The 29-track companion album "The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (The Album)" was announced Monday, with The Cure, Depeche Mode, Stevie Nicks, Tyler Childers, and Jennifer Lawrence among the contributors. According to Variety, it drops November 13 on the Nashville label MCA, one week before the film.
The genre line, straight from the trade: an old-fashioned "inspired by"-type album, where "few of the songs included are likely to be in the film." That is the whole thing. This is not a soundtrack. It is the 2004 mail-order CD that comes with a bonus DVD you can't play.
Do the math. Twenty-nine tracks. Four of them are arena mixes and live versions, one of them a Cure live take from Berlin in 2022, one a Depeche Mode "rework." Whitney Peak alone carries four songs, three of them The Raven I, The Raven II, and The Raven III. A trilogy. On one album. For a movie that has not come out yet. And it is executive produced by Dave Cobb at the label where he is an executive, which is less a placement than a promotion.
The franchise math is the same math it has always been: milk every asset until it squeaks. Jennifer Lawrence, who plays a small part in the film, sings "Deep in the Meadow." The lead single, Noah Kahan's "Draw You Out," is already out, with the Pumpkins and Gigi Perez tracks following in October. The album arrives a week early so that by the time the Reaping starts you have already been emotionally prepared to lose twenty-nine artists to the Capitol.
YOUR TURN: Which arena mix are you actually buying? Be honest.
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