'Brokeback Mountain' Soundtrack Saddles Up for the Dance Floor

'Brokeback Mountain' Soundtrack Saddles Up for the Dance Floor

Main Theme 'The Wings' From Academy Award-Winning Score Gets Dance Treatment by Top DJs, #1 Breakout on This Week's Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart

Rufus Wainwright Delivers Video for New Single, 'The Maker Makes'

NEW YORK, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Gustavo Santaolalla's Academy Award-winning score for the breakthrough American love story, "Brokeback Mountain," is getting the dance floor treatment by some of the world's top DJs. The haunting, guitar-driven score's centerpiece track, "The Wings," has been reworked into three sweeping dance epics by Gabriel & Dresden, Manny Lehman, Tony Moran and Warren Rigg. Remixes were shipped to major dance club DJs last week and they debut at #1 on Billboard's "Breakout" Hot Dance Club Play chart this week.

The "Brokeback Mountain" soundtrack continues to gather momentum in conjunction with the heavily-honored, groundbreaking film. More than 300,000 copies have been shipped worldwide and approximately 100,000 have been scanned in the U.S. The album was #1 on the iTunes Top 100 following its win for Best Song at this year's Golden Globes for "A Love That Will Never Grown Old," performed by Emmylou Harris and written by soundtrack mastermind Gustavo Santaolalla with famed lyricist Bernie Taupin. That same week, the album was #1 on the Amazon Music Chart and #1 on the iTunes Soundtrack Chart. Over 60,000 digital tracks from the soundtrack sold within its first two weeks of release.

"The idea for club mixes originated with Grant Pavolka in our corporate communications department, and he helped Dahlia Ambach-Caplin A&R the various mixes. As with everything else we have done with the 'Brokeback' soundtrack, the cooperation and support of James Schamus at Focus Features and Kathy Nelson at Universal Pictures has been especially rewarding," said Ron Goldstein, President & CEO of Verve Music Group.

The remixers (who were chosen by Ambach-Caplin and Claudia Cuseta at Maxi Promotions) have taken Santaolalla's main theme and created three vastly different versions, each with something to please the most discerning club music fan. Classically-trained arrangers, Gabriel & Dresden, give the song a lengthy progressive house reworking that honors the heartbreaking, emotional core of the score. The "Collaboration Mix" by Manny Lehman, Tony Moran and Warren Rigg, lushly reproduces the song into a Balearic house mix. Manny Lehman's remix takes a more hard-hitting, tribal approach, and is primed for peak-hour "big room" consumption.

A commercial release for the remixes is expected on April 11.

Verve Forecast, the adult music imprint of Verve Music Group, has been aggressively marketing the album by increasing its promotional presence with store window displays at major retailers in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in anticipation of the score's award season attention. With these new club mixes, the label is reaching out to as many markets as possible.

Rufus Wainwright has also just completed a video for "The Maker Makes," another breakout track from the soundtrack. MTV Networks fledgling channel Logo will host the video's world premiere later this month.

The "Brokeback Mountain" soundtrack features Gustavo Santaolalla's Golden Globe and Academy Award nominated score, along with tracks from Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Teddy Thompson, Rufus Wainwright, Jackie Greene, Linda Rondstadt, Steve Earle, Mary McBride, and the Gas Band.

Source: Verve Music Group

CONTACT: Regina Joskow of Verve Music Group, +1-212-331-2053,
regina.joskow@umusic.com

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