Soundtrack of the Month 06/2010: Interstella 5555

When OSV was yet in its infancy, I ran a quick post about how much I love this anime film and the music accompanying it. Today, we mark that “soundtrack” as soundtrack of the month.

This is about as close as I can get to the boundaries of OSV’s content coverage. What can I say? I like to flirt with boundaries.

You see, Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem doesn’t have music made for film so much as it has a film made around the music. Now, granted, the album in question (Daft Punk’s seminal work, “Discovery”) was a concept album with this basic story in mind all along. So we could really get into a chicken/egg debate here if we wanted to.

But the basic details are as follows: Daft Punk releases “Discovery” in March 2001. Daft Punk traveled to Japan and found some partners to turn their concept album into a film: namely, Leiji Matsumoto (Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999) and Toei Animation. The first four “chapters” of the film (corresponding to the first four tracks of the album) were played on both MTV and Cartoon Network in late 2001. Then, in December 2003, the full film was released. In Japan, “Discovery” was reprinted with alternate packaging of the main characters in their blue alien form as well as their “human” Crescendolls form. Now, it could be properly understood as the soundtrack to an international collaborative effort and one of the most interesting anime films we’ve seen to date.

After the jump, you will find an in-depth, track-by-track review of “Discovery” as it applies to the story and scenery of Interstella 5555.

A harder, better, faster, stronger TRACKLIST! (with track times!)

01 One More Time – 5:20
02 Aerodynamic – 3:27
03 Digital Love – 4:58
04 Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger – 3:45
05 Crescendolls – 3:31
06 Nightvision – 1:44
07 Superheroes – 3:57
08 High Life – 3:22
09 Something About Us – 3:51
10 Voyager – 3:47
11 Veridis Quo – 5:44
12 Short Circuit – 3:26
13 Face to Face – 3:58
14 Too Long – 10:00

If I had listened to this full album in 2001, I might have said, “yeah, this is interesting. NEXT!” But with the context of the film and the story in place, it has quickly become one of my all-time favorite albums. Thinking of it as a soundtrack has boosted its notoriety tenfold for me. But maybe I just needed some classic anime visuals to help me recognize the value of the music.

“One More Time” is the album opener, and it’s also the big universal hit. In our real world it’s a hit. On the alien planet with blue-skinned humanoids (much more humanoid than, say, the Na’vi), the song is a hit. And before this film is over, the whole galaxy will be dancing to this song. “One more time I wanna celebrate, oh yeah, alright, don’t stop the dancin’!” If you don’t know the song, get acquainted with it. It sets the tone for the album, the film, and for some fans, an era of good “house” dance music. Vocalist Romanthony sings the lyrical part, and in the film, we see the keyboardist plays the part of vocalist.

In the context of the film, the song is first played at a live concert by four blue aliens in hip discotheque-friendly outfits. Thousands are in the crowd, and around their planet, people are watching the show on TV and grooving along. In one scene we see an older couple with their two young children enjoying the music. The band is made up of a short guy on drums, a beautiful female on bass guitar (and she looks like every Matsumoto female, which is *awesome*), a guy on guitar, and the aforementioned keyboardist/vocalist (who sports an afro and will later be “painted” black). But the party is not to last, as we find at the start of the next piece.

Dudes dressed up like a technologically advanced version of TMNT’s “Foot Clan” make a surprise landing on the planet, infiltrate the concert venue, and drop tons of sleeping gas on the crowd and the band. Three of the four band members go down without a fight, but one of them fights his way free: the guitarist! This is fitting since the musical accompaniment, “Aerodynamic,” is basically an extended guitar solo. The A section is a catchy riff, the B section is a Baroque-style arpeggiation of chords (HLML — high low mid low of a 3-note chord in 16th note patterns), and then both parts are layered atop one another for the end section. This intense piece builds as the guitarist tries to escape from the foot clan clones. Eventually he’s shot down by a crossbow bolt that has a pink sphere at the tip (releasing more sleeping gas). The four are captured and loaded onto a whale of a space ship.

Aside: if any Daft Punk song were ever put into Guitar Hero or Rock Band, it should be this one. It would be highly repetitive, but would also become a fan favorite (similar to Freezepop’s “Less Talk More Rokk”).

And… change scene!

“Digital Love” is another fan favorite. Singing along is a requirement for this catchy little pop tune, and the animators caught on to this by having the hero, “Shep,” sing along. In this scene, we find Shep cleaning the outside of his space ship (which is in the shape of a *giant electric guitar*) and singing his little song. He comes inside his ship, stares at a poster of the band that plays “One More Time,” dreams about the girl (whom he’s either in love with from afar or actually is dating), and then gets a distress signal from his home planet. Did I mention that Shep is also one of the blue guys? Anyway, he finds out that the band has been kidnapped and immediately pursues the ship. As such, he goes through some sort of dimensional warp gate thingy (during an awesome guitar solo, mind you) and crash lands on planet earth. Awesome!

“Ooh! I don’t know what to do, about this dream and you … we’ll make this dream come true.” The song is overwhelmingly positive and certainly catchy. The digitally-influenced guitar solos are awesome. I got nothing but love for this song.

Now, if we think about traditional batting in a baseball game, you ideally want to put three people on base and have your fourth batter hit a home run for a “grand slam.” This album is set up for a grand slam, and the promotional work they did on MTV and Cartoon Network’s “Toonami” program 9 years ago certainly had the right setup for this.

“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” is without question the most popular song from the album. Everyone knows it. Heck, even before the Interstella 5555 project came to life, I knew this song. It was the first Daft Punk song I ever heard, and it was in the context of a Flash video synchronizing the song’s driving beat with sprites from River City Ransom. Since then the song has taken the world by storm, not only with the official video (to be described below), but also with the viral YouTube hits “Daft Hands” and “Daft Bodies,” as well as being used as the base of the Kanye West song “Stronger.” Suffice it to say, if you don’t know the song yet, you haven’t been paying attention to the world around you.

What makes this song so great? I guess it’s the pattern of the robotic-voiced chant combined with that awesome guitar riff. In the music video, we see the four blue alien band members go through a ridiculously elaborate and specific machine that is designed to make musicians from the outer limits of the galaxy appear human, *and* to brainwash them and rewrite their memories to make them think that they, too, are human. That transformation takes place during this song, and it – is – CRAZY. We get our first good luck at the film’s villain, “Earl de Darkwood,” at the end of this song and into the next, “Crescendolls.”

This, by the way, helps assuage any doubts that the concept album had a plot to it. The “Crescendolls” is the name of our now-brainwashed band. And their hit single is “One More Time” — in this video, we see that everyone on planet earth is digging this song. We also see the band members’ names and bios, briefly, in English text. Stella is the bassist, Arpegius is the guitarist, Baryl is the drummer, and Octave (emphasis on second syllable) is the vocalist / keyboardist. The music heard during this scene represents a swift, sudden, almost headache-inducing rise to fame experienced by so many pop and rock stars. The difference for the Crescendolls is that they are, quite literally, in a state of trance. Their actions are controlled by Darkwood and his staff. At this point, Darkwood is acting as their manager, and he clearly has evil intentions. Just how absurd are his intentions? Read on to find out.

The shortest track on the album is “Nightvision.” It serves as a small transition piece to help us calm down. Sirens and funky synth samples give us a picture of the city in its darkest, dreariest moments. Here, we find Shep wandering the city, cloaked in rags so no one can see his skin color. Shep sees his friends/idols on a big screen, now with human skin tones, and is clearly planning to rescue them.

“Superheroes” — well, let’s just say I’m going to have a “least favorite” track on every album. There are four songs on the album that I would consider ridiculously repetitive, even given the genre of music we’re talking about. They are: Aerodynamic, Superheroes, High Life, and Veridis Quo. Of those four, three of them seem justified in their repetition and have enough variation to hold my attention. But not Superheroes. This song tends to annoy me, at least until the looped vocal sample “in the air!” fades out. In this scene, the Crescendolls are performing a concert. Shep uses some sort of crazy hang-glider to dive into the outdoor stadium and land on-stage. He uses some sort of sophisticated clicky device to disable the mind control devices (sun-glasses with little nodes on the one corner) for three of the four band members. However, he (unfortunately) hesitates when he sees Stella, and Darkwood himself blocks the signal by standing in the way. Two elite security guards chase Shep and the three male band members (who are now no longer under Darkwood’s control, but don’t remember who they really are yet either). In a car chase scene at the end of this song, the security guards shoot a bullet that hits Shep in the shoulder (he bleeds yellow-gold, like any good alien would). The guards are then destroyed when they hit a truck due to driving on the wrong side of the road. Awesome.

But it turns out those guards are robots. They get patched up and we’re on to the next scene. The music for this scene is “High Life,” which uses a female vocal loop. During this scene, attention is paid to Stella, who remains under Darkwood’s control. The ultra-looped, ultra-catchy music is sure to get stuck in your head, and the timing between the music and the film is perfect. In this scene, Stella gets dressed up “real purdy” and joins Darkwood at an awards ceremony. Four bands are nominated, including Daft Punk (who make a quick, animated cameo appearance in this scene). Of course, the Crescendolls win. When Darkwood and Stella walk to the stage to accept their award (a gold album plate), Darkwood is so focused on the prize that he forgets about Stella, who is freed by Baryl (now holding the clicky device!). She is flagged to join them, and they hop in a van and escape to an abandoned warehouse.

There, they find a weak, bleeding, *dying* Shep. They’re grateful for rescuing them, but they still don’t understand who they are, or who he is. During the heartbreaking vocal track “Something About Us,” all is revealed, yet it takes no spoken words on Shep’s part to explain everything. We see an imaginary world where Shep and Stella dance, one final time, and then Shep dies. But he leaves them with a few parting gifts: a crystal that can deflect bullets (what?) and also a little music box that shows the four band members, not as the Crescendolls, but as blue-skinned folk jamming out on their instruments. Suddenly, they realize what’s been done. At least partially. They’ve not yet regained their memories, but they now know what they need to do.

Regarding the song, it is simply beautiful. Forced, strained English words are sung on octave unison by two males. “I love you more than anyone in my life.” Then the Rhodes keyboard kicks in, the guitar and other funky sounds keep things groovy, but it’s all so morose. And beautiful. And…yeah. Awesome.

Now then, they have a dead hero on their hands. The burial scene features the surprisingly uplifting music “Voyager.” This is an instrumental track, and one of my favorites. It has acoustic guitar and a lot of other instruments, and the dynamic variation is fantastic. It really will stick with you if you give it a chance. In terms of the scene, the four people drive in a van, pass by cool scenery, and eventually find a grassy hill with a tree where they do some digging and bury Shep. During this burial service, Shep’s soul breaks the surface of the soil and floats into the sky. He leaves a gift: flowers.

For some reason, I always think “Veridis Quo” is longer than it really is. It’s the second longest track on the album, sure, but the end piece “Too Long” is double the length. Anyway, this is another instrumental piece with a Baroque/Classical feel. The name is a pun: Veridis Quo could be read as “Very Disco” (and it has a disco-remix vibe to it), but it can also be interpreted in a bastardization of Latin as “Where Truth Lies.” And it is during this scene that the most exciting, and most ridiculous, revelations are made. The four band members, using a business card Stella had on-hand, find the location of “Darkwood Manor,” a huge and creepy mansion surrounded by woods. When they get there, they explore what they initially believe to be an abandoned house. They find a book that serves as a diary for Earl de Darkwood. And now the truth comes out. Ready?

First, Earl de Darkwood isn’t human. He’s an alien too. His father crash-landed on earth and died, leaving little Earl to find his own way. And find it he did. Somehow he is achieving near-immortality and also plans to achieve world domination by taking control of all the musicians of the galaxy. According to the mythology of his own book, once he has 5,555 “gold records” (symbolizing world-wide acceptance of these hits) on planet earth, he will magically take control of the universe. In flashbacks, we see the same machines the Crescendolls went through during Harder, Faster… being used on alien forms of Mozart, Aretha Franklin, and other generic musician archetypes. That’s right friends, little-kid Mozart was actually an *alien* kidnapped by Earl de Darkwood. Yeah, now we’re getting into real crazy territory.

Of course they weren’t alone in the mansion. Veridis Quo, as a musical piece, starts to build in intensity as the four band members are led, at gunpoint, by the security guards to a magical tower where we find Darkwood and a bunch of cloaked cult members who worship him. There, he has a collection of gold records lining a cylindrical tower and the walls of this room, which apparently is the opening of a volcano. Darkwood takes Stella into his arms and puts her into a human-shaped cavity of the tower, where she begins to have generic “anime-life-energy” sucked out of her. It’s clearly painful, and Arpegius won’t stand for it! Some jump kicks and stealing the guns from the robot guards is all it takes: Stella is free, the 5,555th record (“One More Time”) is not used to allow Darkwood to take over the universe, and Darkwood falls into the volcano. His cult worshipers eagerly jump in with him.

Problem solved, right? Oh wait, our heroes are still missing their memories and are light years from home. With the climax out of the way, the resolution is actually a comfortable, beautiful ride forward, though there are moments of tension.

“Short Circuit” serves as another instrumental transition piece, much the same way “Nightvision” did, though this is a significantly longer piece. Here, our heroes intend to find some clues to their real existence. Almost wandering blind, they still have one lead: a character I forgot to introduce earlier. In the scene “Crescendolls,” we’re introduced to a producer of a record label: a young, chipper man who clearly loves the Crescendolls’ music but was nevertheless duped by the evil Earl de Darkwood. The band heads to the location of this record label in hopes of finding something, anything, to help them. For this operation, Octave is on board. He tackles a janitor and steals his clothes, then sneaks around the building. He finds some diskettes in a locker marked for the Crescendolls, but as he finds them, security guards arrive on them. They mistake a motion from Octave as being him pulling out a gun, so the guards taze him. The electric shock somehow wears away the paint, and he turns from the dark brown painted skin to his natural blue. The guards naturally freak out and the record producer shows up to see what happened.

At this point, everything could go horribly wrong. “Short Circuit” is a very intense piece, very sharp, very electronic. Had someone else been writing the story, the next two songs could be incredibly sad and the story could have ended with the aliens being imprisoned, experimented on, or killed. Instead, the record producer and a crack team of scientists discover the truth about the universe and also decide to “do the right thing.”

“Face to Face” is, without question, my favorite track on the album. This is a vocal track, and the lyrics are about reconciling differences and the power of working things out “Face to Face.” Musically, it’s all kinds of catchy. Everyone must love this song. That’s an order!

In the scene, equally positive things happen. The record producer, cops, and scientists discover Darkwood’s various hideouts around the world. They discover the brainwash machine, they learn all the other things the band members learned. They also discover what’s on the diskettes Octave found — their true memories! They get their true memories put back into them, and *then* they find Shep’s old ship and repair it! Using data from Darkwood’s manors, they discover how the whole wormhole/warp thing works, and they happily send the heroes on their way. But not before thousands of people gather to wish them farewell. The Crescendolls, in their “true blue” form, put on their original clothes and fly home. Change scene and change song.

“Too Long” is self-descriptive, don’t you think? This piece is 10 minutes! But it’s a good thing they made the song so long so they could fit the ending scene into the movie! Here, the band flies through a wormhole, but the evil soul of Darkwood chases them! But then the soul of Shep shows um and saves them! Awesome! Then they come out in the middle of space. They don’t know what they’re doing and they don’t know how to fly the ship. Eventually, though, a signal is picked up on their home planet, and the people at their space station make contact with the band members. Awesome! They land, and there’s a party. But here’s the best part: in setting up this weird wormhole, apparently humanity sent with them the technology meant to send signals faster than light. So a real-time concert is broadcast on the band’s home planet and on earth. The universe is in harmony and we party to the second half of the piece “Too Long.” Then, a memorial statue is revealed for Shep, and everyone salutes it. Finally, the camera pulls out of the sky, out of the planet, out of the galaxy, and out the whole way til we see a vinyl record playing, and we see a young boy tucked in with Crescendolls action figures around his bed. His eyes are closed, and his parents put a blanket over him. Aww! It’s a beautiful story and it’s fun for the whole family!

Let me say this, just so I can clearly and unequivocally make my statement: this project would’ve sucked if either of the two key elements had failed. If this was good music with a crappy anime movie, then no one would want to watch it. If the music was bad but they still went and made a decent movie, it would suck because the soundtrack was a failure. But this was a creative meeting of the minds. Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto made something beautiful together, and it’s something you shouldn’t miss. Buy the CD. Buy the movie. Get it all. This stuff is relatively popular, but for some reason game and anime geeks haven’t really caught onto it. I promise you, this one isn’t just for Daft Punk heads. It’s for the Otaku fanboys, it’s for the audiophiles, it’s for everyone who likes good music and a good story. Get to it!