LP OST Review | Various Artists - Music from Baz Lhurman's The Great Gatsby

Various Artists
Music from Baz Lhurman's Film The Great Gatsby
Interscope Records
Release date: May 6, 2013

By Shawal Ras
Follow @shawalras

I just got the official album of Various Artists's Music from Baz Lhurman’s Film The Great Gatsby! I’m practically stoked for this album and my expectation is quite high. A little background history; this album is produced by Jay-Z and featured a lot of great artists, from the likes of Beyonce, Lana Del Rey, Florence and the Machine, The XX, Andre 3000, Sia and many more – with the whole “greatness” going on; this one can either go fantastically grotesque or whimsically horrible. But thank God, the music selection is quite good and it’s pretty suitable for a 20s film even though some of the songs are odd-enough ranging from electronic to hip-hop (if it fits the bill, who cares, right?).

Some of the standout tracks are Lana Del Rey’s 'Young & Beautiful' (obviously!), Beyonce’s & Andre 3000’s 'Back to Black' (a cover of Amy Winehouse’s), Jay-Z’s 'No Church in the Wild', The Nero’s 'Into the Past', The XX’s 'Together' and Florence and the Machine’s 'Over the Love'. Even the orchestra version of 'Young & Beautiful' sounds really good.

Loathed tracks? Well, I got two; Will.I.Am’s 'Bang Bang' and Bryan Ferry’s 'Love is the Drug': both tracks are appropriate for the movie but both are pretty horrible in the midst of other tracks – they looked like the abnormal twins in-between the whole pack.

Anyway, I am recommending this album! It’s one of the greatest soundtracks I’ve heard in the past few years and this is indeed one rare collection everyone should have.


Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.