Movie Soundtracks; Frank (2014)

Frank- (L to R) Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Fassbender and Domhnall Gleeson.

 Frank (2014)

In the late 80s, welsh writer and journalist Jon Ronson replaced Mark Radcliffe as the keyboard player for the Frank Sidebottom band for a number of performances.
He was so intrigued and taken aback by Frank (whose real name is Chris; who’da thunk it?), his life, his music and his eccentricity that it lasted with him for years until he eventually co-wrote the screenplay for Frank, one of the surprisingly few semi-biographical movies to originally start life as an article for the Guardian newspaper.

Although the character of Frank looks quite unmistakeably like Frank Sidebottom (the head is a dead giveaway), there is more inspiration drawn from other eccentric artists in the movie to complete the characters of the Soronprfbs, whom are very much a group of misfits of society, with inspiration seemingly drawn from aforementioned Sidebottom, Captain Beefheart, Yoko Ono, David Bowie and Wilco.

The mysterious and enigmatic Frank takes musical inspiration out of virtually anything around him and has a profounding effect on anyone whom he passes.

Such is a unique trait in a master artist, fictional or otherwise.

Why The Soronprfbs are the best fictional band ever

Despite being primarily a comedy-drama, and focusing more on the topic of mental health and living with mental health; the music in it, written and composed by the genius of Stephen Rennicks, is often very mature and inspiring in a kind of weird and unexplainable way. The movie is just so weird it’s actually beautiful. And the Music reflects that.

Aside from the fact I’ve wanted to bring the Theremin back into music since I began life as a musician; Songs such as Tuft, Again, Broken, Secure the galactic perimeter, although incredibly eccentric are noticeably works of absolute musical mastery. The soundtrack also clearly has the best damn song titles in music history and I’m not shying away from admitting that I’m weird enough to love it.

The Sound of The Soronprfbs spans wildly and outrageously from having a very psychedelic, trippy, improvisational space-rock-meets-Mighty-Joe-Moon vibe to a balladous ambient sound and to acoustic folk.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character Clara even gets her moment in the movie with the intimate and haunting Lighthouse Keeper which is her emotionally numb, vacant and torn response to believing Frank has been extracted from her life due to conflicts with Jon.

It is fair to say that without that song, the character of Clara would not have cut so close to the bone (pun intended. Not even sorry) and is the reason Gyllenhaal was an excellent casting choice.

As deliberately weird as the Soronprfbs are and are supposed to be; Frank’s soundtrack is an album I’ve made it my business to save on Spotify and will listen to whenever the mood captivates me.