Buy it... on either of its nearly identical, rare score-only albums if you seek a pleasantly undemanding children's score that will meet your expectations but not exceed them.

Avoid it... if even a heartfelt primary theme of sincere character cannot salvage a listening experience that does apply necessary Carl Stalling/Warner Brothers cartoon techniques for the squeaky protagonists' activities.

Lennertz

Alvin and the Chipmunks: (Christopher Lennertz) Regardless of the disdain that many feel towards the high-pitched vocal manipulations that made these memorable chipmunks famous in the 1960's, their longevity and popularity continue to impress. Songwriter Ross Bagdasarian's 1958 creations translated their Grammy-winning success into a 1961 television show that became a staple of children's viewing for decades. Songs performed by Alvin, Simon, and Theodore linger in the memory because of their uniquely tweaked vocalizations, obnoxious pop culture icons resurrected in part by Bagdasarian's son for a 2007 animated feature. Fox's adaptation of the idea mixed animated and live action elements, telling of the story of how the three famous chipmunks used their speaking abilities to become famous. The plot of Alvin and the Chipmunks reboots the concept in modern times, largely ignoring the long history of the characters until an overview of their many cover versions of songs at the end. Their relationship with their surrogate human father and battles with an evil music executive determined to use them to his advantage prove the heart and foil of what otherwise is an excuse to give their high pitched squeaking opportunities to mangle songs. Incredibly, the film was a monumental fiscal success, finishing in the top 10 highest grossing films of 2007 and returning over $360 million on an investment of $60 million. It definitely helped composer Christopher Lennertz continue his transition from television and video game scores to mainstream feature projects; within just a few years, he would become not only a reliable provider of innocuous children's music similar to his work for Alvin and the Chipmunks, but also a source of intriguingly superior parody music for wretched cultural comedies. A few unique challenges faced Lennertz when writing for Alvin and the Chipmunks, the first obviously the task of balancing the wacky personality of the characters' singing personas with a score that was genuine enough to lend the concept some sense of warmth and heart. Avoiding a straight Carl Stalling/Warner Brothers rip-off is always a difficult aspect of such assignments, too. There are the inevitable Stalling-like passages of whirlwind orchestral mayhem, the action sequences begging for familiar material in this regard. But the most interesting hurdle to jump for this score was the fact that the music's instrumental tone couldn't interfere with dialogue that exists in the highest registers of the soundscape (rather than usual human pitch). With sincerity and a bit of technical creativity, Lennertz succeeds in providing the film with what it needed, though the result is still somewhat generic genre fodder when presented alone on album.

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Not all of the pitfalls of hyperactive children's scores are avoided by Lennertz in Alvin and the Chipmunks, but it's a generally pleasing listening experience. The attractive aspects of the score are its attempts to bring sympathy to the film's primary human character, Dave. Lennertz focuses his thematic content on that character, yielding a soothingly tender theme for acoustic guitar, piano, and sometimes the full orchestral ensemble. The composer's ability to balance his orchestral sections with neatly wrapped counterpoint and melody assignment is one of his career distinctions, and "Main Title" is an outstanding example of this talent. The score's mannerisms (and especially the applications of unobtrusive brass counterpoint) place it close to David Newman's lengthy career sound for similar assignments (Newman would not surprisingly score the 2009 sequel in this franchise), while a generally hopelessly optimistic tone will remind of Mark McKenzie's softer character scores of a decade prior. Some of the plucked, staggered movements in the flowing portions pull a few techniques from the Thomas Newman playbook. The resulting balance sometimes features shades of Jerry Goldsmith's fluffier, later material and for true film score collectors may even recall Basil Poledouris' extremely limited forays into this kind of sound (perhaps just a coincidence even given Lennertz's association with the late composer). The press materials for Alvin and the Chipmunks always made note of Lennertz's creative employment of processed or altered percussion to represent the chipmunks' forest heritage. These include backwards renditions of metallic percussive hits and various struck wooden accents to mimic falling acorns and the likes. While seemingly a good initial idea, the finished score really doesn't flaunt these contributions with enough clarity in the mix to make them much of a factor. In fact, some listeners may not even notice them. The backwards triangle edits sound like a cliche given their all-too frequent employment in sampled (or at least partially electronic) scores of the 2000's. Such sounds would be more at home in parody music like Lennertz's Vampires Suck. The personality of Alvin and the Chipmunks remains overwhelmingly orchestral, however, and its brief, 35-minute running time on album is as easy as it is workmanlike and predictable. Aside from the obligatory song compilation soundtrack album, the score alone was released twice soon after its debut. It was first pressed as a composer promo at the time of the film's release and was then afforded a 1,000-copy run by La-La Land Records in 2008. The contents (and sound quality) of these two albums are roughly the same, with some merging and slight rearranging of shorter cues on the latter album. Either way, it's an effortless 35 minutes of fun that will meet but not necessarily exceed your expectations. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download