Question concerning Once-related music

[LemonMelon]

I rented Once earlier this evening and was quite surprised by how much I dug the music. Now, I hadn't heard of Glen Hansard before tonight, so I have no idea which album containing music from the film to pick up. It comes down to:

• Once - original soundtrack
• Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová - The Swell Season
• The Frames - The Cost

I just want to know which of these three albums would provide the best overall experience for someone like me who is not knowledgeable of the previous works of the artists involved but loved what he heard.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[got_edge]

The Cost (by the Frames) contains the original versions of Falling Slowly and When Your Mind's Made Up. Think of those as epic, full-band versions of those songs. The album as a whole is - This could be a good starting point if you want to branch out to The Frames

Glen & Markéta worked on their first album, The Swell Season (2006), which became the basis for the movie Once. This contains only 4 songs from the movie and 5 songs not heard in the final version of the film. - This would really be an extension to what you heard in the movie. It's a good record but would provide you with nothing new, style-wise.

The soundtrack has all the songs heard on the movie plus a few new tunes from the duo. The songs previously recorded on their 2006 album were re-recorded for the movie/soundtrack (I think! Someone should back me up on this one.) Aaaaaand, it includes the Hoover-Guy song from the bus scene - This is good if you want to carry the movie around in your pocket.


The best known and acclaimed Frames records are For The Birds (2001), Dance The Devil (1999), and The Cost (2006)... and maybe Burn The Maps (2004). My personal favorite is For The Birds. I don't know if that's the general sentiment around here, but I love it

 

[u2popmofo]

Maybe someone else understands this better than myself, but why were songs from this movie allowed to get Oscar nominations when they'd been recorded more than once by the same artist, but they wouldn't allow Johnny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood because supposedly some of the songs weren't written specifically for the movie?

Regardless, I like that Falling Slowly song a lot.

 

[got_edge]

I'm saying! I was shocked when it qualified for that category.

Clearly, the Academy doesn't care about black puppets

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

it ain't easy bein' brown...

 

[LemonMelon]

The Cost (by the Frames) contains the original versions of Falling Slowly and When Your Mind's Made Up. Think of those as epic, full-band versions of those songs. The album as a whole is - This could be a good starting point if you want to branch out to The Frames

Glen & Markéta worked on their first album, The Swell Season (2006), which became the basis for the movie Once. This contains only 4 songs from the movie and 5 songs not heard in the final version of the film. - This would really be an extension to what you heard in the movie. It's a good record but would provide you with nothing new, style-wise.

The soundtrack has all the songs heard on the movie plus a few new tunes from the duo. The songs previously recorded on their 2006 album were re-recorded for the movie/soundtrack (I think! Someone should back me up on this one.) Aaaaaand, it includes the Hoover-Guy song from the bus scene - This is good if you want to carry the movie around in your pocket.


The best known and acclaimed Frames records are For The Birds (2001), Dance The Devil (1999), and The Cost (2006)... and maybe Burn The Maps (2004). My personal favorite is For The Birds. I don't know if that's the general sentiment around here, but I love it

Thanks for the help, Gottage. I think I'm leaning towards the soundtrack at the moment, but I may pick up the Frames' live record as well to get a larger overview of their song.

 

[corianderstem]

Maybe someone else understands this better than myself, but why were songs from this movie allowed to get Oscar nominations

I had asked the same thing after it won the Oscar, and someone had told me that while the songs were on that album a few years back, they actually had been written for the movie .... it just took quite a while for the movie to come to fruition.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I thought it was weird, too, but I didn't want to complain about it because I'm so happy they won.

 

[Popmartijn]

I rented Once earlier this evening and was quite surprised by how much I dug the music. Now, I hadn't heard of Glen Hansard before tonight, so I have no idea which album containing music from the film to pick up. It comes down to:

• Once - original soundtrack
• Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová - The Swell Season
• The Frames - The Cost

I just want to know which of these three albums would provide the best overall experience for someone like me who is not knowledgeable of the previous works of the artists involved but loved what he heard.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Those three are also the records I have of the moment of Glen and friends. I listed The Cost by The Frames as one of my top 20 records of the decade, so that's an indication of how I think of that album. I think that record has the best version of Falling Slowly. It's a full band one, and pretty intense.
The Once soundtrack is, well, the soundtrack. So it features the songs as performed in the movie. Also very good and it has some songs not featured anywhere else (including the song Glen performed at the beginning of the movie, a very old song he'd written when the director was apparently still in the band!). And those Marketa Irglova songs are wonderful too.
I still consider The Swell Season album a side project. It certainly has some great stuff on it, but it's a bit different from the other two. A bit more singer-songwriter with some classical touches.

So start with The Cost and the Once soundtrack. And buy The Swell Season shortly after.

BTW, for the timeline, I think that the songs were written/recorded first for Once (I'm mainly talking about Falling Slowly and When Your Mind's Made Up). Then Glen and Marketa made that The Swell Season record (or rather, recorded that project). And when it was time for The Frames to record their new album, they re-recorded some of those songs. However, with The Frames having a record deal (and the movie not finished/distributed yet), it was The Cost that was released first, then The Swell Season and finally Once. So in reverse order as they were recorded. Apparently, that's the reason that Falling Slowly was allowed to be included for the Oscars. The Once version was recorded first (though released last).