Rating: NNN
Whenever he decides he’s done living out his violent revenge fantasies on the big screen, there’s a good chance Quentin Tarantino’s legacy will be as much musical as cinematic. His soundtracks to Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown are classics, carefully chosen collections that recontextualize hit songs alongside dust-bin rarities with impressive internal coherence. Django Unchained marks the first time the director has supplemented his crate-digging curation with commissioned original compositions.
Unfortunately, the best of the originals, Frank Ocean’s soul ballad Wiseman, didn’t make the cut (he leaked it himself, though). But those by Rick Ross, John Legend and iconic composer Ennio Morricone match the film’s mashup of spaghetti western and blacksploitation tropes in a slightly less problematic fashion. There’s even an actual mashup: a combo of 2pac and James Brown that scores Django’s bloodiest shootout. Not Tarantino’s most essential soundtrack, but maybe his most original.
Top track: 100 Black Coffins, by Rick Ross
