“Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are nominated for two Grammy Awards: Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media (Once soundtrack) and Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media (song Falling Slowly).”
“

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are nominated for two Grammy Awards: Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media (Once soundtrack) and Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media (song Falling Slowly).

If the couple doesn’t walk away with both awards, it will be the biggest upset in the 50 years of the Grammy Awards.

The Once soundtrack is really that good.

In a music scene that is often saturated with imitation and fake emotion, Hansard and Irglova strike a chord that vibrates straight to your heart and soul.

Both musicians also star in the movie about a modern-day street musician (Hansard) and an immigrant woman’s (Irglova) love story told through the passionate music they create together.

Falling Slowly captures the struggle to find love and accept the heart-break with which one is often left. Hansard plays a tattered guitar, symbolic of the musicians hardships and lost love, along side Irglova’s melodic piano.

Hansard’s raspy, Irish-accented voice is infectious as he sings: Take this sinking boat and point it home / we’ve still got time / Raise your hopeful voice / you have a choice / you’ve made it now, in the chorus of Falling Slowly.

In If You Want Me, Irglova takes over main vocal duties with Hansards accompaniment and the duo never skips a beat.

The rest of the soundtrack is much the same with the duo trading lines and harmonizing the well crafted lyrics that storyboard the songs.

When Your Mind’s Made Up and Lies continue the theme of self-expression and exploration after loss.

Though the majority of Once is composed in a melancholy atmosphere, the songs, and their ability to relate to peoples lives, do not leave a sad impression.

What you’re left with is inspiration, the feeling of understanding as if the songs were written for the listener to relate to.

To fully encompass the essence of the Once soundtrack, it is imperative to see the movie. While the songs stand alone as individual compositions, their relation to the movie makes the songs even more meaningful.

Hansard and Irglova’s music feels simplistic, and shows a natural chemistry between the two musicians. The simplicity is only a mirage, though. The intricacies and depth of the music stands out above everything else.

When all the details are stripped from the songs, you are left with the core meaning that embodies the movie; guy and girl fall in love and it’s expressed through the music they create.

The Once soundtrack is 13 songs that are characteristic of everything music should be: passionate, thoughtful, emotional, original and most of all, real.

That’s why anything less than two Grammy Awards on Feb. 10 for Hansard and Irglova would be criminal.

“