I Lived It: I Don't Even Have Kids and I Listened to the 'Minions: The Rise of Gru' Soundtrack

Helmed by industry golden boy Jack Antonoff, this mess will have you missing Smash Mouth on the 'Shrek' soundtrack.

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Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and Minions: The Rise of Gru sets box office records while the United States is up in smoke like a blazing brown bag on your doorstep.

Comcast Universal’s Latest IP Cash-In™ has been sitting on the shelves while the studio waited for the pandemic to play out to turn the maximum profit off their precious yellow Twinkie-shaped turds. Sure, they had to write off the perishable tie-ins a few years ago. Still, the Minions are back, baby, with edible shit like a HelloFresh pizza, a twelve rack of Banana Cream OLIPOP starting at only $35.99 (this stuff is wretched, by the way. I’ll stick with La Croix for my soda memes, thanks), or IHOP making a whole bunch of - you guessed it - banana heavy breakfast options.

While the TikTok Gentleminions craze is probably more responsible for the success of Comcast Universal’s movie than any ad agency exec’s assistant can come up with, they’re also leaning on one of the oldest go-to’s in the studio playbook: a pop music soundtrack.

Last summer, I wrote about this a few times when looking back at summer movie soundtracks from 1996 and Donnie Darko birthing the “dark cover” plague that still diseases movie trailers. These things have been a lifelong interest of mine. I can’t get over crazy shit like someone placing U2, Brandy, and Sunny Day Real Estate together on the Batman Forever Soundtrack or Puff Daddy and Jimmy Paige teaming up on Saturday Night Live for a goddamned Godzilla soundtrack.

The stats also say that you, the reader are also interested in this madness, as those are two of my most read columns since starting Check This Out!. So when I saw that Minions: The Rise of Gru would feature a “who’s who” of current “indie” acts playing covers of well-worn 70’s songs, I knew I had to wade knee-deep in this studio sewage.

I have a short one-sided history with the soundtracks to this miserable franchise in that it birthed one of the worst songs of all time in Pharell Williams’s “Happy,” written during his giant Arby’s hat phase. Featured on the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, this song is still everywhere and makes me feel anything but what the title (Annoyed? Anxious? Angry?) suggests. When I was married during this song’s heyday, the DJ asked which songs to place on the “do not play” list, and I recall only writing down one in “Happy.” The jerk played it anyway.

There are two main problems with the Minions: The Rise of Gru soundtrack and the first is that the music industry golden boy Jack Antonoff helms this putrid fever dream. Almost everything this guy writes is formulaic pop music, from his mainstream beginnings as part of Fun to his solo project Bleachers, which becomes more forgettable with each release. As for production credits, if the record is massive, chances have Antonoff produced it, from Taylor Swift to Lana Del Ray to this year’s latest from Florence and the Machine. I don’t mind some of Antonoff’s earlier production work, but I often find myself thinking I would enjoy an album more if the artist chose someone else to produce it, like Del Ray’s Chemtrails over the Country Club for example. In other words, Antonoff is the perfect person to create the newest iteration of the Shrek soundtrack. You know, that one which has allowed Smash Mouth to continue headlining county fairs over two decades since the first movie’s release.

The other problem is the number of songs on here - there’s a whopping 19 if you include the main theme, which probably should have been left off so Comcast Universal could deliver a separate pressing of composer Heitor Pereira’s original score as a RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE. The album is a slog coming in at an hour, especially when you’ve had enough after three songs. And why are there TWO versions of Cher’s “Bang Bang” on this thing? Caroline Polacheck and G.E.M. deserve so much more and, at the very least, the opportunity to contribute different numbers.

So does anything work here?

“Fly Like An Eagle” may also be associated with Seal’s version on the Space Jam soundtrack, but my dude Thundercat does a damn fine job returning the song to Steve Miller Band’s heady original and then some. We've got some funky bass, thanks to Thundercat’s infamous nimble work on the fretboard. While waiting for the follow-up to my favorite record of 2019, I’ll also take Weyes Blood leaning into Linda Ronstadt’s version of “You’re No Good.” Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) has made a career of pairing her own delicious brand of psychedelic folk with the warmth of 70s stars like Ronstadt and Karen Carpenter, and this song suits her strengths well.

Speaking of The Carpenters, Phoebe Bridgers takes her usual second gear stab at “Goodbye to Love,” and the results are acceptable - I’m sure the Phoebe Cult will eat it up. Otherwise, there are serviceable covers with Gary Clark Jr.’s take on “Vehicle” by The Ides of March and H.E.R. cruising through “Dance To The Music” by Sly and the Family Stone. Still, both suffer from Antonoff’s lifeless production sheen, and neither can compete with the analog rawness of their originals.

Mostly, this thing is entirely forgettable. It’s, in theory, one of the better ideas on the album to have Diana Ross perform with Tame Impala to tie things into the era of the album, but Kevin Parker elects to phone it in with the swirling fade-in he’s leaned on since Currents and some pretty forgettable beats. Who can blame him? This is the Minions: Rise of Gru soundtrack, after all. Similarly, Brittany Howard throws some chorus on the guitars for Earth, Wind, and Fire’s classic, “Shining Star.” At the same time, BROCKHAMPTON, one hip-hop’s most important acts of the past half-decade, is unidentifiable on Kool & the Gang’s “Hollywood Swinging.”

The biggest letdown here comes from St. Vincent’s “Funkytown,” which is easily one of the most grating songs of the year. The vocoderized vocals are somehow even more annoying than the original, which, oh yeah, we’re Shrekkin’ so hard here that you may remember “Funkytown” from the masterpiece, Shrek 2.

I say letdown cos I respect Annie Clark and her groundbreaking career as St. Vincent. I even complimented Jack Antonoff’s work on her last album, Daddy’s Home, which ended up on my year-end list. But while other stuff is serviceable, this thing stopped me in my tracks. On an album full of stinkers, the song competes with a Minions cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” as the worst of the bunch. Forget Kate Bush. We need remixes of the Minions’ “Cecilia” at every summer electronic festival. This wretched alien thing will make you miss the simple days of “The Chipmunk Song.”

Bleh.

Maybe skip this and celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Singles soundtrack instead.

What’s your favorite soundtrack moment? (And if it comes from Minions: The Rise of Gru, we need to talk.)

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Like this? Here’s more!

• The Lost Art of the Pop Movie Soundtrack: A Look Back At Some of the Biggest Hits from the Summer Blockbuster Season of 1996

• This is All Donnie Darko’s Fault: Hollywood Needs to Get Over ‘Dark’ Covers of Your Favorite Retro Hits