First up, an apology! I didn’t blog in March. I meant to, but things got away from me. I actually half-wrote the following idiocy, but my priority (on this site at least) was Blackbirded, and finishing this required more capacity than I had in me. March was a hectic month.

There’s a new old X-Men show out! X-Men ’97 is a revival of the old X-Men cartoon from… 1997. And it seems pretty good. A lot of nostalgia.

But I don’t want to talk about that right now. I want to talk about how the X-Men cartoon theme song sounds to me like the Deus Ex theme song and it honestly baffles me that nobody appears to think the same?

Deus Ex (2000) OST – Main Theme [Extended] (Best VGM 888)

Marvel Animation’s X-Men ’97 | Intro | Disney+

Well, not nobody, but it doesn’t seem to be a common topic of discussion. I can’t hear one without hearing the other though. When I mentally hum the Deus Ex theme, it transforms itself to the X-Men theme without any effort on my part. And vice-versa. Worse, even if I actively try to stay on the one theme, the moment my concentration lapses it switches to the other.

Is there a term for this? Tone deafness? Apart from tone deafness, is there a term for this? I dunno. It’s not the only time I hear it either. I think everyone knows John Williams basically jacks the steez (I’ll never stop using this term) of Gustav Holst and Stravinsky all over the place, right?

Holst: The Planets, ‘Mars’ – BBC Proms

Igor Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring (1913)

Star Wars: A New Hope Soundtrack – 04. The Dune Sea Of Tatooine/Jawa Sandcrawler

But what about Hans Zimmer? Who does Hans Zimmer steal from?

Hans Zimmer of course.

Gladiator Soundtrack- The Battle

The Rock – Main Theme~Hans Zimmer

I can’t not hear the similarities between those two themes. The Gladiator soundtrack is full of hints at what Zimmer would one day create in other films. I’m sure everyone knows about Temp Tracks by now (and if you don’t, this follow-up is great too) so it should come as no surprise: people heard what Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard and Klaus Bedelt did for Gladiator and said ‘can we get something like that?’

What might come as a surprise though? If you skip 5 minutes into The Battle theme from Gladiator, you’ll hear John Williams’ favourite source of inspiration again.

I guess it all comes back to what I talked about in my Chinese Room blogpost (itself not a wholly original concept). There are no new thoughts, just old thoughts arranged in new ways. Also everyone was stealing shit from Gustav Holst. The best use of Holst though? It has to be this.

Back to the X-Men/Deus Ex theme though. Did Deus Ex steal from the X-Men cartoon? Maybe, maybe. But then, did the X-Men theme crib its style from the title track of Whitney Houston’s third album?

Whitney Houston – I’m Your Baby Tonight (European Version) (Official Video)

These tin ears of mine can’t stop hearing it. I yearn for a version of the X-men theme song with Whitney’s vocals mashed-up over the top of it. So I made it. It’s awful.

I made the title card for this post too, just in case you were wondering. I’m as bad at editing music as I am at images.

But this conspiracy goes deeper still, because there’s a chance the L.A. Reid and Babyface composition isn’t actually bedrock.

Vukán György – Linda (original theme) – Budabeats Records

Linda was (apparently) a classic Hungarian TV series about a young police woman using karate to defeat crime. And that theme song is catchy as hell.

So anyway, if anyone would like to make an Orchestral Cyber-Jazz remix of the X-Men theme song with Whitney Houston lyrics combined into it for me, I’d be very grateful. You heard my attempt at it, you know I’m not capable.

What else? I watched American Fiction, a meta story about the pigeonholing of Black authors. I thought it was spectacularly constructed, navigating the tightrope wire of satire without flopping into obviousness or obtuseness. I immediately grabbed the source text “Erasure” by Percival Everett. It’s a lot tougher to digest, both because of its harsher perspective and because of the way it’s structured around some frankly impenetrable (to me) literary references. But it’s Monk’s relationship with his mother that makes the book that much harder a read, as in the film it is relegated to a C story, while in the book it is given enough room to heartbreakingly breathe. I’d strongly recommend the film, and softly recommend the book, which might make me part of the joke at the heart of the two after all.

A writing update! Blackbirded is finished! Well the final chapter is drafted and is with my editor/PIC Nathan Lawrence right now, and there are a few minor adjustments needed, but it’s effectively complete. I will share a breakdown of thoughts on the project in a few weeks, too. The plan is to do a podcast on it, which I think will be awesome.

Till the Heavens Burst is still in the editing process. It’s a thing. It’ll be worth it when it’s done. And my project post-Blackbirded has a skeleton, though I’m far from ready to share any other details on it yet. It’ll be modern and horror, unless I get distracted by something else before then.
I will do another blog post this month, to make up for what I missed last month. So until then, catch me on my podcast, or around the internet!