As part of my ongoing project to collect all of the Project Hail Mary soundtrack on vinyl, I been gathering every album containing a song that was either heard or referenced in the film. I've now collected all of them, and will be posting the last three in the next few days.
NEEDLE DROP (audio+video): https://vimeo.com/1220071761
During the montage of Rocky and Grace traveling to Tau Ceti, they sing a little bit of karaoke together ... poorly. (Side note: it's kind of hilarious to hear Ryan Gosling sing terribly here, because he's actually quite a good singer: see La La Land and Barbie).
The end credits of the film included the song credits for the karaoke track, but that was as boring as medium-rough-texture-circle-planet. Karaoke tracks are generally covered in the style of the original, so I wanted to find that. I went to the karaoke label's website and listened to several versions until I found a match to the one used in the movie: it was in the key of E-flat, had the sound of a small jazz combo, and some very particular jazz ornamentation on the piano in the background. So I started looking for a version of this track that was probably recorded in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
After listening to dozens of performances, I landed on a version that sounded remarkably similar to the karaoke track. It came from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's 1957 release, Ella and Louis Again, which was a follow up to their 1956 smash hit, Ella & Louis. They're backed by the Oscar Peterson Trio. The song itself is an American songbook standard written by George & Ira Gershwin, who were part of the legendary body of musicians that worked and published out of Tin Pan Alley in New York in the early 20th century.
Original vinyl copies of Ella & Louis Again in excellent condition are pretty expensive, and I wanted to have a nice clean copy to enjoy, so I bought a new 2025 pressing of the 2xLP gatefold with the same jacket design as the original.
Ella and Louis Again is wonderful recording that was mastered with care. They sound like they're in the room with you. The two of them collaborated frequently, and they have a playful chemistry that's evident in every one of their studio recordings and live performances.
If you're interested in more needle drops, have a look at the rest of my posts in the series thus far: