Amazing Aloha Champ and Begin Again Soundtrack and Authenticity

All Souls' day. Waking up with a hangover, I went to Jollibee to order the Amazing Aloha Champ.  It is made with 1/3 pound 100% beef patty, crisp bacon strips, pineapple slice, lettuce, cheese, on a special sauce. It costs 179 Pesos for the value meal. Arguably, it is one of the best burgers in my book. It is not overwhelming, just right to the bite. The cost is fair, to think, I could not make this on my own even if I bought all the ingredients. 

I felt grateful for having a job I love that allows me to buy authentic foods and stuffs. Just a few months ago, I cannot even buy a Dunkin Donut Bunwich. Level up na ba ito?

Amazing Aloha Champ Reviewed

I listened to the  soundtrack of Begin Again while enjoying my burger. This is perhaps the most influential album I have come across since the Great Expectations soundtrack in 1998. I was moved by the songs in the album that I begged Joyce, my musical half, to cover "Lost Stars" with me.

 

Begin Again is a story about what happens when souls meet and make music.  Greta James (Keira Knightley), a singer songwriter just broke up with her rocker boyfriend (Adam Levine). One night while playing her original song on a bar, a drunk Dan Mulligan (Mark Ruffalo, who just lost his job as a music producer  saw the her potential to make it in the  music industry. He tells Greta about his plans of producing her album and launching her into the mainstream with all the marketing works.

Keira, however, is opposed to this. She argues that it goes against her philosophy of keeping her music "authentic." Greta: "The thing is you can't sign me, and I don't want to be signed." 

Eventually, a series of events awakens Greta's musical passion. The two embark in musical journey of outdoor recordings -- between the street alleys of New York, rooftops overlooking the Empire State Building, and the Subway. In their journey, they discover how to start over again. 

From wiki, Greg Alexander (front man of the New Radicals) co-wrote most of the music behind the film. He composed Someday We'll Know and Michelle Branch's "Game of Love" and, "You Get What You Give" which the lyrics goes like (...Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson, you're all fakes run to your mansions, come around we'll kick you ass in...).

The film and its soundtrack touched something in me as I was finishing to eat my burger. I asked myself, "What is authentic?" Was the food authentic? Was the music authentic? I guess there's a long line of Philosophical debate touching that subject matter. Probably authenticity is self-reflection. Maybe it has something to do with feelings. Maybe authenticity has to do with just "Keeping it real."