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'Fifty Shades Freed' Soundtrack Strains to Please

Let the heavy breathing begin. The soundtrack album to “Fifty Shades Freed,” the finale of the soft-core BDSM romance trilogy based on the novels by E.L. James, arrives with its goal clearly designated: getting a song on the radio with enough of a sultry frisson to sell tickets for the movie.

But the “Fifty Shades” pop franchise — which on two previous albums has yielded Top 10 hits for the Weeknd (“Earned It”), the duo of Zayn and Taylor Swift (“I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”) and Ellie Goulding (“Love Me Like You Do,” which reappears, barely altered, on “Fifty Shades Freed”) — stays persistently on message. Each song spells out the trilogy’s themes: desire, passion (with just a tinge of taboo), obsession, true love and, certainly not least, luxury shopping. “I know you’re afraid of what you want but I’m curious,” Sabrina Claudio sings in “Cross Your Mind” over a reggaeton beat, in English and Spanish versions. (Don’t forget the international market.) She adds, “I’m addicted to anything that’s not good for me.”

It’s not that big a stretch for current pop, which — soundtrack or no soundtrack — often fixates on the very same topics. Still, “Fifty Shades Freed” comes across as very tightly targeted. If it wasn’t a soundtrack collection, it could be a concept album about a risky infatuation with a posh happy ending.

Julia Michaels fulfills the “Fifty Shades” assignment with “Heaven,” a ballad with a hollow, plinking arrangement under her just-finished-crying voice, delivering lyrics that dovetail love and religion — “Falling for him was like falling from grace” — on the way to the twist in the chorus: “They say all good boys go to heaven/ But bad boys bring heaven to you.”

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The somber, mock-ecclesiastical tone returns in “Sacrifice” by Black Atlass featuring Jessie Reyez. Churchy organ chords alternating with indrawn breaths start a throwback soul song that has Black Atlass — one of this album’s stand-ins for the Weeknd — crooning, “Sometimes you have to break the rules,” with Reyez soon succumbing to his charms: “How do you make dangerous look so beautiful?”

For some more overt machismo — on an album largely geared to a female perspective — there’s “The Wolf” by the Spencer Lee Band, with a riff vaguely hinting at Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and a vocal that yowls like Wonder and hoots like Michael Jackson (and the Weeknd), leering, “Your body’s sweating, dripping wet and I just can’t control myself.”

Sia, who can drill down to the emotional core of a cliché, sings “Deer in Headlights” as a submissive who finds herself falling “down a shame spiral” while seeking redemption. For three minutes there are no drums, just keyboards and chamber strings; a supportive beat comes in but fades out, as she begs, “Please don’t abandon me” and sounds genuinely bereft.

A further dose of bound-and-waiting suspense arrives in Jessie J’s willful, revved-down remake of James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good),” with ticking electronic percussion and a shivery, scratchy vocal. Another remake, Bishop Briggs’ version of INXS' “Never Tear Us Apart,” jettisons the hints of playfulness in the original to ratchet up the power-ballad drama.

With a song to underline each plot point, there are lighter moments. Michaels returns with a perkier tune, “Are You,” that matter-of-factly encourages a flirtation over a snappy, skeletal rhythm track. And for shopping, there’s “Big Spender,” with Kiana Ledé (formerly the child star Kiana Brown) as a gold digger flaunting “Bling on my agenda/ Last time I paid I just can’t remember.”

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But throughout the album, despite skillful songs from Michaels and Sia, there’s a sense of obligations being met, bases being touched. It’s the bane of most sequels, and the songs in “Fifty Shades Freed” can’t escape it.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

JON PARELES © 2018 The New York Times

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