OK, let me rage against this for a little while. So Fifty Shades of Grey has sold, like, a bajillion copies. I read somewhere that there are more paperback copies of that in print than there are Harry Potter books. I wanted to find glorified fan-fic author E. L. James after I read that and slaughter her, naturally. Or, just make her watch this terrible video of Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis reading her book out loud. THIS IS THE HAVOC YOU HAVE WREAKED, ERIKA LEONARD. THANKS. A LOT.
But because the universe likes to hate me (previous example: Patrick St. Esprit getting cast as Romulus Thread in Catching Fire instead of my picks Ben Foster and Mark Strong, sigh), the hits just keep on coming: Even though all the details about the Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptation haven't been hammered down yet (although we do know author Bret Easton Ellis won't be working on the film), we do have a soundtrack. And not a proper soundtrack to the film, mind you, but a collection of classical tracks mentioned in James' novels that apparently are doing quite robustly in online sales, and are now being released in an album from EMI Classics. Cue my furious rage, again ...
Straight from a press release I received in my inbox this morning:
EMI Classics will release Fifty Shades of Grey - The Classical Album, a 15-track album featuring classical music personally selected by author E L James herself and referenced in her bestselling Fifty Shades book trilogy. The album will be available in the U.S. and Canada digitally on August 21st and in CD format on September 18th. The album will be released internationally in both formats on September 17th.
About The Fifty Shades Book Series:
Fifty Shades of Grey follows the relationship of 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey and college student Anastasia Steele. Subsequent novels in the series, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed continue to explore the couple's deepening relationship.
Fifty Shades of Grey follows the relationship of 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey and college student Anastasia Steele. Subsequent novels in the series, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed continue to explore the couple's deepening relationship.
Says James of
the new album: "I am thrilled that the classical pieces that inspired
me while I wrote the Fifty Shades Trilogy are being brought together in
one collection for all lovers of the books to enjoy."
First of all, way for EMI Classics to TOTALLY GLOSS OVER how stupid the series is. "Deepening relationship?" That makes it seem like they're having some kind of epic love affair, Anna Karenina- or Wuthering Heights-style. Nope, it's not that serious.
Also, hold up, lady. I refuse to agree with James' assertion that fans of her overwhelmingly stupid, really-not-even-that-good-when-it-comes-to-porn series are "lovers of books." Nope. Not even. This isn't even my douchey grad student persona speaking (sike, it is), but I don't think people who are reading Fifty Shades of Grey are doing it because they consider it great literature. It's because the series is a stupid fad, and bored middle-aged women want something to fantasize about that isn't their terrible awful lives, and so these books have become absurdist fantasies for a very specific community of people who don't understand that they can get way better sexual content on the Internet.
And ultimately, when the film version of Fifty Shades of Grey finally gets under way, those fans aren't going to be "lovers of cinema." They're just going to be people on my "I will hate you forever" list. Also, the actors in the film, and anyone else involved, will subsequently also be added to said list. But don't worry, E. L. You'll always be Hadadi enemy No. 1 in my heart.
