Baz Luhrmann’s film Moulin Rouge! is a musical of a kind you’ve never quite seen before. Though set in Paris in 1899, it makes use of a plethora of late-20th-century songs, reworked and often collaged into medleys. The combination of these with the film’s delirious, luxuriant visuals add up to an experience that leaves one somewhat stunned.
The soundtrack in CD form retains much of that impact, which is hardly a surprise given that Luhrmann made a huge success of two volumes of songs related to his modern-dress take on Romeo and Juliet.
The Moulin Rouge (it loses its exclamation mark on the CD) soundtrack (UNI/Interscope) kicks off with David Bowie covering Eden Ahbez’s oldie Nature Boy, which contains the movie’s central message: ”The greatest thing you’ll ever learn / is to love and be loved in return.” It will later reappear to close the collection in a version backed by Massive Attack.
The overall principle of the soundtrack, as with the movie itself, is pastiche. The keynote is variety. Fatboy Slim is the exception, in that he contributes a new song of his own, though pastiche has long been his stock-in-trade. For the rest of it, Beck does a version of Bowie’s Diamond Dogs, and Valeria provides the retro-disco number with Dianne Warren’s Rhythm of the Night. The Police’s Roxanne is reworked into a menacing tango that is arguably more compelling than the original, and Christina Aguilera, Li’l Kim, Mya and Pink participate in a thumping, driving remake of the Patti LaBelle hit Lady Marmalade, while Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer redo Marc Bolan’s Children of the Revolution.
Madonna’s Material Girl meets Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, from the Marilyn Monroe musical of the same name, to provide a dazzling production number for Nicole Kidman, playing the courtesan-star of the Moulin Rouge. She and love interest Ewan McGregor, not previously known for their singing, acquit themselves well, and the CD’s highlight is their duet in the entirely over-the-top but somehow very touching Elephant Love Medley, which is a tissue of (mis)quotations from various love songs, from All You Need Is Love to Heroes.
What’s missing is the hilarious all-male version of Madonna’s Like a Virgin. Perhaps that will appear on volume two.