Yes, it’s true. We’ve been hard on Jared Hess’ “Gentlemen Broncos,” cause it just looks… not like our thing… and right now it’s sitting at a rather poor 12% score on Rotten Tomatoes so maybe our prejudging distaste for the silly looking film is very justified (though our reviewer, who didn’t love it, was kinder to it than the consensus).
But we will say this, the music featured in the film is rather excellent and well-chosen. Curated by soundtrack supervisor Randall Poster (every Wes Anderson film), it’s not necessarily articulated in our review, but the writer who saw it emailed me and said the music use was “fantastic.” The score was done by a buddy of ours, David Gordon Green’s go-to composer David Wingo (who’s also in the excellent folky-rock band Ola Podrida), but sadly we haven’t heard any of that music yet.
We checked and realized that there was no soundtrack disc being released so we figured we’d let those that were interested in discovering all the music featured in the film have a peek (make your own disc). It’s pretty inspired intentional cheese and cornball throughout with a lot of relaxation and meditation new age-y music (John Two Hawk and classically trained guitarist and lutenist Ray Lynch) that’s incredibly ridiculous and really amusing to hear.
You never know, you might find you like some of these undiscovered gems. The Zager & Evans’ track, “In The Year 2525” is a particularly kind of Nebraskan ’70s rock-pop awesome (it plays over the opening credits). And the choices are so interesting — a lot of overblown ’70s boogie schmaltz like David Bromberg and Kansas; several tracks by cheesy American Indian flute virtuoso John Two-Hawk; ironic use of Black Sabbath and the Scorpions — we almost want to go out and see the movie to see how the music is used. Much of it is intentionally fromage, like Cher’s very country-like, “Just Like Jesse James,” but we must assume that might help the amusement factor. Just digging up these tracks and listening to them all was a gas, so that in itself is saying something.
All The Songs Featured In “Gentlemen Broncos”
“In The Year 2525” – Zager & Evans
“Act Naturally” – Buck Owens
“What A Town” – David Bromberg
“Cedar Dreams” – John Two-Hawks
“Twilight” – John Two-Hawks
“First Flight” – John Two-Hawks
“Winds of Stillness” – John Two-Hawks
“John Sebastion’s Girl” – Shara Joyce and Rory O’Donoghue
“The Oh Of Pleasure” – Ray Lynch and Tom Canning
“Beautiful Girl” – Studio Musicians
“Wind Of Change” – Scorpions
“New World Anthem” – Jeremy Wall
“Celtic Voyage” – Joel Bevan
“Moment Of Truth” – APM Music
“Celestial Soda Pop” – Ray Lynch
“Tiny Geometries” – Ray Lynch
“Just Like Jesse James” – Cher
“Don Carlo” – RMI Music
“Paranoid”- Black Sabbath
“Carry On Wayward Son” – Performed by Kansas
