stool and battered acoustic guitar, so he translates his mighty direct — or is that ham-fisted? — urge into ramparts-storming punk rock. Like that other ham-fisted post-folkie Steve Earle, he has written a song about Condoleezza Rice ("From Her Lips to God's Ears"). Also like Earle, subtlety isn't really in his skill set. But there's no evidence it's a goal either. (For that matter, neither of them sings as much as vocalizes emphatically.) Lessons include "Manipulation in rock music equals nausea" ("Don't Lose Touch"), "You can pray all night; you'll always wake the same person in the morning" ("Pretty Girls") and, conversely perhaps, "There's a joy in every possibility" ("Joy"). But crankiness wins out, as the most spot-on song title goes to the one about the realities of the record biz: "Unprotected Sex With Multiple Partners."
— Joe Gross

Against Me! plays Friday at Emo's.

Broken Social Scene: "Broken Social Scene"
(Arts and Crafts)

Perhaps in keeping with its vaguely socialist government/worldview/etc., Canada seems to love the rock-band-as-big-collective. Think of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Arcade Fire or these folks. There's no real out-front ego, the personnel list seems fluid, credit is freely distributed and sounds come from everywhere at once. Remember this band's set at last year's Austin City Limits Music Festival — a big band playing small parts for a big sound. But not as big as on this kitchen-sinker, the hyped-to-the-skies follow-up to the indie smash "You Forget It in People." The everything-hits-at-once sound on "Broken Social Scene" makes "You Forget" sound almost minimalist — acoustic guitars, percussion, keyboards pile up on rolling juggernauts of songs. "Fire Eye'd Boy" blends propulsive New Wave with ethereal guitar shimmer. They're also, as every Canadian this side of "Kids in the Hall" is stereotyped to be, mighty earnest — emotions and politics seem up front, even when completely obscured, as they are here. We have no idea what B.S.S. is saying, but how they're saying it says everything.
— Joe Gross

Broken Social Scene plays Thursday night at Stubb's.