Thoughts on Danny Elfman’s most active years

[Descent Into Mystery]

Throughout Danny Elfman’s 30 year career as a film music composer, there have been years where it seems like Danny Elfman locked himself into a room and spent the whole year writing music. And I’m curious about what you guys think about those years when Elfman was pushed to his limits.

1988
Beetlejuice
Midnight Run
Big Top Pee-Wee
Hot to Trot
Scrooged

I’m a fan of all these scores. They all have something different to offer while still being uniquely Elfman.

1990
Nightbreed
Dick Tracy
Darkman
The Flash (TV Theme)
Edward Scissorhands

Here’s an example of a year where Elfman was definitely over-worked. Nightbreed, Dick Tracy, Darkman, and The Flash Theme sound very similar. Don’t misunderstand me. I enjoy all these scores, especially Darkman, but Elfman relied on the same style of music and I don’t think the casual listener can tell the difference between all these scores. More than once, people have told me that all these scores “sound like Batman.” Luckily, there’s Edward Scissorhands to rescue 1990 from being a bland year for Elfman.

1996
Freeway
Mission: Impossible
The Frighteners
Extreme Measures
Mars Attacks!

On the positive side, this was a diverse year for Elfman. These are 5 different movies with 5 different scores. But on the negative side, this wasn’t a particularly strong year for Elfman. Mission: Impossible and Mars Attacks! are great. The Frighteners is fun but run-of-the-mill. But Freeway and Extreme Measures are very forgettable. Those two scores may work in the movie, but they don’t leave a lasting impression.

2012
Dark Shadows
Men in Black 3
Silver Linings Playbook
Frankenweenie
Hitchcock
Promised Land

This is an interesting collection of scores. They’re a nice representation of Elfman’s more recent style of music, and I like all them, but I wouldn’t rank them among my favorites.

[Ryan Keaveney]

89-93 is my favourite Elfman period, but I also like a lot of 94-98. I have no problem following the changes in his musical voice. I even rank modern stuff like OZ and DARK SHADOWS among my favourites. And I make no apologies in wanting big, fantasy scores one after another!

[Lambegue]

Descent Into Mystery wrote:

1988
Beetlejuice
Midnight Run
Big Top Pee-Wee
Hot to Trot
Scrooged

I love “Scrooged”, “Beetlejuice” and “Midnight Run”. I don’t know “Hot to Trot” so well (only the suites on “Music for a darkened theatre”, have you heard any more of it, Descent Into Mystery ?). I consider “Big Top Pee Wee” as nice, but a bit all over the place…I like to listen to it sometimes but it’s far to be among my favourites by Elfman.

Descent Into Mystery wrote:

1990
Nightbreed
Dick Tracy
Darkman
The Flash (TV Theme)
Edward Scissorhands

As you said, one can see here that Batman is still present in Elfman’s spirit. Maybe it’s partly his fault, but I think it was also what the studios asked for…In spite of this, “Nightbreed”, “Dick Tracy” and especially “Darkman” have some nice moments I think, and I come back to them quite often. And Edward…Well, Edward is Edward. Smiling smiley.

Descent Into Mystery wrote:

1996
Freeway
Mission: Impossible
The Frighteners
Extreme Measures
Mars Attacks!

“Freeway” : as for “Hot to trot”, I don’t know enough of it to give a real opinion…It seems very weird and hard to listen outside of the film, and I have the feeling that it lacks unity, but I rather like the extracts present on “MFADT”
I love both “Mission : Impossible” and “Mars Attacks”.
“The Frighteners” is nice, but not among my favourites. I still listen to it sometimes…
“Extreme Measures” is really underestimated, I think. It’s a very nice little moody score, that makes an agreable listening experience on the rather short album…
The common point of all those scores is how difficult they are to access on album, I think.

Descent Into Mystery wrote:

2012
Dark Shadows
Men in Black 3
Silver Linings Playbook
Frankenweenie
Hitchcock
Promised Land

Love “Dark Shadows”, “Men In Black 3”, “Frankenweenie” and “Promised Land”.
“Silver Linings Playbook” is very nice, but too short to be a masterpiece, I’d have liked Elfman to have a bit more space to develop his ideas.
“Hitchcock” isn’t really original among Elfman’s recent works, and suffers from its album presentation, a lot of very short tracks…Few of the have the time to develop highlights. It’s agreable to listen to (there isn’t any Elfman’s score that I really dislike…), but not really memorable.

I’ll add another year to the list :
2008
Milk
Hellboy II : the golden army
Wanted
Standard Operating Procedure
And “Wolfman”. Even if the movie was out only two years later, Elfman wrote the music in 2008…In the movie, quite a lot of additional music was written in 2009-10 to match with the re-editing, and Elfman had no part in it (probably working on other projects, or not willing to bother with this after the producer talked of replacing him by Paul Haslinger…). But on the final album, it seems as if the majority of what we have is Elfman’s stuff.

I love this year. Each of this scores is fantastic (well, maybe “Wanted” a bit less, but it still excellent as a bombastic action score), and each of them is different from the others. Great year !

[DannyBiker]

It might be stretch but I always loved 2002 as well : Spider-Man, MIIB and Red Dragon. Only 3 scores but pretty ambitious one in very different genres. Hulk followed closely, although it was 2003.

I find his early busy years at bit less interesting as its scores would sound similar indeed, especially since the movies themselves tended to be similar in style/themes.

2008 could be my favourite : no scores sound alike and they were all surprisingly good (the M:I level of quality for Wanted wasn’t expected and I still think that Hellboy II is his last great fantasy score)

2012 would follow because, again, it was incredibly versatile. I don’t know why people don’t seem to like Hitchcock that much, I find it to be one of its best drama score.

[Descent Into Mystery]

rkeaveney Wrote:

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> 89-93 is my favourite Elfman period

Yeah. My favorite Elfman period is 1985 through 1994. I love everything he composed during those 9 years. Even when he repeated himself, it was still fun to listen to.

[Descent Into Mystery]

Lambegue Wrote:

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> I don’t know “Hot to Trot” so well (only the
> suites on “Music for a darkened theatre”, have you
> heard any more of it, Descent Into Mystery ?).

I’ve seen the movie. The music is a sister to Back to School.

> I’ll add another year to the list :
> 2008
> Milk
> Hellboy II : the golden army
> Wanted
> Standard Operating Procedure
> And “Wolfman”. Even if the movie was out only two
> years later, Elfman wrote the music in 2008…In
> the movie, quite a lot of additional music was
> written in 2009-10 to match with the re-editing,
> and Elfman had no part in it (probably working on
> other projects, or not willing to bother with this
> after the producer talked of replacing him by Paul
> Haslinger…). But on the final album, it seems as
> if the majority of what we have is Elfman’s
> stuff.

I agree. 2008 was a great year. Wanted and The Wolfman are among my favorite “modern day” Elfman scores.

[Descent Into Mystery]

DannyBiker Wrote:

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> 2008 could be my favourite

Call me old fashioned, but 1989 is arguably the standout year for Elfman. He composed the score for Batman and wrote the theme’s for The Simpsons and Tales of the Crypt.

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