Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
Taking a break from his day job fronting rock heavyweight Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder immerses himself into the big-screen story of a young man who gives all his money to charity and hitchhikes to a new life--and his eventual death--in the wilds of Alaska. Prompted by the film's creator, Sean Penn, to contribute to the musical score, the Seattle musician tackled the entire project, playing every instrument on the soundtrack's nine original and two cover songs. Vedder contemplates the traveler "setting forth in the universe" in the opener "Setting Forth," then tracks in the remaining songs the realizations and disillusionments that follow. A wish comes true in banjo-plucked "No Ceiling" to "up and disappear," while affluence is questioned on the hard-rocking "Far Behind," with Vedder singing, "Empty pockets will/Allow a greater sense of wealth." No song in the album's first half exceeds two-and-a-half minutes, remedied by Vedder's pertinent five-minute stamp on the remake of Indio's "Hard Sun," complete with eerie backing vocals by Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. The songwriter puts wealth on the hot seat in "Society," questioning, "If less is more/How you keepin' score?" The darkly sung folk song bookends the reticent declaration "Guaranteed," wonderfully delivered and quietly strummed, in which the prodigal Vedder wraps the journey in one line: "Leave it to me as I find a way to be/Consider me a satellite forever orbiting." (The record is packaged like a hardcover book, with vivid photography and lyrics.) --Scott Holter

Product Description
track listing and sequence subject to change

Album Description
The young, idealistic Christopher McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch abandons all possessions and life as most of us known it for the Alaskan wilderness. This incredible and intense true story has touched a nerve with millions around the world.

Customer Reviews: Read 145 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Into the Wild: The Straight Dope (bonus tracks) September 27, 2007
99 out of 101 found this review helpful

For all those Pearl Jam fans out there, the release of what is essentially a solo acoustic Eddie Vedder album is manna from heaven. Of course, most PJ fans out there these days are in their 4th or 5th decade of life, and there are many young folks who view PJ as outmoded and other naysayers who have grown tired of Ed's gruff, mumbly baritone. But I belong to the first group, so I think this little album is pretty great.

"Into the Wild" is a 30-minutish album that has Eddie playing a variety of acoustic instruments over 11 short tracks. It's classic Vedder, but stripped-down and bare, kind of in the balladic "No Code" or "Binaural" vein with more acoustic strumming and minimal accompaniment. The tunes were written as a movie soundtrack, and having seen the film, it's hard not to picture Emile Hirsch traipsing over hill and dale during the songs. On the other hand, most of the numbers do have lyrics, which is a bit unusual for a soundtrack, and was sometimes distracting for me in the theater. But this review is about the music...

Many of the tunes are upbeat, rocky-mountain-high, kind of anthems, as on "Setting Forth," "Far Behind," and the all-instrumental "Tuolumne." The other half are more introspective, balladic numbers (in keeping with the kind of celebration of freedom/wasteful tragedy duality of Chris McCandless' tale), as on the banjo-inflected "No Ceiling," "Rise" (the ukelele invokes Ed's "Soon Forget" from Binaural or "Goodbye" from A Broke Down Melody -- I'm thinking an all uke-vocal album by Ed would be pretty great), "Long Nights," "Society," and "The End of the Road." "Hard Sun" is a stand-out in a number of ways -- clearly the one number that might either get radio-play or be released as B-side single. Also, it's written by Robert Peterson (aka Indio) and features some backing chorus vocals by Sleater-Kinney frontwoman Corin Tucker (it would be awesome if Ed made a proper single out of "Modern Girl" and released it with "Hard Sun"). It's definitely the big anthem of the album and the only tune over 4 minutes long. "Society" is the other track not written by Ed -- in this case, the author is Jerry Hannan who also sings back-up underneath. "The Wolf" features Ed doing his Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan inspired vocal howling (reminiscent of "Arc" without the overdubs) over an organ drone. And then there's "Guaranteed," a great tune that really has two versions embedded in the same song -- first the vocal version that has Ed singing over acoustic guitar (this was played during the end credits of the movie) and later, in a "hidden track," the "Humming Version" that starts around 4:40 after a minute or two of silence (who invented hidden tracks anyway? why would I want to endure two minutes of silence or have to press fast forward to get to more music?). The humming version is what opens the film, and features Ed humming the sweet soulful melody over the same guitar rhthym. So for me, the standout tracks are "Hard Sun," "Guaranteed," "Setting Forth," "Far Behind", "Rise," and "The Wolf." That's half the album, so you can see I think it's all pretty great and will leave fans itching for a real solo album someday.

This review wouldn't be complete without some discussion about iTunes. iTunes has available, for $2 more, the "deluxe version" of this album (NOT sold here at Amazon), which augments the original soundtrack with 4 more numbers -- "No More" (a cover) and "Photographs" (a short instrumental) lifted from the soundtrack to the documentary 'Body of War,' a live version of "No More," and a live version of "Here's to the State," one of Ed's concert staples that has him railing against various operatives in the Bush administration. iTunes also sells "Guaranteed (Humming Version)" as a separate track, but it's just the "hidden track" from the 7-minute "Guaranteed" that isn't available as a single downloadable track. Since the original soundtrack is only about a half-hour long, most fans will welcome the extra 12 minutes of music, but the truth is the tunes don't completely fit with the rest of the album and some will no doubt find the strong political messages of "No More" (War) and "Here's to the State," typical of Ed, tiring.

And so, "Into the Wild" is a short little album written as a movie soundtrack that is loaded with little gems by Eddie Vedder on vocals and acoustic strings. If you like Ed and can put up with the brevity of the songs themselves and the album as a whole, it's sure to please, and leave you wishing there were more. And there is a little more, only if you're interested you'll have to get it from iTunes... or somewhere else ;).

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Film Soundtrack September 18, 2007
48 out of 52 found this review helpful

This album written directly for the Sean Penn directed film "Into The Wild" (based on the best selling book by Jon Krakaur) is an excellent representation of the film soundtrack. It is not a mis-mosh of gathered songs that just happen to evoke, or hopefully evoke, the emotion and sentiment on screen. These are carefully crafted songs - deliberate in their sparce space, their tone and stripped down production.

Take a listen to the excellent "Society" - my favorite track on the album. It has a discord and yearning that is unlike most other songs I've heard. It rings, in sentiment and proper placement, much like the Bruce Springsteen penned "Streets of Philadelphia". No, it is NOT like "Streets of Philadelphia" but it fits much like that song does - the song fits the film, fits the emotion, fits the conditions. That is not an easy thing to do.

Finding the correct songs to fill a soundtrack, is not an easy thing and kudos should be sent to those involved with asking/requesting/pleading with Eddie Vedder to make a departure from Pearl Jam and try his hand. His take on the emotions - his vision of Sean Penn's vision - is very true to the film (and to the book, actually).

I can whole heartedly recommend this cd. It is NOT a Pearl Jam rocker - but it is a deeply moving accompanyment to a wonderful story. Much as the story goes, so goes the music - whimsical at times, stripped to the bare, reaching, searching, etc. It's a very well done soundtrack.

I can honestly say that several of the songs on this collection might be Academy Award worthy. Let's hope others feel the same way.

Highly Recommended.

5 out of 5 stars

Great Music... September 24, 2007
41 out of 44 found this review helpful

When I was a teenager I read Into the Wild. The book has haunted me ever since. While I have yet to see the movie, I can say that the music is worthy of the story it serves to help tell.

The story of Chris McCandless touches on something locked deep in the heart of almost every young American male that has ever lived. It is about the search for freedom, for the wild, for truth.

The songs on this disc are echoes of those goals/thoughts.

In a disc of strong songs, I find Rise to be my favorite. It is not the longest or most profound song here, but it reaches out. It calls us on.

Eddie Vedder was a great choice, maybe the pefect choice, for this CD. He takes a step sideways from his usual Pearl Jam fare. He has made a GREAT CD.

I give the Soundtrack for Into the Wild my highest recommendation.

1 out of 5 stars

Not the Soundtrack November 21, 2007
13 out of 35 found this review helpful

This CD is billed as "the soundtrack" to the movie. Not so. Key contributors have neen excised from the CD and it's left pretty much as an Eddie Vedder solo project. The movie benefited greatly from the terrific harmonica work of Charlie Musselwhite, for exemple. Charlie's nowhere to be found on "the soundtrack." This may be a very good CD, but I'm disappointed that other musicians who made significant contributions to the film had their work treated so cavalierly.

5 out of 5 stars

If you can only buy one more CD....... October 29, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

My wife and I stumbled out of a Manhattan theater in stunned silence. In San Diego, so did my 22 year-old stepson. So has everyone I've urged to see "Into the Wild".

The film is the story of Christopher McCandless, who graduated from college (Emory, '92), then left civilization behind to experience life without constraints. His death in Alaska few months later made him a worthy subject for Jon Krakauer. But the story he tells in his book, "Into the Wild," is even better inspiration for a film, especially when the writer-director is Sean Penn.

Think what you will about Penn --- the guy has guts to spare. He stands up for what he believes and he doesn't mumble when he offers unpopular ideas. And in his acting, as in his life, he's always searching for the authentic --- just remember that scene in "Mystic River" when he tries to bull his way through a wall of cops to get to the body of his murdered daughter.

So his movie does not touch hardcore New Yorkers and West Coast surfer/law students and all kinds of people in between because we share a love of raw Nature in Alaska --- Penn didn't make a movie about a kid who stepped out of civilization with just a bag of rice and a book about edible plants to get him through. Nor did he make this film to ask us to decide: "Chris McCandless --- was he an idiot?" The questions he asks in this movie are much larger: freedom, identity, community. That is, the questions obsessing us just below the surface of our most ordinary days.

We watch this long movie that has an ending we already know with something like obsession because Chris McCandless carries our proxy. At one time or other, we all want to walk out of the familiar. And, far more often, we think of "freedom" nostalgically --- as something we once had.

But Chris McCandless....he's going for it. And the film goes it for it with him --- it's about stepping through doors, moving through landscape, seeking an ever-widening sky. And then there's the music, which is even more expansive and exuberant.

This is not "soundtrack" music, a grab bag of songs cobbled together to provide a revenue stream. This is Eddie Vedder, usually the leader of Pearl Jam, here solo, with stripped-down instrumentation and blunt lyrics:

I knew all the rules
But the rules did not know me
Guaranteed

Imagine that in Vedder's baritone --- singing so truthful it merges with the quest of the movie. The words progress from leaving the known world ("Society/You're a crazy breed/I hope you're not lonely/Without me") to motion ("Gonna rise up/Turning mistakes into gold") to a message so primal it's really chanting ("I am...I AM").

I've read a bunch of civilian reviews of Vedder's soundtrack, many saying something like this: "It's simply awesome. I can't find the words to describe how it affected me at a soul level." Oddly, though I usually have words pouring out of my fingertips, I'm at a bit of a loss myself. I mean, this CD is just 30+ minutes long (and it repeats one song). Pearl Jam's nowhere to be found. And yet "Into the Wild" is stuck in my player, or, rather, re-player --- it can pump me up all morning if I'm not careful.

Is it depressing? Not in the least. This is traveling music --- highway travel and interior journey --- that has an uncanny ability to re-create the feelings you have when you've broken free of the pack and the road is clear. Death may await, but not here. This is about the glory of risk, the sweetness of freedom, the crisp breath of purity.

Do you need to have seen the movie to love this music? Not at all. To hear the music is to see the movie. Or, more correctly, your movie, the film in which you star and sprint and soar and roar --- music as great as you are in most glorious moments.

Beware: Repeated listening could cast a spell on you. And that spell could make you very sane.

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