A Star Is Born Soundtrack
A Star is Born: Soundtrack
Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
(Interscope Records)
The wailing stomper “Black Eyes†opens the soundtrack and movie of the newest version of the A Star Is Born soundtrack. Sung and played by Bradley Cooper, this is one of quite a few here written by him and Willie Nelson’s son Lukas. It represents a very solid rocker.
Early on in the film when Cooper’s character, Jackson Maine first meets Lady Gaga’s, Ally, she sings the classic “La Vie en rose,†in a drag club, that’s included here and shows off Gaga’s strong voice. “Maybe It’s Time,†written by four-time Grammy Award winner, singer/songwriter of The 400 Unit, and former member of Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, is performed by Cooper in that same club setting, just him singing with an acoustic guitar.
It’s one of the better songs and moments in this story.
“Shallow,†the big duet between Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper (there’s plenty of duets in the movie too) is the first time in the film where she is truly featured. Although an obvious maybe slightly overly sentimental single it’s another damn good song.
“Diggin’ My Grave,†is an electric blues duet that rocks. “Look What I Found,†lifts us up via some piano bouncing funk and there’s a handful of modern sounding synths, and drum machine songs from Ally’s solo album, all well written but not as good I feel as the rockin’ or acoustic stuff that comes before it.
Of course we get the emotional, piano/strings ballad with Gaga wailing vocally on the big ending tune “I’ll Never Love Again.†Although most of the lyrics are trite, Gaga makes it special and there are a few moments that actually prompt the old lump in the throat especially as it’s delivered in the film.
This soundtrack includes lots of the movie’s dialogue moments, bringing the track count to 34. It’s a pretty strong showing for a very very strong movie.