Fingerprints Music

Reviews:

Whatever else you may say about soundtracks, one can always achieve a specialunderstanding of the music industry's logic when listening to their contents.The "Blade" soundtracks are a good example, since both have used electronicmusic in different ways, depending on the then-prevailing attitude towards thegenre. The first one featured a by-and-large exclusively techno soundtrack byCrystal Method-soundalikes Expansion Union, since at that time people thoughtthat maybe the masses were ready to swallow the sound straight-up. Nobody believesthis anymore, so now that it's time for a sequel, somebody figured to teamup the bigger electronic names with some name hip-hop MCs, just so people whodon't care about the music have a personality to play with up front. Thisis an extremely sad thing to acknowledge, and even sadder when one realizeshow dull and uninspired most of these offerings happen to be.

It doesn't help that most of the tracks here have been previously released,with an MC grafted on for added effect. Sometimes, when the proper match ismade, sparks do fly—Redman, for one, flows in so perfectly with the Gorillazbacking track with his cartoony rap that they should consider drawing him intothe band. But most of this is just standard call-and-response clichésthat sound like they were all done on a very tight deadline. Moby and Mystikalbarely sound like they're trying on "Getting Aggressive," andEve's lame brained rap on Fatboy Slim's perfunctory "Cowboy"is the sort of stuff that makes people who hate hip-hop hate it even more. Perhapson some cross-marketing level, soundtracks like Blade II serve theirpurpose regardless of the quality of the music involved. But true dance musicfans won't be very pleased by the gesture.