Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Bellylove

The song "Back to Freedom" is played on the Bronze stage by the group Bellylove in the Season Three opening episode called "Anne." While the song plays in the background, Xander says "Welcome to depressing night at the Bronze." Reason for his depression? Buffy has been forced to leave town after being wrongly accused of killing the alternate slayer Kendra, who was actually murdered by the vampire Drusilla at the end of Season Two. Left behind in Sunnydale, the Scooby Gang consisting of Xander, Oz, Willow and Cordelia are learning to kill vampires on their own, and they aren't too happy about it.

The song is somewhat prophetic because while Buffy is "free" in the sense of being on her own for the first time, she has discovered the tragic world of poverty-stricken runaways living on the edge of society. After she frees a group of homeless people being held forced to work as slaves by demons in the bowels of Los Angeles, she finds her way home again after having her name cleared, which means back to responsibility and school, but also the freedom of being a kid at home with Mom again.

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ I'll Remember You by Sophie Zelmani

Episode 7 of Season One - called "Angel" - revolves around the growing love between Buffy and Angelus and they have their first kiss! But then Angel turns into a Vamp and has to jump out the window. Truly a classic Beauty and the Beast moment.



Later Buffy thinks that Angel has bitten her mother, Joyce, when really he was saving her from the evil Darla, his sire, who has been helping The Master. This leads to a dilemma as Buffy vacilates between loving Angel and wanting to stake him. In the end, he explains that the Romany Gypsies have cursed him with a soul and while he wants to continue biting people and drinking their blood, he is so full of remorse that he never does.



The song "I'll remember you" by Sophie Zelmani, plays at the Bronze as Buffy and Angel say goodbye - but of course this is only the beginning of their long complicated relationship.

Sophie Zelmani Official Site

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Bif Naked

Bif Naked's name is a play on her name Beth and the phrase "buff naked," which fits right into Buffy the Vampire Slayer canon. She is a Canadian/American singer with a soulful voice and an interesting goth background. Her videos remind me of Pink's later work - clearly an influence!

Via Canadian Expat on Wordpress:

For anyone who doesn’t know Bif she was born in New Delhi, India to two teenage Americans attending a private school there which resulted in her being adopted by missionaries and being brought back to the US. From elementary age on she lived in The Pas, Dauphin, and finally Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has a bit of a gothic look, lots of tattoos and an amazing voice. She’s been called Gwen Stefani’s evil twin which I’m sure she hates because she’s unique in her own right, and well, much more awesome.
Since I heard her last she’s released 2 more albums, acted in various shows and movies, continued to write poetry, and has done motivational speaking.

From Huffington Post

...Bif Naked has made a career out of being a badass chick. Initially, it was by way of the late-'90s CanRock boys club, prowling Edgefest stages, infiltrating rock radio and even performing at the Hellmouth-adjacent all-ages club on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
More recently, the heavily tattooed singer has become known as a badass chick in another venue -- the B.C. Cancer Agency's Vancouver Centre, where she successfully beat breast cancer with a lumpectomy and chemo back in 2008-2009. She now returns regularly, boldly confronting her own fragile mortality to encourage those women still fighting for their lives.

Lucky:



Moment of Weakness:



Bif Naked's songs appear in the fourth season of Buffy, episode 3 "The Harsh Light of Day," all from the album with a great title "I Bificus" - a reference to "I Spartacus," from the Kirk Douglas movie. The three songs are "Lucky," "Moment of Weakness," and "Anything" (which unfortunately has no video I can find). The song "Lucky" is included on "Buffy: The Album."




In this episode, Spike uses the fabled Gem of Amarra ring to make himself invincible to sunlight. Eventually Buffy defeats him and decides to give the ring to Angel in Los Angeles. This is the reverse of what happens at the end of the series, when Buffy rejects Angel and gives the "champion" medallion to Spike, who by that time has proven his love and loyalty, and won back his soul. And of course, in the "harsh light" of that rare gem he fries himself to kill the demons underground and save the world.



This is considered a "cross-over" episode because action continues on the show "Angel," episode "In the Dark," when Spike goes to LA to get the Gem of Amarra back from Angel, torturing him with exposure to light. Nice contrast with the episode titles - "Harsh Light" versus "In the Dark."



The title also refers to disillusionment with relationships, as Buffy wakes up to regrets for sleeping with Parker (see this previous post about "Beer Bad"), and Anya strips down to throw herself at Xander, with unsatisfactory results. Another disillusioned woman is the vampiress Harmony, who realizes that Spike doesn't love her but merely uses her for sex. The point of all three stories is that it's easy to confuse sex with love, and that feelings often aren't mutual.

Slayer Sountrack Sunday ~ "The Sun Keeps Shining" By Fonda

Fonda appeared in the Buffy episode "All the Way" from Season 6. The title is an obvious reference to teen sexual activity, and Dawn thinks she is ready for that . . . until her date turns out to be a vampire! And Dawn gets her first kiss on Halloween, which seems totally appropriate for a rather supernatural girl.

Also in this episode, Tara is getting fed up with Willow's magicks, and Xander announces his engagement to Anya while wearing a pirate costume and eye-patch - foreshadowing his "accident" in Season 7.

Although the action takes place on Halloween night, this is actually a breezy summer song.



From YouTube

Los Angeles based indie-pop band, Fonda perform "The Sun Keeps Shining On Me" live. The song was originally released on Fonda's 2001 CD, "The Strange and the Familiar" and is now available on the original motion picture soundtrack for "Remember Me."

All-In-One Vampire Identification Chart

From "True Blood" to Ann Rice, from Buffy to Sesame Street, here's one graphic for all your vampire needs.
Via UrlyBits.com Pinterest

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Buffy and Angel Love Themes

There are two different Buffy and Angel "Love" Themes, both by Christophe Beck and both quite beautiful: "Close Your Eyes" and "Moment of Happiness."

More About Buffy on Christophe Beck's Official Website
Amazon's Christophe Beck Store

The composer's biography from his website:

Canadian composer Christophe Beck started piano lessons at five, and by eleven he was learning Bee Gees songs by ear and performing with his first-ever band, the unfortunately-named Chris and The Cupcakes. During high school he studied piano, saxophone, and drums, and wrote many tender 80's love ballads.

While studying music at Yale, Beck wrote two musicals with his brother Jason (a.k.a. Gonzales, the Paris-based pianist-producer-TV Host-prankster), as well as an opera based on "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe.

Upon graduation, Beck moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's prestigious film scoring program, where he studied with Jerry Goldsmith. A personal recommendation from the legendary Buddy Baker, head of the USC Music Department, led to his first assignment for a Canadian TV series called "White Fang." Several TV series later, he was asked to score the second season of WB Network's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Beck received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for his score to the "Buffy" episode, "Becoming, Part 1."

In 2000, the cheerleading comedy "Bring It On" launched Beck's film career, which has included such credits as "Under the Tuscan Sun," "Saved," "The Pink Panther," "We Are Marshall," "Year of the Dog," "What Happens in Vegas," and more recently, "The Hangover," now the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time.

Close Your Eyes plays in the Season Two Episode "Becoming." It is included on Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Album (1999 Television Series)

The meaning of the title comes from the tragic fact that Angel can't be happy with Buffy because as soon as they find perfect happiness together, he loses his soul and she has to kill him. We see the flashback in "Becoming Pt. 1" just before the vampire Darla kills Liam in order to turn him to Angelus, she tells him to "Close your eyes." In "Becoming Pt. 2", just before Buffy kills Angel, she too says, "Close your eyes."


The "Moment of Happiness" version appears in "Innocence" and is included on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Score

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Lover's Walk

In this episode, the featured song is "My Way," the Frank Sinatra hit. Spike is shown singing it to himself after he returns to Sunnydale looking for his lost love Drusilla.

At the end of the episode after he captures her again, he drives away from Sunnydale singing along with the version of "My Way" sung by actor Gary Oldman in the movie "Sid and Nancy" about the life of Punk Rocker Sid Vicious and his girlfriend. They are clearly somewhat of an inspiration for the "Punkish" Spike and the totally whacked-out insane Drusilla.




Another thing fans love about this episode is the way Spike goes on and on about his love for Drusilla, even crying on the shoulders of both Joyce, Buffy's mother, and Willow when he takes her hostage so she will make a love potion for him.


He's totally obsessed by love and only love. This places him the "Byronic Hero" category which certainly becomes evident later in the series when his devotion to Buffy is tested again and again until he becomes the true champion.

Spike: What do you know? It's your fault, the both of you! She belongs with me. I'm nothing without her.
Buffy: That I'll have to agree with. You're pathetic, you know that? You're not even a loser anymore, you're a shell of a loser.
Spike: Yeah. You're one to talk.
Buffy: Meaning?
Spike: The last time I looked in on you two, you were fighting to the death. Now you're back making googly-eyes at each other like nothing happened. Makes me want to heave.
Buffy: I don't know what you're talking about.
Spike: Oh, yeah. You're just friends.
Angel: That's right.
Spike: You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood...blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.

In fact, the title "Lover's Walk" is ironic because Spike is the ONLY character who ends up with his true love.

Buffy and Angel finally go their separate ways so each can concentrate on the greater good.

Angel: Hey. I was wondering when you were coming.
Buffy: I'm not coming back. We're not friends. We never were. And I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason. What I want from you I can never have. You don't need me to take care of you anymore. So I'm gonna go.
Angel: I don't accept that.
Buffy: You have to.
Angel: How can...There's gotta be some way we can still see each other.
Buffy: There is: tell me that you don't love me.

Buffy is unaware that she would be taking many a "Lover's Walk" with Spike in future episodes.

Things end much more unhappily for Cordelia and Oz, who are shocked when they catch Xander and Willow embracing and finally sharing an innocent and tragic kiss at just the wrong moment. Cordelia runs away and is impaled on a large metal spike, which is symbolic on so many levels - love, vampires, Spike himself who is the reason the gang is in the old warehouse looking for Willow - but this definitely ends her relationship with Xander. She is next seen in "The Wish" making a deal with Anya the Vengeance Demon who nearly destroys Sunnydale by fulfilling Cordelia's wish that Buffy had never come there. Also ironic because Cordelia has to leave the show to make a place for Anya, who also falls in love with Xander and nearly marries him.

But Willow's romantic interest in Xander is also over. She and Oz continue to date into their college days until Oz suddenly has to leave town to find himself because actor Seth Green was leaving the show.

There is one more piece of music in this episode, which is the meloncholy guitar instrumental "Loneliness of Six" written by Christopher Beck, who composed the scores of many of the later episodes. The "Six" referred to in the song are Buffy, Angel, Xander, Cordelia, Willow and Oz. Spike would make a magical 7th, except he is not lonely anymore.

Priceless Quote about Darla the Vampire

via captainoftheteas.tumblr.com


From Buzzfeed: 27 Reasons Darla is the Best Vampire in the Buffyverse

Like, check this out. She was dying of syphilis, sired by the Master, staked by Angel, resurrected by Wolfram and Hart, turned again by Drusilla, and impregnated by Angel. Then she staked herself to save her son.
. . . And she did it all with perfect hair.

via accidentaltheme.tumblr.com

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Rasputina

Rasputina is an American band influenced by the Victorian Era and the Steampunk movement.

From their official website:

The Rasputina group has existed for more than 20(0) years. Melora Creager founded it to meet like-minded young women (excellent cellists that wanted to play rock music and wear historical costumery). Although often mistakenly lumped into passing fancies, Rasputina manages to survive and defy categorization by maintaining a child-like delight in music-making alongside a clear & true integrity.

The song "Transylvanian Concubine" is included on their album Thanks For The Ether. It was also included on Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Album (1999 Television Series)


The song plays in Episode 13 of Season 2 - "Surprise" - in which Buffy is having a rather dark 17th birthday haunted by bad dreams about the vampire Drusilla killing Angel. Meanwhile, in an ironic parallel, Drusilla and Spike are planning a party with "presents" arriving in the form of body parts from which they hope to construct an invincible demon to defeat the Slayer.

Transylvanian Concubine is really the perfect song for Drusilla and plays toward the end of the episode when she demands "more music" and unveils the demon.

In another ironic twist, it is Buffy who becomes the vampire's "concubine" when Angel gives her an Irish Claddagh ring to seal their love, and she sleeps with him. The moment of bliss created with Buffy lifts the gypsy curse from Angel, who suddenly loses his soul and goes back to being an ordinary evil vampire whom Buffy eventually has to kill in a following episode. So . . . happy birthday, Buffy! Not!






And alternate version of the song called "Manson Mix" (as in Marilyn Manson) is below. I prefer the original.

The Buffy vs. Twilight Meme

The message of female empowerment and spirituality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is diametrically opposite to the Twilight Series by Joyce Meyer. While Buffy and Bella both have love affairs with vampires the similarity ends there - Buffy never lets herself be dominated by Angel or Spike - on the contrary, she gives the orders.

Buffy falls in love with Angel and Spike in spite of her loathing for vampires, and hates it when those attractions upset her family and friends. And both vampires have to earn Buffy's trust and respect over time. On the other hand, Bella trusts the "sparkly" Edward and is ready to throw away all ties with her parents five minutes after meeting him. Won over by sex and expensive gifts from the Cullen Clan, Bella is besotted with romantic ideas of becoming a vampire herself - soul be damned!

Conversely, Buffy is willing to sacrifice Angel and Spike in order to save the world - choosing the greater good instead of selfish desire.

Besides all that, the writing in the Buffy series is so much more clever, irreverent, self-effacing and just plain entertaining. Twilight is a cloned romance novel that got lucky.

I could go on, but I'll let these pictures speak for themselves . . .

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Cibo Matto

Cibo Matto is a group made up of two Japanese women singers, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, Timo Ellis on Drums, and Sean Lennon, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, on bass guitar. They disbanded in 2011, but soon got back together again for several fundraisers sponsored by Yoko Ono, including a benefit for the Japan Earthquake survivors. Their blog is Here and you can read more Here.

Both songs found in this episode are included on the 1997 album Super Relax. "Sugar Water" is also found on the imported UK version of Radio Sunnydale.



Cibo Matto played at the Bronze in Episode One of Season Two - "When She was Bad." In that episode (written by series creator Joss Whedon) Buffy is still reeling from her encounter with the evil Master Vampire in Season One that left her literally dead until discovered underground by Angel and Xander, who brought her back to life with CPR. Despite a summer away from Sunnydale with her well-meaning father, Buffy comes home acting sullen and quiet, plagued by nightmares and dark thoughts of death. Buffy mistreats everyone close to her, not just Cordelia who deserves it, but Xander who is still in love with her. In a famous scene, Buffy acts like a bitchy femme fatale, making both Angel and Willow jealous while she dances with Xander, whom she also torments by coming onto him sexually. The background music to all this is Cibo Matto's otherworldly sound.



It's such an interesting plot twist to have the superhero behaving badly, and it works to humanize Buffy, who is physically strong but often emotionally vulnerable.

The two songs by Cibo Matto in this episode are "Spoon" and "Sugar Water."





One more interesting note: during the dance sequence, a man who looks very much like the vampire Spike dances in front of the band while watching Buffy and Xander. This predates the arrival of Spike later in Season Two, Episode 3 - "School Hard". And it isn't Spike because the same young man appears in the final classroom scene, ironically sitting in front of Buffy's desk, and in the sunlit classroom - so definitely not a vampire either. It's quite possible thought that Joss Whedon was foreshadowing Spike early in the season - he knew William the Bloody was coming to Sunnydale, after all, and this guy has exactly the same hair. Maybe the make-up artist was practicing, LOL.

Spike or Angel? Who is more Heroic?

Here's an excerpt from a great essay comparing the characters of Spike (William the Bloody) and Angel (Angelus).

Spike Versus Angel by Eleanor Kuhns

Transformed to a vampire, (Spike) becomes part of Angel’s coven, and for the first time, he becomes part of something. He has his own little family and is too scary to be mocked. Recalling his experiences with Angel and Drusilla during the Russian Revolution, Spike tells Buffy that it was the best time of his life. His wistful regret for a happy time that has passed really resonated with me. He is never really happy again.

Angel, on the other hand, never worries about fitting in. Why should he? He is always the leader. As a vampire, he has a rep as the baddest of the bad, with no pity or remorse. But when he reforms, he reforms all the way, becoming, to my way of thinking, a little self-righteous. He strides through the episodes like Cotton Mather in a leather coat. Yet, when he loses his soul, he becomes über evil. There are no gray areas with Angel.



Spike is a mosaic of gray. He certainly never achieves Angel’s almost arrogant level of self-confidence. In fact Spike remains always insecure, a feeling he covers with a flippant swagger. He wants someone to love him, first Drusilla and then Buffy, but never succeeds in attaining the relationship he wants. He wants to fit in but he just can’t manage it. Not and stay who he is. He wants to be good but only sometimes and not yet. Totally understandable.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a multi-layered show with many strands that explain its popularity and its following even now. And Spike is certainly a big part of it. He is villain, hero, and antihero all at once. In the final episode, Angel expects to save the world by sacrificing his life. After all, he is the hero and the good vampire. But it is Spike, the very flawed character whose journey we have shared, who is chosen. And that feels right.

My own feeling is that Spike becomes a true hero - the "champion" at the end of the series - not just because he is more complex, but because he makes a conscious choice to "be a better man" and get back his soul. Angel, of course, has a soul at the beginning of the series, but only through the gypsy curse - he never sought it out. Both characters suffer terribly and struggle with right and wrong - with backsliding, and even murder - but I agree with the essayist that Whedon got it exactly right in the end ~ Spike's journey is more noble for it being more unlikely.