Asteroid Blues: The Lasting Legacy of Cowboy Bebop
First-time solo director Watanabe had created a gorgeous tale of morality, romance, and violence–a dark look at the lives of outlaws that’s shot like an independent film. It was unlike anything the genre had seen before. It even approached its music differently. The show kicked off with a wormhole of a theme song, and the soundtrack moves so seamlessly through genres, from rock to country to pop to jazz to funk, it’s shocking to learn that one set of musicians is behind it all.
Alex Suskin’s piece is dead-on, although the soundtrack’s diversity and quality is not so shocking when you realize it’s Yoko Kanno composing and that “one set of musicians” includes members of Tipographica and Sex Mob along with some of New York’s heaviest hitters like Bobby Previte and Chris Potter.