August 18, 2004
Boston Globe
VH1 has lost its way over the years. It has turned into a dull pageant of entertainment filler about "The Maxim Hot 100" and celebrity workouts and diets -- anything, it seems, but music. And so "Soundtrack to War," which was excerpted in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," arrives as a welcome exception. The affecting documentary, which premieres tonight at 9, uses music as a way to look at human beings, and not just at their awesomely bad hair.
The best sequences in "Soundtrack to War" are of soldiers singing and rapping their own songs directly to the camera, spontaneously and usually without accompaniment. In their dusty uniforms, under the unobscured sun, facing their loved ones, they personally deliver their fears, their rage, and their sorrow. Their voices are off-key and shaky, mostly, but that only makes them even more poignant. Two guys who call themselves Private Joe sing a Staind-like dirge to friends they've lost in battle. A group of soldiers, clapping for rhythm, sing an a cappella gospel song to God while gunfire cracks in the background. Janel Daniels, a more polished singer with "American Idol"-like vocal flourishes, launches into a downbeat hip-hop song she wrote called "Home of the Brave."
Most of the soldiers sing their grassroots tunes without lyric sheets -- as if they've been reciting them like mantras to themselves during warfare. Without preparation, the ones who rap call out their dense lyrics like old-fashioned rat-a-tat wire services, the beats pounding in their heads. More
Posted by acapnews at August 18, 2004 8:14 AM
