Philip Glass - Powaqqatsi 1988 Film (18 tracks) +Album Reviews

Still my favorite CD

Lisa A. Flaherty | Florida | 01/13/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Out of all the music in my collection -- from classical to alternative to international to pop -- this is still and always my favorite.The music is uplifting and disturbing at the same time. I saw the movie a few years ago, and would love to purchase it. If you were lucky enough to have seen it, you'll recall the wonderful, and disturbing images, that mirror the film's soundtrack.Even though some people today associate this music with "The Truman Story," it transcends and precedes that. The music stands alone. Just popping it into the CD player in rush hour traffic makes me feel like I'm doing something monumental. This CD has power and soul, and I say that about no other music I've yet heard.I just can't wait until they bring the video back into print!"

Ignorance No Barrier

Bryan L. White | Duncanville, Texas USA | 02/19/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I frankly admit that I dont know anything about 20th Century serious composers-I mainly listen to jazz-but this album is astonishing. I have to admit that some of Glass' other works,like "The Photographer," don't excite me very much. But the music on this CD is wonderful.On the strength of this album and the other soundtracks for this trilogy I've been carefully buying other Glass CDs. If some customer stumbles on to this album and is intimidated or turned off by Glass' reputation as a "serious" composer,let me assure them that this is an album that almost anyone can sit down and listen to and enjoy. Don't let his reputation as a "classical" composer who works with orchestras prevent you from grabbing this incredible CD. You don't have to be a highbrow to listen to this"

Beyond Film Music

Lisa A. Flaherty | 01/19/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is some of Philip Glass' best work. Less hypnotically repetitive than Canyon music or Thin Blue Line and capable of standing alone as a concert piece. The Anthem motif has been heard time and again: including multiple movie trailers where they haven't figured out the final score to Truman Show and TV ads. It builds to a wonderful climax with a Moazzin calling the faithful to prayer. Stunning! They should release the DVD. The VHS is [bad]"

Real good lis'nin music. Stunning, humane and eerie

Stefan Jones | Suburbs of Portland, OR | 05/07/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the soundtrack to Godfrey Reggio's film of the same name; a sorta-sequel to "Koyaanisqatsi." Incredibly pretty films with ideas best appreciated by the Unabomber in all of us. (Well, not in me, but diff'rent strokes . . .) They REALLY deserve to be on DVD.I first heard this soundtrack, uncut, on public radio, via John Scheaffer's amazing New Sounds program. Go listen to the sample tracks and imagine hearing this stuff, without commercials, while cruising down the Long Island Expressway at 11:00 PM on a steamy summer night. Utterly mind blowing.The tracks alternate, roughly, between sweet and sincere ethnic themes, and variants of the the monstrous, awe-some, terrible, profound and beautiful "Anthem."As other reviewers have mentioned, bits of this score are beginning to turn up in films. I feel so utterly damn cool and avant-garde when the freakish music I listen to ends up in movie and commercial scores.Buy it."

Stellar and inventive

Joseph Geni | Evanston, Illinois United States | 08/15/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Philip Glass gets a bad rap as a one-trick pony and this album is one of the best pieces of evidence that he isn't. True, this record sometimes employs Glass's strong minimalist roots and the familiar ascending/descending melodic lines repeated over and over again like some sort of avant-garde military marching band that are his staple. But most of it is very different, and these sections are usually short and shift rapidly, unlike the epic, 20-minute builds of "Koyaanisqatsi." At times it is ambient, at other times rousing and spirited. "The Anthem" (part two of which was used to great effect in "The Truman Show" along with selections from Glass's similar "Anima Mundi" score) manages to be both, and is powerfully symbolic of what "Powaqqatsi" ("life in transformation," if I recall the loosely translated definition of the word) is about. While this record runs a little long, it's brilliantly creative New Age classical and works both with the movie and on its own."

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