Rubbish. The first Pirates score is a massive mess of over-synthesized rubbish, and I'm still wondering how in HELL it got to be so popular. Compare PotC - Badelt's worst (and most popular) work, to The Time Machine - his best. Or don't, since there's no comparison. Time Machine is ethnically varied, colorful and epic on a more intelligent scale. Pirates is a huge rehash of what we all heard in Gladiator, just with less orchestra and more badly mixed electronics.

The only good thing that can be said about PotC 1 is that it provided a good base for PotC 3, which remains one of my favorite soundtracks of all time!