I’ve never been to Coachella. But every April I tend to get annoyed by people who are totally excited to go and wear face paint and dress scantily or in neon or in all jean everything. But then I realize that I’m just being an aging sourpuss and that yeah, I bet a weekend somewhere warm in California in April with hordes of the best musical acts on the planet might actually be a nice, fun time. And what’s $399 plus airfare plus sustenance, really? And now these stakes have been raised because Hans Zimmer is part of this year’s line-up.
Y’ever listen to Hans Zimmer? Sure you have. His movie soundtracks are ubiquitous. His compositions have probably curdled your tears and simmered your blood at some point, be it during one of those new Batman flicks, or, like, during Crimson Tide. Surely, if you saw Interstellar, you understand that the movie was maybe a B- upped to an A by virtue of the soundtrack alone. (That’s a soundtrack I once listened to on repeat for 2 months straight while on assignment. Pro-tip, listen to a good album on repeat when trying to accomplish a long task. It’ll help to center the mania.)
Zimmer, a “proud” German Jew, once scored a movie about the Holocaust for the Shoah Foundation called The Last Days, which involved Steven Spielberg and won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1999. I doubt Zimmer will opt to play this theme, but if he does, who cares? The point of music—especially Zimmer’s music—is to take you away to a different place and time, and anything the man chooses to play will suffice. If it were up to me he’d play the Batman Begins score to begin, and then Interstellar long, long into the night.
Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.