Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Pandemonium, But In a Good Way

During the Opening Ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics in London, there was a sequence that I really enjoyed.  It was titled 'Pandemonium' and it was a kind of history of the Industrial Revolution.
The visuals were great, especially the rings at the end, but what really got me was the music.  I simply loved it.  But there was a problem.  I couldn't find it to buy, anywhere.  I quickly tracked down the artist, Underworld, and the name of the music, 'And I Will Kiss', but I couldn't buy it.  I couldn't find it as a stand alone single.  Couldn't find it on an Underworld album.  It just wasn't available.
Well, that's not completely true.  It was on the soundtrack for the Olympics, called 'Isles of Wonder', but iTunes didn't have that either.  Amazon didn't either.  I was stuck.  Until I happened to try a couple of weeks ago and found that Amazon had somehow let some used copies slip through the embargo.  Less than $5 later, I bought one, and now I have it.  (Plus, other music used during the ceremonies, including 'Chariots of Fire', which isn't a bad thing to own.)
I can't understand why this wasn't easier to buy.  Putting the material up to buy in America can't be that difficult.  And with downloadable music being everywhere, it's not like they would need to create physical copies to distribute.  Baffling.
I'm genuinely surprised at how hard it is to find certain movies and music.  The movie 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' never had a soundtrack, despite the wonderful and hard to get music all over it.  This should be an obvious 30th anniversary item, set for June of this year.  Who would object to having this out there?  The people that own the rights to the music?  They'd be turning down free money.

Anyway, in this strange and sometimes baffling age, I found something nice that I wanted.  If Rio wows me this summer, I hope the search for their music isn't as hard.