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I don’t know the name of it. It’s not taken from any of Danny Elfman’s scores.
In my opinion, it’s something Danny quickly composed for the web site. I say quickly because it’s all synth orchestra (a good one, but still synth), and some parts are a little bit off tempo (it hasn’t been quantified properly), and it even has a false note. But it’s cool anyway
I don’t want to disappoint you… But… I’m pretty sure this is a generic message from Warner Music.
It’s probably the same message for other artists and/or bands… I don’t think it means anything…Sorry…
Thanks Thor,
I totally agree with ALL your comments
And you’re right, Boingo is far from being a punk band. It’s quite hard to categorize them.–> Tender Lumpling, Synthesized horns?!!? Who dares to say that ?!!!?? Boingo used a lot of synthesizers, but only to create new sounds. They NEVER tried to immitate any real or existing instrument. And specially not horns.
They had the best horn section ever. Why would they do that?Well, here are a few things you need to know :
Pre-1980 Oingo Boingo (Called the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo) is more jazz orientated.
1980 “Forbidden Zone” is the switch from jazz to a punk/rock band
From 1980 to 1984 (The Cat EP, Only a lad, Nothing to Fear, Good for your soul, and including Danny Elfman’s “SO-LO” album), Oingo Boingo is a mix of excentric Punk/Rock, combined with a lot of weird synth sounds, with some very unique songs with unique styles (like Grey Matter).
Then, I’d say 1985 – to 1987 is a New Wave period for Boingo, with “Dead Man’s Party” and “Boi-Ngo”, Elfman’s singing became much more melodic. And the music sounds less electronic (even though they still used lots of synths).
Then, in 1990 came out “Dark At The End Of The Tunnel”. It’s more ethnic. It has a lot of xylophones, the horn section is used extensively in songs like “Run Away” or “Glory Be”. Most songs are way slower than what we’re used to. A lot of Boingo fans don’t like that album. In my opinion, it is one of their best.
And 1994, “Boingo”, their last studio album, is the “meeting” of Elfman’s cinematic universe with his rock band. The orchestral arrangements are amazing. “Insanity” is one of the best songs ever. We have a few very sensitive songs like “Mary” and “Can’t see – Useless”.
ABOUT OTHER ALBUMS :
“Skeletons In The Closet” is a best of their early years (with A&M records 1980-1983)
“Boingo Alive” is not a live album. It’s all their hits from 1980 to 1990 RE-RECORDED as if it was live.
It’s the perfect album, to RE-DISCOVER songs that you love. It gives them a second life!
I WOULD NEVER START WITH THIS ONE, because it’s not representative of their evolution, since all the songs have been captured in 1990. They all have the 90’s rock/new wave sound.
Just keep it to RE-VISIT Boingo, after knowing all their other albums.“Best O’ Boingo” takes over where “Skeletons In the closet” had left. Some early songs appear, but it’s their new 1990 “alive” recording. You won’t have anything pre-1985 !
“Farewell” is their one and only official LIVE release. It’s great. It’s really rocky, and noisy, like a typicall mid 90’s rock band.
“Anthology” is the only best of that starts in 1980 all the way to 1995. It’s a great way to see their evolution.
Sadly, a lot of great songs are missing in that album.There’s also a “20th century Masters : Best Of Oingo Boingo”. This album is a mix of everything, but it’s really not the best compilation. The only reason to buy it, is the fact that the songs in that recording have been remastered !
Ok, so, here’s my advice :
If you wanna start with a “best of”, go with Anthology.
If you wanna start with an album, I would start from the beggining. in 1980, with Forbidden Zone, the Cat EP (that you can find on iTunes) or Only A Lad.
Just know that if you don’t like an album, you shouldn’t give up, because they’re all very different !
Have a great musical trip
Sadly, only two versions of this song exist. The one on the soundtrack album, and another one that can be found on iTunes, which is a remix that appears on the videogame.
The movie version can only be heard in the movie itself… Sorry…Well, most of my friends didn’t know his name, but with my help, they realized that they LOVED his work without having even noticed that it was all the same composer. I mean, everybody has heard The Simpsons, Batman, Nightmare, Desperate, Dead Man’s Party or Weird Science… But they don’t know who’s the genius that created all these.
Then, since I’ve been playing a lot of his works in my concerts, and even played a tribute to Elfman concert, most of them started to know and listen to his works. Actually, at least 20 of my friends are really into his music now… I live in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is quite hard to find Oingo Boingo cd’s around here. But one store started importing all their albums, because more and more people would ask for it. I was really glad
Great! Just ordered mine!
By the way, I know I keep asking, but does anyone know what happened to that LaLaLand Scrooged release ?
Ryan, any idea?
I’m a HUGE “Shadow” fan. I love the movie, I loooove the score. I’m far from being a Goldsmith fan.
I prefer Elfman’s music by far!
But seriously, I muss say I don’t really see any Elfman influence in the Shadow… It has that special Goldsmith touch! I don’t get that eternal comparison.Well, these are all amazing ideas… But for choices 3 to 5, If you think about it, there’s no link with Comicon, or with Sony…. Hmmmm…. I’m getting more and more curious !
Maybe a “Burton / Elfman Collaboration album”, you’re right… But if they do it, I really hope it will contain new versions, or concert versions specially written for the album (as John Williams would do)…
Or even better… What about a Batman Symphony ? Shore has done something like this with Lord Of The Rings. And since Elfman has made his first steps into Concert pieces with Serenada, that could be a possibility… It would be a dream come true….
Well, Danny doesn’t conduct. I mean, he can conduct, we’ve seen him do it, but that’s not his job.
These days, a lot composers who conduct their scores perform live concerts. I know Howard Shore does it. John Williams does it. But Danny Elfman doesn’t. I haven’t ever heard of a full Danny Elfman orchestral concert.
But we can only hope it will happen one dayWell, it was pretty clear to me that by accepting to do this film for disney, Burton would have to follow certain rules. So, I didn’t really expect any outstanding originality, or anything else that would be considered as “outside of the norm”. Doing a movie for Disney means that you’re gonna have to follow that “norm”.
Knowing that, I could only be amazed to see how he managed to keep that disney “norm” and also add his fantastic universe to it. He really succeeded doing this. I remember having a similar discussion a few years ago about Planet Of The Apes. It feels the same for me. It’s not new material, he had to be faithfull to a certain “norm”, but still, it is and looks and feels like a Burton film.You ask if they’ve become “disneyfield”… I don’t think so. I simply think that they’ve grown up, they are more mature, and instead of avoiding the “norm” and criticizing it, they’ve learned to accept it, and even play with it.
Maybe the fact that Danny and Tim have become fathers helped them to be more open to that universe.And the only fact that Tim’s last movie was “Sweeney Todd” -and it was one of his most dark and violent films- shows that “Alice in Wonderland” or “Charlie and the chocolate factory” are not the only direction he’s taking.
Wow, Ryan, where did THIS come from? It’s not the one in the movie is it? Nor the one on the cd, i believe…
Actually, I think it DOES sound like that in the movie… I remember being very surprised hearing samples. I mean, there’s real chorus in almost every track. I don’t think it has anything to do with a lack of time to re-record a track. I think it’s definitely a deliberate choice… The only question is : why ?
Come on guys, don’t be so hard on him about his choices…
Seriously, I really doubt he chose these movies because he liked them… But I think any composer loves challenges, and sometimes, a movie, no matter how dumb it is, can bring inspiration and give new musical style directions. For example, I’m pretty sure what attracted elfman in a project like Flubber was more the “mambo-like” ideas, than the movie itself.
I’m pretty sure Elfman would have awesome ideas for a Twilight movie, no matter what the movie looks like…
Remember that he worked with Peter Jackson on the Frighteners simply because he wanted to collaborate with that director, but he’s always admitted that it was Jackson’s worst film…As a composer, I totally see how someone could me musically inspired by a project, even if the movie itself isn’t that good…
Wow… That’s great!!! Yes, I do hear a lot of black beauty harmonies too…. I’m so excited, and I’m so glad that there are so many variations on the Alice Theme!
I can’t believe we thought in the beginning that the silly web-site synth music was Elfman… What an insult !I guess it’s gonna be Lala Land, like the Batman Animated series… But it’s only a guess…
By the way, what happened with Lala Land’s Scrooged release ? Is it still going to happen ?
Well, you’re right, Mission : Imposible was different… But I think Descent Into Mystery is right.
Dolores Claiborne was the first giant step. It was one of his first less-theme-based score. Don’t get me wrong, there are beautiful themes in Dolores, but they’re not the heart of the score. It’s much more complex. He created new textures for that score. A new way of using the strings. A new atmosphere, and he kept developping these textures later on, specially with “Extreme Measures” (a score that everybody keeps ignoring, for some reason).Then, “To Die For” was surprising as well, because it took you to unexpected areas. For example, the Main Titles start with a typicall Elfman-old-fairy-style melody, and suddenly turns into hard rock. It was, I believe, the first time he really mixed that rock-guitar sound with his film music style. (In my opinion, Midnight Run doesn’t count, because it wasn’t an orchestral score. It sounded more like an Oingo Boingo instrumental album). Actually, To Die For’s main titles always made me think of some sort of Schizophrenia. I remember Danny talking about this duality of being a rock songwriter and a classical orchestra film composer in an interview back in the days, and this music really reflected that duality perfectly. Pretty happy he ended up writing a whole piece based on Schizophrenia.
And “Dead Presidents” and also “Freeway” were the start of his “experimental” universe. With the creation of new sounds, weird percussions, electronics mixed with orchestra and electric guitars.
Then came Mission : Impossible, where he continued using the string textures of Dolores Claiborne, some of his old style action composition, combined with some new sound design and percussion ideas that he had started to developp with Dead Presidents or Freeway…
