Album Review: T2 Trainspotting (Soundtrack) (2017)

I initially intended to pick up a copy of the Trainspotting 2 soundtrack via an online download, but then I realised it was far more fitting to grab a CD version of the album – something that pays homage to the era of the original (movie and OST) and the inherent sense of nostalgia that comes with a cult movie sequel of this nature.

Nothing screams “the 1990s” louder than a CD, and of course, buying the CD meant I could also satisfy my collector/OCD tendencies by stacking the latest version on a shelf alongside CD copies of the two previous Trainspotting soundtrack albums (reviews here). It’s the little things, right?

That sort of attention to detail wouldn’t be lost on the Trainspotting 2 soundtrack compilers, and there’s real synergy (ugh, sorry) between the 1996/1997 albums and this new edition, including returns for Iggy Pop, with a beefy Prodigy-mixed ‘Lust For Life’, Blondie, with ‘Dreaming’, and a couple of tracks from Underworld, with the epic ‘Born Slippy’ getting a ‘Slow Slippy’ makeover this time around.

And just like the original(s), T2 contains an absorbing blend of the “old” and the “new”: in addition to the aforementioned grizzled campaigners, The Clash (‘White Man’), Frankie (‘Relax’), Queen (‘Radio Gaga’), and Run DMC (‘It’s Like That’), all sit comfortably alongside next generation notables like Wolf Alice (‘Silk’), High Contrast (‘Shotgun Mouthwash’), and the Mercury Prize-winning Edinburgh hip hop crew, Young Fathers, who offer up three tracks including ‘Only God Knows’, which gets the benefit of some backing from the Leith Congregational Choir.

As ever, the litmus test for a successful soundtrack is not just about whether or not it accurately represents the mood and sounds of the movie, but how it pieces together or flows when removed from the context of that cinema experience. Does it stand-up as a compelling listen in its own right?

In the case of the T2 OST, despite what might normally be considered a potentially disastrous pick n’ mix magpie approach, a tracklisting that spans some five decades, I think it stacks up well.

And that’s not just because the album has, like the movie itself, a massive slab of nostalgia right at its core, it’s also because it acknowledges that life moves on, and because it celebrates the present every bit as much as it clings to the past. Which is not something we can say every day of the week up here on the distinctly retro-fitted top floor of everythingsgonegreen towers.

Highly recommended, and if you like a bit of street violence with your black comedy/drama, then the movie is not a bad watch either. As with the original movie, many of the best scenes involve a toilet of some description (ahem) ...

Trainspotting To Return?

There were reports this week that Danny Boyle has plans to make (and direct) a sequel to his classic movie Trainspotting, 20 years after our last encounter with Edinburgh’s most famous on-screen schemies, Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy et al. The basis for such a movie, or at least its script, would be Irvine Welsh’s novel Porno, an inferior book to the original Trainspotting but one that nonetheless revisits the lives of the Trainspotting characters a notional ten years on.

One of the very best things about the original movie, of course, was its (then) state-of-the-art soundtrack, a real favourite of mine throughout the late Nineties. There was also a sequel to the original soundtrack, Trainspotting 2, which was released just over a year after the first one. Here are my reviews for each of those albums:

Trainspotting OST (1996)

Now here’s a thing – a great soundtrack doing justice to a great movie. Not something that can always be taken as an automatic given, but considering this movie’s content, theme, setting, and target market, the compilers of the Trainspotting OST album were always likely to be onto a winner providing they got the mix right. Which they do.

Released around the same time as the Brit-Pop “wave” was reaching its zenith, it’s hardly surprising that the album includes cuts from several bands at the forefront of that scene: Blur (‘Sing’), Pulp (‘Mile End’), Elastica (‘2:1’), and Sleeper (with a cover of Blondie’s ‘Atomic’). Damon Albarn also appears in his solo guise on ‘Closet Romantic’.

There’s a nod towards the omnipresent techno genre, a staple of the Nineties, with class acts Underworld, with the classic ‘Born Slippy’, and Leftfield, with 'A Final Hit'. Plus we also get Bedrock and KYO’s rather more forgettable brief moment in the sun ‘For What You Dream Of’.

New Order (‘Temptation’) and Primal Scream (‘Trainspotting’) provide genuine highlights, but the real feature of this album – one that distinguishes it from other more run-of-the-mill compilations – are the contributions made by the grizzled old veterans Lou Reed (on ‘Perfect Day’), Brian Eno (‘Deep Blue Day’), and Iggy Pop (with the magnificent ‘Lust For Life’ and ‘Nightclubbing’). You simply don’t get any more iconic than that trio, and their presence alongside more youthful contenders here provides for an exceptional balance and a soundtrack that offers great variation.

Highly recommended ... and certainly a leading contender for the best soundtrack album of the Nineties.

Trainspotting 2 (1997)

The second volume is the lesser heralded of the two. Part of the reason for that, I suspect, is the overkill factor. Individually these are excellent tracks but I’m struggling to recall the presence of many of them in the movie itself, and it could well be that some of these selections are merely “inspired by” the movie rather than “featured in” – I’m really not certain, to be honest.

Three tracks from the first edition (albeit different versions) feature a second time around – Underworld’s 'Born Slippy' gets a remix, as does Iggy Pop’s ‘Nightclubbing’, and Leftfield is back with a longer taste of ‘A Final Hit’.

Underworld and Iggy actually contribute two tracks each, with the welcome addition of the techno duo’s ‘Dark And Long’, and Iggy’s classic ‘The Passenger’. We also find Iggy’s pal David Bowie in fine form with ‘Golden Years’, and the drama quotient is upped considerably with a brief foray into ‘Habenera’ from ‘Carmen’.

As with the first album we again get tracks from Sleeper (‘Statuesque’) and Primal Scream (‘Come Together’). Where we had New Order last time out, we now have Joy Division (‘Atmosphere’), and the smiling Mancs are joined by fellow Eighties stalwarts Heaven 17 (‘Temptation’) and Fun Boy Three (‘Our Lips Are Sealed’).

The obligatory club/dance reference points are provided by Ice MC’s ‘Think About The Way’ and Goldie’s excellent ‘Inner City Life’.

Overall, not bad, not quite as good as the first volume, but again we have a nice blend of the old and the (then) new to keep things nicely balanced. Not as essential as Trainspotting 1 but a bloody good listen all the same.