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Check it out — soundclips (
and a review by John Mullin. For those who haven’t nabbed the CD yet.Ryan
I still didn’t hear the whole score, but I tend to agree with Ryan’s review. I love “Worms Lounge #1” and I’m loving several separate parts of this score, but my first feeling is of slight disappointment. This score does not seem so solid as the one he did for the first “MIB” (one of my favorite Elfman scores ever) and I felt a bit frustrated that the titles theme gets shattered and dissonant so quickly, comparing to the power and charisma of the good old “MIB” theme from the unforgettable titles sequence from the first film. I guess this may work pretty well in the movie, but on CD it sounds a bit frustrating. I love the sincere sweetness of “J Nabbed / K’s Back”, but what I love most in this score is the wonderful and modern way the samples are used, combined, constructed and deconstructed in “Titles Revisited”. Elfman already did this on the “Main Title Deconstruction” track from “Planet of the Apes” and I feel that our favorite film composer should do this more often, because he does it very very well and it is a truly original and creative way of reinventing orchestral film music. The tracks I mentioned are brilliant enough to make the “MIB 2” a must buy CD, but as a whole this doesn’t seem as powerful and sweeping as the first score. And yes, sometimes it seems it’s trying too hard to do the job the rest of the movie should do: to make people laugh. And I remember Elfman saying somewhere that comedy music should be handled with seriousness for maximum effect… Anyway, the man is a great musician and there seems to be a lot here to his fans delight, so buy it!
Well, Nuno, as much as I don’t want to agree with your “slight feeling of disappontment,” I really must. I just bought the CD last night, ripped it open in anticipation, and well…the whole thing kind of fell flat for me. It was not terrible, but I guess I was expecting another “Spider-man.” Oh well…life goes on.
-E
Well well well…
Let’s say it was not what I was expecting either… But a surprise can be good… Don’t you think???I read in an interview last year that Danny did not like to score sequels… Well, he did, and I think he enjoyed it, because he used the old thematic elements without making it boring.
Actually, this album is kind of a self-parody. It’s not a music to be taken as seriously as spiderman or sleepy hollow.
It is a funny, wacky, crazy album, filled with old elfman-ish elements, with a little old boingo attitude.boingomusic, I could not agree more!!
Especially in the Worm Lounge tracks and Titles Revisited, I couldn’t stop smiling (I heard licks from Oingo Boingo’s “Insects” in there, didn’t I?). I can understand how some on this board who have a darker sensibility would find this score lacking, but I like a little light in my life every now and then, and it’s great to have Spider-man (the best score this year) come along, and then have something from the other side of the spectrum hit you. Now all we need is Red Dragon to be like a mixture of Dolores Claiborne and Black Beauty and we have Elfman’s recent oeuvre in a bottle.
Love the “I’m Sorry” and “OOOhhh”ing and “AHHhhh”ing vocal samples in the first track. Listening to it right now!!!!
Hey might as well put a little sunshine in your lives…Maybe Elfman just isn’t feeling so dreary this year…
. . . In comparisson to him being so dreary last year? . . . I dunno, I feel a “Red Dragon” coming on!
last year he seemed pretty dark and tribal.
Why do you say that?
It’s not a question of having a darker or lighter sensibility… “Flubber” is a pretty light and colorful score, and yet I really like it and have fun listening to it. Anyway, I like “MIB 2”, even if I think it’s not Elfman’s best hour and yes, as I said, “Worms Lounge #1” is a delight!
Hey, Nat, you’re right – there are quite a few bits o’ “Insects” in “Worm Lounge(s) 1 and 2” — I’ll admit that I didn’t hear it in “Titles Revisited,” but I don’t think I was listening hard enough. Well, I put MIIB in today for another run-through, and it’s slowly growing on me. It’s…well…”goofy” is the best word I can come up with right now, anyway. I do like portions of it very much (that first minute-and-a-half of “The Light” is hysterical…kind of reminds me of the “No one lives Forever” side of Boingo -and that’s always fun
)This is slightly off-topic, but I find myself, as of late, getting much more into “Boingo Danny” rather than “Film Score Danny.” Don’t know why…probably because I like the general absurdity of Boingo’s lyrics…
-E
Hey, Beetlejuice did well and it was a comedy…same for Mars Attacks. At the very LEAST he raised the tempo on the MiB theme a bit…
And i was saying dark and tribal because for that year his efforts leaned towards that with Proof of Life and Planet of the Apes..Family Man went towards the other side of the spectrum. These are just my impressions and what i get out of that particular year. This year it’s sunnier efforts, but i’m just going by majority rules (Spiderman and MiB 2) Red Dragon will be his one dark score for this year…and then it looks like he’s going change his style again and maybe go retro with his bigger orchestral cuts…Hey this is just how i process it, you guys probobly see it differently.
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