All That Glitters...

I have liked every song associated with the twilight franchise so far, with the exception of Robert Pattinson's insipid folk offering. Decode is good, I don't usually like Death Cab For Cutie but I liked Meet Me On The Equinox and Neutron Star Collision is brilliant in its pomp. Additionally, the "soundtrack" albums (they aren't really soundtracks, just a bunch of associated songs) read like a who's who of (good) indie and alternative music, with the Eclipse album featuring Metric, The Dead Weather, Florence and the Machine and UNKLE, to name a few. I'm all for getting great talent together in one place, but hot damn do I feel conflicted about the Twilight brand being on it. I'm gonna come clean, I have read all four books, and I did derive some enjoyment out of the first one. The thing is, the fact that it is very thinly veiled religious propaganda and the retarded level of fandom associated with it (I've seen fifty-year-old housewives wearing "Team Edward" shirts) makes me want to ignore it and avoid ever having to acknowledge that, during the course of my life, it existed at all. It's like Pokemon, except instead of having a mouse that shoots electricity (awesome) you have a mopey vampire who avoids fucking his wife (it's in the third book, if I remember correctly). I've trumpeted the "enjoy music for music, not its associated trappings" tune long and hard and I enjoy the music of some artists whose personalities or image i quite dislike, but I can't seem to let this one go. It's not even the "sellout" argument; a lot of the music that goes onto said soundtracks is pretty accurately representative of the artist's styles anyway. I suppose, in the end, ingredients like vampires, Ashley Greene and good music may be awesome on their own, but they may not necessarily add up to something good, especially with a Mormon at the helm.