A Mighty Wind Album [Enhanced, Soundtrack]

It's way too easy to dismiss this album as a novelty. After all, movie stars singing songs in a comedy movie rarely amounts to anything substantial. However, the Oscar nomination for "A Kiss At The End of The Rainbow" lends this album credibility. Not to mention, most of these people have been singing for years. Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara frequently had musical numbers on SCTV. Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest perform here as The Folksmen, but they are probably best knows as their alter egos, Spinal Tap.

I can't say that every song is a winner. I'm not a huge fan of the stylings of The New Main Street Singers. That's my taste. But, this is a movie soundtrack, and those songs have to be, well, that annoying for the movie to work. As an album, well, I could without!

Mitch & Mickey (Levy and O'Hara) sing a beautiful song called "When You're Next To Me" on track 3. It's nothing special until the second verse, when O'Hara comes in with her harmonies, and at that point I can believe that this is a real, serious folk duo. After all, they've been working together in various incarnations almost as long as their movie counterparts. Great song, and a great performance.

Elsewhere, The Folksmen pull out their greatest hit, "Old Joe's Place", a fun novelty track but instantly catchy and memorable. You won't be able to stop singing, if you can keep up with the rapid fire lyrics. Even better is "Never Did No Wanderin'", on which the three singers meld perfectly. Not to mention these guys can actually play their instruments.

Lyrically, the jokes (when present) are sometimes a little subtle. For example, "Blood On The Coals". Since there were so many folk songs about train accidents, and just as many folk songs about coal mine disasters, why not combine the two? So it's a song about a train that crashes into a coal mine.

Elsewhere, the jokes are more obvious. I won't even tell you how The Folksmen end their cover of "Start Me Up", except that they do it faithfully to the Stones' original.

Although I cannot pick a favourite song, I think "A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow" is as beautiful and perfect as music gets.

Don't let the comedy tag scare you off. These are just great songs. It should hardly be a surprise -- The Folksmen used to open for their alter egos Spinal Tap decades ago! These guys are all pros.

4 stars.

The CD basically contains all the songs that you hear on the movie. I'm not a big folk music person but when I saw the movie I had to get this CD and I love it. I dont think you will regret getting this.

As great as the other songs are (even though they are cheesy, try listening to authentic folk music and try and tell me some of that isn't cheesy), the true stars are Mitch and Mickey a.k.a. Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara. From the film to the soundtrack, the course of true love never does run smooth and sometimes doesn't run at all or gets knocked out in the case of M&M. Their love transpires on the film and also on the great soundtrack. Of course who could play a formerly married couple that left true love bitterly, come back together and sing better than Eugene and Catherine who go back thirty years? Their love is certainly apparent in the film (I have to admit I cried when they did not get back together) and certainly on the soundtrack. I actually love the songs they wrote (whether it be together or not) and feel that if they ever get sick of acting, etc. they should get together and grab Mary Margaret O'Hara (Catherine's sister) and make a career jump to music.

Like their love, their songs are bittersweet more so than the other songs. The Folksmen songs (The Skeletongs of Quinto in particular) deal with serious issues in a serious composition with a not so serious performance. And with The New Mainstreet Singers, well, some of their songs don't even make sense and more so for fun rather than serious composing. But the songs of M&M are serious, poignant and at times can even bring a tear to the eye of the listener especially with the case of "One More Time", my favourite song on the soundtrack. If this song had been kept instead of replacing it with "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" there would have not been a dry tear in the audience and certainly the screen would have been covered in popcorn or pop. It fits so perfectly the story of M&M that even listening to it, it makes you wish they got back together (it was even composed by both of them). At the same time it's a beautiful song that probably could have even made it in the mainstream music world (at least for us folk music fans). The harmonies are distantly beautiful and their voices blend all too well.

I guess the soundtrack, even with the film out there, exposes the raw and true talents of Chris and co. The soundtrack is a fine gem with the amazing abilities of all the stars. Just think they not only starred in the film, but improvised all their lines, learned all the instruments and the songs, and then make their own soundtrack. Sort of scary how talented they all are and yet America just hands out Oscars like their chocolate. I say Chris and Co. try for a BAFTA instead of an Oscar next time...