If you’re reading this post, chances are you might be on or from the East Coast. If you’d like to imagine as though you’re on the West Coast or down in the dirty South however––perhaps at a hallucinatory, sweat-filled rave somewhere––putting on the soundtrack to cult filmmaker Harmony Korine’s latest project, Spring Breakers, will help. The film depicts four co-eds participating in the morally vacant annual rite of passage known as spring break––or as a cornrowed, grill-sporting James Franco in the movie refers to as, “Spriiiing Breeaaaak, y’all!!”
Much of the debauchery-driven vibe probably has to do with omnipresent EDM artist Skrillex and his presence on essentially a third of the album more than anything else. It’s unsurprising then to learn that Skrillex helmed the soundtrack per the director’s request. A standout track is “Sons of Scary Monsters,” the unexpected collaboration between Skrillex and film composer Cliff Martinez, formerly the drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dubstep-free, the track sounds nothing like it’s dirty bass counterpart, “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites,” which serves as the premier track and opens the movie in a most memorable way that only a slow-motion panning of hammered college students––ranging from blacked out frat boys to topless dancing girls––mugging lewdly for the camera could. The contrasting euphonies blur into one another remarkably well, corresponding to the dreamlike narrative of the film.
A track highlight, “Young N*****” happens to sum up the film perfectly, lyric-wise. In just under three minutes, Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame essentially deliver the auditory version of Spring Breakers with their shout out to nihilism in the form of youth culture. Another standout on the soundtrack, albeit for completely different reasons, is the contribution by Dangeruss, the local Florida rapper on whom James Franco based his hilarious, puke inducing role.
“Hangin’ With Da Dopeboys” features James Franco, and that alone is worth listening to on repeat if only to mentally envision the actor rapping. A one of a kind cinematic moment occurs when Franco sings Britney Spears’ “Everytime” outdoors by the beach with an Elvis-themed white grand piano while college girls in pink ski masks are dancing around him with machine guns. The song is notably not on the soundtrack, but the scene can be found on YouTube shot on bootleg by someone shakily holding a smartphone, which couldn’t be more appropriate or perfect.
The Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr was featured in recent NPR interview promoting a new book and was casually asked at the end what the best film was that he had seen so far this year. Burr, who has reviewed films at the newspaper for over a decade and has written several books in the field, went into brief detail on how much he enjoyed Spring Breakers. While acknowledging its faults, he went ahead and compared it to a Jean-Luc Godard film. Michael O’Sullivan from The Washington Post conversely refers to it as “simply bad filmmaking.” However polarizing the film may be with critics and moviegoers, the soundtrack is an eclectic compilation of genres displaying an accurate representation of the loud and diversified reception the movie is receiving.
Review by Sandy Chung