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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk
French avant-pop duo Air's third album is the soundtrack to the Sofia Coppola movie about a brace of teenage sisters whose beauty mesmerises the local boys and whose suicides devastate the community. It's a Gothic, faintly silly romantic fantasy about lust for the unattainable, and Air's enigmatic "pure pop" treatment is the perfect musical backdrop. Tracks like "Playground Love" and "Highschool Lover" are deceptively candy-coated pieces of puppy lover's pop, all sighing saxophones and dippy keyboards, while "Bathroom Girl" is a slo-mo vision of beauty. With the spookier synth pulses and black vibes of "Cemetery Party" and "Dark Messages", however, Air get to signal the weirder undercurrents of the movie, while "Dead Bodies" is a full-on Gothic wig-out complete with a sisterly choir from beyond the grave. --David Stubbs
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
Anyone looking to add to their Air collection of mellow, Moog-noodling synth pop should keep the plastic in their wallet. The new album is still recognisable as a product of the Gallic duo, but this time they've replaced the chilled with the chilling. The whiff of fluffy nostalgia that the brilliant Moon Safari evoked has been swapped for haunting Pink Floyd'esque guitar solos over gothic minor chords. As a soundscape of the alienated adolescent soul this album has all the nape tingling angst of Portishead and Radiohead whilst still retaining an almost coy, childish simplicity.
I am a great fan of artists who work on the fringes of the mainstream and manage to avoid the formulaic approach, evolving with each new album. Virgin Suicides is certainly a departure from their back catalogue, but since it is actually a soundtrack rather than a new body of work we may well see a return from the dark side on their next release.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
This is a fine album, quite different to any of their other material, and therefore it is easy to see why many listeners may be put off by the unexpectedly dark vibes on show. Opener 'Playground Love' is wonderful, at times trippy and mysterious, at others funky, yet retaining the same tragic feel as is seen throughout the album. Other highlights include 'Dirty Trip', 'Highschool Lovers' and the finale 'Suicide Underground', which ends with a chilling passage from the film. Overall, a stylish, original album that may not appeal to Moon Safari fans but will certainly be adored by lovers of real music...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
If you like "Playground Love" (and who doesn't?) then you will adore this album. Its melancholy, skunked-out grooves are not only deeply moving as a background track but simply breathtaking. Put it this way, if the movie's even a third as good as this soundtrack, we're in for a treat. Brilliance.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Guy Peters
Format:Audio CD
Rarely has a soundtrack been a better companion to a movie than in the case of Air's music and Sophie Coppola's directorial debut The Virgin Suicides. The stylishly sleek electro-lounge of the French duo was destined to be used as a film score someday, but it's as if Coppola's dreamy portrayal of teen angst and emotional complexity - an adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' successful novel - could only have existed with this music. Her ultra-precise, sensitive and visually intriguing style of story-telling finds a like-minded companion in the designer-pop of Air: their use of space, minimal beats, analogue keyboards and minor key chords gives the movie a modern and trendy, yet timeless quality that creates an effect an assembly of then contemporary rock songs wouldn't have provided. Just like the movie's tone is consistent, yet never tangible enough to pinpoint, so does Air's music usually retain a mystifying quality, an unwillingness to give away the emotional depth that might be buried beneath the layers of meticulously stacked sound blankets. The difference between an album like Moon Safari and this one is that the music serves the movie - despite the fact it's also an integral part of it and is even to a large part responsible for its success - and that Godin and Dunckel were already given the images to which the music needed to be set. As such, the soundtrack is less 'substantial' and less concerned with telling structured stories than their debut album, which despite all other categorisations was still a pop album with "songs".... Read more ›
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By J.E.T
Format:Audio CD
I hadn't really heard any of Air's previous work before I watched 'The Virgin Suicides' but after hearing the haunting soundtrack and the eerie melodies that were so fitting to the film I just had to go out and buy this. It is captivating within itself and is an album that truly makes you think. As a soundtrack it works very well as it is filled with haunting tracks that just make you want to listen again and again.
It will take you back to poignant times in your life and really make you think. I find the tracks so haunting and deep that while listening to them you can really reflect on your emotions and feelings. Although it can sound rather sinister in places it is filled with beautiful tracks which upon listening to reveal their darker themes. A very fitting soundtrack to a wonderful film- you can listen to it on its own or with the film but whichever you choose it will have an impact on you.
It will take you back to poignant times in your life and really make you think. I find the tracks so haunting and deep that while listening to them you can really reflect on your emotions and feelings. Although it can sound rather sinister in places it is filled with beautiful tracks which upon listening to reveal their darker themes. A very fitting soundtrack to a wonderful film- you can listen to it on its own or with the film but whichever you choose it will have an impact on you.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
This soundtrack is amazing. AMAZING. Forget about 'Moon Safari', forget about the film, forget about life and just enjoy. I didn't know much of Air before I heard this(besides 'Sexy Boy', which I thought was a nice idea but ultimately a bit too cheesy). Anyway this soundtrack makes me want to buy everything they've ever produced, despite what assorted 'Moon Safari' fans say here about it being far from their best work.
I have one criticism of this soundtrack, which is that some of the tracks are way too short. Air could have made a 60 minute extravaganza here without a lot of effort and a 74 minute masterpiece with a bit of extra work, that's how good the tracks are. As it is, you get 40 minutes of exceptional work - And a work is what it is, this is no french pop album...It reminds me of Pink Floyd in quite a few places, with hints of ambient Aphex Twin and Godspeed You Black Emperor. So think excessively ambient prog rock, with sprinklings of electronica and a generally dark theme throughout.
Basically if you like music, you need this album. It's a great chill-out album, but don't expect it to be just that - the drumming on some of the tracks is fantastic and the epic quality of the whole album just pervades the room you play it in, demanding attention. It's dreamy but gothic, progressive but never over-ambitious, always sublime and if you like the film...so much more than just a soundtrack. You'll know what I mean if you get to hear it.
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4.1 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Virgin suicides
This was apparently No 49 in the all time top 100 French rock albums (rolling stone). Moon safari was about no 68! Read more
Published 5 months ago by A. Dixon
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mood moderator
I bought this album right after watching the movie. It creates a certain atmosphere and is definitely as far as you can get from a hit parade. Read more
Published 12 months ago by U. Nilsson
5.0 out of 5 stars
A breath of fresh claustrophobia from the lisbon house.
Anyone giving this album anything less than 4 stars is guilty of being one of the new generation of instantly gratified 'gimme gimme gimme' breed that must try to suckle at the... Read more
Published on 4 Mar 2011 by yesTHATironingboard
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pink Floyd or Air it aint
Although I have tried to listen to this 3 times now, I have to say I think it's pretty poor. My favourite band of all time is Pink Floyd, and I adore Air, yet this for some reason... Read more
Published on 31 July 2009 by Wibblah
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why everyone should love the Virgin Suicides
When I first heard this CD I had knew very little about AIR. Apart from the renound 'sexy boy' I knew little about what they had produced. Read more
Published on 24 Dec 2003 by MISS E WILLIAMS
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark and broody, sucks you into a velvety world of wonder
Listening to this album is like drowning, except you really don't want to come up for air (air, geddit?). Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2003 by J. E. Hanlon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting
The music from 'The Virgin Suicides' is really beautiful. If one band manages to put together instrumental harmonies with well-placed and well-played synths, from time to time... Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2001 by Bjorn Clasen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting
The music from 'The Virgin Suicides' is really beautiful. If one band manages to put together instrumental harmonies with well-placed and well-played synths, from time to time... Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2001 by Bjorn Clasen
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great soundtrack, good album
Ok so im a fan of soundtrack albums but this stands out as a worthwhile listen in its own right. Reminds me strongly of Pink Floyds 'Dark side of the moon' in places and has a... Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2001 by R. Halton
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's A Score...
... and not a soundtrack. Please bear this in mind when you consider buying this. I think it's brilliant, but it's not an album. Read more
Published on 5 Dec 2000 by Andrew J. Barratt
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