Donnie Darko, Mad World & Gary Jules

Donnie Darko is probably one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. The time-traveling, sci-fi tale of a guy and his giant, slightly-psychotic, imaginary bunny friend (if that's even a worthy depiction) is an instant classic of cult movies. If you haven't seen it, you should. But, even if you don't like the movie, you gotta love Gary Jules' cover of Tears for Fears' Mad World. I didn't really pay attention to the soundtrack when I first watched the movie, I didn't use to be big on soundtracks. But so many people told me how great it was, I just had to go back and give it a listen: it's awesome, and this particular song is just unbelievably beautiful. Gary Jules' voice is amazing, and simplicity of his version of the song just adds to the whole sentiment of the song: when he sings

"And I find it kinda funny,
I find it kinda sad,
The dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had."

he really sounds like the type of guy who would feel like that... it's great. So, after some digging around I found out he releases his albums through CD Baby, which is just great. So you can buy the (DRM-Free) mp3's, you can stream his stuff from the website or you can buy the actual CD. Being in CD Baby means that most of the money actually goes to him, which is kind of reassuring, specially after all the news about the RIAA going on lately. If you still don't know the song, watch the video below. If you like it, check out these albums at CD Baby, you can listen most of them for free and see whether Mad World was just luck. :-)