The latest installment in the long-running Godzilla series, and the second American-produced version of the monster movie, comes out on Friday. Though I personally don't trust this one to go any better than the one in 1998 went, and the Japanese fanbase is already making fun of our "fat, American" Godzilla, it's shaping up to be the first blockbuster of the summer season, depending on your opinion of Spider-Man.
So it's as good a time as any to look backwards, particularly at the 1998 Godzilla film starring Matthew Broderick. It was a horrible movie, but it did have one thing going for it: an awesome soundtrack. Let's reflect on that a bit, shall we?
This soundtrack was massively successful, hitting No. 2 on the Billboard 200, though it was heavily maligned in the media (particularly among classic-rock fans) for containing a new version of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" created by Puff Daddy. It had the blessing of Jimmy Page, who even performed on the track. Still, this was 1998 and fans just weren't prepared to hear Sean Combs spitting rhymes over the hallowed halls of rock.
That being said, I think the judgment was particularly unfair. Specifically, let's focus on that version of "Kashmir," now titled "Come With Me." Now that we're used to hearing this sort of thing done in rap music, it's actually pretty awesome. Nobody's going to argue that Diddy is a great rapper or anything, but he brought a lot of energy to his performance.
Plus, how many rappers would even have the balls to do something like this? It's a fun reimagining of the track, and speaks volumes about where Combs was at during this period. It was his creative peak, and he was thinking far outside of the box by making songs like "Come With Me," which would later go on to become somewhat standard practices in rap.
Remember, by 1998 samples were completely on the decline in favor of original beats. Diddy defied that by sampling an entire song, and not just any song, but one of the most beloved in the classic-rock canon.
Story continues on the next page.