10 existing songs I'd like to needle-drop as fight scene music in a film or TV show someday

I finally got around to checking out the 2011 silat flick The Raid after recently hearing Yo, Is This Racist? podcast host Andrew Ti's enthusiastic recommendation of it, in which he said it's a great stabbing movie, and it features "the most hilarious stabbing I've ever seen in my entire life." For the American market, director Gareth Evans retitled his stabfest The Raid: Redemption to avoid a rights dispute here in America over the film's original title, but let's face it, man, nobody calls it by that cumbersome American title in regular conversations, and neither do I.

I like the propulsive original score Linkin Park member/Fort Minor founder Mike Shinoda and Oblivion co-composer Joseph Trapanese wrote together for Sony's American release of The Raid, particularly because of its stripped-down sound. As Shinoda said in one of the Raid Blu-ray's featurettes, he and Trapanese wanted to keep the score stripped-down to mirror the film's claustrophobic feel, so that meant ditching electric guitars and Asian or Indonesian flourishes that he and Trapanese felt would have sounded too distracting to the audience's ears, as well as their own.



Oh, and by the way, uh, Hollywood, the fight choreography in The Raid makes your attempts at martial arts flicks (fight scenes in Banshee, Fast Five and Furious 6 aside) look like '80s and '90s Christian pop music videos. In other words, milque-goddamn-toast.

I'm adding to "AFOS Prime" and "Beat Box" rotation the "We Have Company" and "Drug Lab" cues from the Raid score, which Sony's Madison Gate label made available only as a digital download. The Shinoda/Trapanese score has got me thinking about non-"Eye of the Tiger" existing songs I'd like to needle-drop as fight scene music if I ever get to direct a short film, feature film or TV series episode someday, although I don't think I'll ever be put in charge of an undertaking as massive as Furious 6.

1. Ghostface Killah featuring Raekwon and Cappadonna, "Daytona 500"
After The Boondocks brilliantly needle-dropped Raekwon's "Guillotine (Swordz)" when Huey imagined himself as a samurai, the world needs more fight scenes soundtracked with RZA-produced joints. Maybe "Daytona 500" is better suited for a car chase. If I directed a Fast & Furious sequel--though I just said it'd be so unlikely to happen--one of the car chases would have to be soundtracked with a bunch of Wu-Tang MCs spitting fire to a classic break like Bob James' "Nautilus."

2. Method Man, "Release Yo' Delf (Prodigy Remix)"
I hadn't noticed until recently that Prodigy sampled the horns from "El Colpo," a cue from Ennio Morricone's For a Few Dollars More score, during this remix. Prodigy's take on Meth's "Release Yo' Delf" was born to accompany any fight scene, whether it's a jewel thief laying the smackdown on a cop or an old lady beefing with another grocery shopper over the last loaf of bread.

3. Jeru the Damaja, "Ya Playin' Yaself"
Because Jeru did it before in his own music video, and it looked fantastic.



4. The Roots, "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)"
Black Thought's lyrical tour de force, in which he, as David Brothers once said, "stacks threat on crack on snap like the world's fastest game of Jenga," is a perfect cue for that great post-MMA black action flick that hasn't been made yet.

5. The Heavy, "That Kind of Man"
So many Heavy tracks work well as action genre music (Cinemax's Strike Back opens its episodes with "Short Change Hero"), and Madison Avenue must agree because ad agencies have played the shit out of "Short Change Hero," "How You Like Me Now" and "What Makes a Good Man?" (every other Dwayne Johnson flick that comes out always seems to have TV spots that feature Heavy songs). The angry groove of "That Kind of Man" is sort of like the retro-soul equivalent of Gerald Fried's exhilarating Star Trek fight theme (a piece that, by the way, was recently quoted by Michael Giacchino during the "San Fran Hustle" cue in his Star Trek Into Darkness score). If you removed all the vocals about relationship woes, "That Kind of Man" would have been a dope cue during the climactic knife fight in The Man from Nowhere.

14 favorite elements of songs I currently have on rotation while I create artwork for my own book

1. The cinematic-sounding French horn lines during Kanye West's "All of the Lights"
Ye is a modern-day Mozart--as in batshit crazy, but a total musical genius.



2. The military drums during Pusha T's "My God"

(Photo source: Trebles and Blues)

3. The piano sample during Trebles and Blues' "The Tempo"

4. The handclaps during The New Pornographers' "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk"



5. The bloops that open The Chemical Brothers' "Car Chase (Arp Worship)" from the Hanna score

6. The bass line of Lyrics Born and Sam Sparro's "Coulda Woulda Shoulda"

7. The really tight brass section during The Heavy's live 2010 performance of "That Kind of Man" for KEXP

8. The "Love You Save"-esque beat of Dennis Coffey and Mayer Hawthorne's "All Your Goodies Are Gone"

9. Dres' flow during the Black Sheep track "Elevation"

10. Bambu's delivery of "I used to sit in church and look at the stained glass and wonder why none of them look like me" during "Misused"

11. The electronic bass line of Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy end credits cue "Solar Sailer"

12. Ernie Isley's smokin' guitar solo at the end of The Isley Brothers' "Summer Breeze"
I only listen to that cover of sappy Seals and Crofts just to get to that guitar solo.

13. Teena Marie (R.I.P.) leading the female half of the Long Beach audience in a playful battle of the sexes with Rick James over which gender is louder during the live 1981 version of "I'm a Sucker for Love" that's on the deluxe edition CD of Street Songs

14. "The Michael McDonald of the rap game," Nate Dogg (R.I.P.), proving he wasn't your father's Michael McDonald when he crooned "And you even licked my balls" during Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)"

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Heavy, "Short Change Hero"

Song: "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy
Released: 2009
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in the end credits of Dwayne Johnson's recent revenge flick Faster, which earns points for also featuring Guido and Maurizio De Angelis' "Goodbye My Friend" from another revenge flick, the 1974 Franco Nero actioner Street Law. Viewers of the Syfy original series Haven might be familiar with "Short Change Hero" from its appearance in Haven promos.

I'm a fan of the British band The Heavy. I'm not a fan of Hollywood's current perception that "How You Like Me Now?" is the only song The Heavy has done. So I'm glad Faster gave exposure to a Heavy track that's not "How You Like Me Now?"

Both those jams and "That Kind of Man" sound incredible live. Hell, all of The Heavy's songs sound incredible live. (David Letterman loved The Heavy's live performance of "How You Like Me Now?" with the horn section of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings so much that he did something he had never done before: he had the musical guest do an encore.)