LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Over the final scenes ofcurrent box office champ "21," the London Bach Choir's an
gelicintro on the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What YouWant" starts playing. But as soon as the credits begin to roll,the song stutters, skips and suddenly gets an electronica beat.
This, as it turns out, isn't your parents' Stones track.
The "You Can't Always Get What You Want" remix by Belgianduo Soulwax is the lead song on the "21" soundtrack, and thenew version is getting the love-it-or-hate-it treatment fromcritics and consumers. Billboard's Sven Philipp called it"suspenseful, clever and hard-grooving." But then there was theone anonymous commenter on iTunes who wrote: "This is acomplete butchering of one of the Stones' most proud-soundingtracks. What the hell? This basically ruined my day."
David Sardy, producer of the soundtrack album and composerof the score, says with a laugh: "We've managed to do somethingmusically controversial in a movie! When was the last time thathappened?"
For Sardy and Lia Vollack, president of worldwide music forColumbia Pictures, remixing the 1969 classic for "21" was ameasured bet, one they felt fit in perfectly with thecollege-students-bucking-the-system tone of the film.
"It evolved from this type of music Dave and I seehappening a lot in the world right now," Vollack says. "There'sdance music that's going on, and yet it's keeping it a littlebit rock." The rest of the "21" soundtrack shows the influenceof these genres, from "Big Ideas," the new track from LCDSoundsystem, to Rihanna's New Order sample in the lead-in to"Shut Up and Drive."
The original Stones version of "You Can't Always Get WhatYou Want" was placed over the end credits at first, but whileit's an apt message for the moral of the movie, it didn't quitegel with the rest of the film's electronica-tinged soundtrack.
Enter Soulwax, the nom de mix of brothers David and StephenDewaele. After some convincing from Vollack and Sardy, ABKCO,which owns the rights to the early Rolling Stones catalog,provided the original master tapes of "You Can't Always GetWhat You Want" for Soulwax to work from. But the New York labeldid provide a guard to travel with the briefcase containing thetapes to Belgium.
"It's definitely a dividing-line song," Sardy says. "Ifyou're offended, you're of a certain age -- and if you're not,you're definitely of a certain age. But when you think of howoffensive the Stones were when they arrived on the scene, it'sfull circle. It's rock 'n' roll."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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