MUSiC 4 LUV: OBAMA'S SECRET SOUNDTRACK

Friday, January 16, 2009

OBAMA'S SECRET SOUNDTRACK

Am I the only one that didn't know about this?

Here’s a flash from the music world: while the rest of us were enjoying the holidays, Hidden Beach Records honcho Steve McKeever and movie music supervisor Bonnie Greenberg have been hard at work putting together a special CD tied to Barack Obama’s inauguration.

The CD features a dozen stars including Stevie Wonder, who contributed a totally new track called “All About the Love Again.” The single, destined to be Wonder’s biggest hit in more than a decade, is a sizzling fresh slice of R&B, very updated and ready to embraced in remixes, etc.

The other artists on the album include Maroon 5 with their own new track, “Pure Imagination (2009),” plus will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas, Sheryl Crow, Lenny Kravitz, India.Arie, Melissa Etheridge, Usher, James Taylor, Jennifer Hudson, Death Cab for Cutie, Ozomatli, Robin Thicke, The Tony Rich Project, Wilco, Bebe Winans, rapper Common, Lionel Richie, and Melissa Etheridge.

McKeever and Greenberg, with an even bigger committee, worked tirelessly to put together a combination of artists and songs based on the songs’ themes and lyrics, too.

Unlike most compilation CDs, the Obama Soundtrack is full of new, catchy very hot material — no retreads or musty pieces from the vaults. All the artists, I am told by sources, were paid on the same level no matter how big or small they considered themselves. And that, I’ve heard in the music industry, caused a little problem as the always charming Warner M. Group refused to make deals for any of their artists including anything from the Atlantic vaults. I’m sure, in fact, that Aretha Franklin has no idea that requests for a couple of her classic tracks like “A Change is Gonna Come”—were declined. The M in WMG now stands for Miserly.

But the Obama Soundtrack should also be collector’s item purchase since it includes a DVD of several speech clips from the new US president. The CD, by the way, intersperses pieces of Obama speeches throughout the new songs. For example, I don’t know much about the Tony Rich project, but I love their contribution called “The Dream is Real.”