Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... on only the European album containing more score, fewer songs, and no dialogue if you seek a solid taste of an entertainingly eclectic Trevor Jones score that contains one of his most infectious title themes. Avoid it... on the American album if you have no interest in beholding one of the most misguided and irritating soundtrack products in the history of the genre. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Arachnophobia: (Trevor Jones) With the guidance of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and his usual set of collaborators, Arachnophobia became the first release of the Hollywood Pictures studio. The famed director's usual production partner, Frank Marshall, used the opportunity to helm a movie for the first time, receiving more acclaim for this project than his subsequent directorial efforts. The 1990 movie was a marketing conundrum for the fledgling studio, striking chords in both the horror and comedy genres, but critics and audiences responded positively to its throwback monster-movie style and cast of likeable comic actors. The fear of spiders is obviously the hook in Arachnophobia, which makes fun of the chaos caused by a deadly new species of spider from the Amazon that is accidentally transported to a sleepy Northern California town. Once there, it spawns an army of little killers that indiscriminately wipes out portions of the population all the while ineptitude and character conflicts harm the efforts to identify and exterminate the problem. By the film's end, a family transplanted from San Francisco has to save itself by finding creative methods of dispatching the naughty creatures, succeeding but ultimately preferring the earthquakes of the big city over the environment of the wild. In an effort to appeal to the mainstream, Arachnophobia employs a soundtrack that includes several prominent song placements meant to add humor to certain scenes. In between these generally badly dated entries is an energetic score by Trevor Jones, who was already a veteran of the fantasy genre but who had not yet struck gold with Last of the Mohicans. This assignment represented a rare collaboration between Jones and a Spielberg crowd more content utilizing the services of the highest A-list composers. Although eventually known for his grandiose themes, Jones tackled Arachnophobia with a more eclectic and stylish balancing of the film's many emotional needs, successfully navigating a fair amount of parody territory without becoming trite. The exotic origins of the arachnids provide unconventional tones to the orchestral palette while a collection of guitar, saxophone, and harmonica address the folksy atmosphere of the town invaded by the menace. Synthesizers assist in creating design elements in the music that accentuate the horror element. It's quite a diverse score overall, and it does memorably feature one of the composer's most rowdy and entertaining primary themes (even if it never attempts to achieve the grand scope of the composer's best known works). While the score for Arachnophobia has long been denigrated to an extent because of its unsavory album situation, Jones' actual composition and rendering is impressively intelligent. The wide range of instrumental colors keeps the score interesting in all its parts, highlighted by the impressive layers of all three of Jones' emphasized groups of contributors for the major performances of the main theme. In "Main Title" and "End Title," the composer unleashes this identity with dynamic exuberance, highlighted by exotic percussive rhythms under the orchestra while each section takes faithful turns whipping through the theme. Particularly impressive in these passages is Jones' tonally pleasing use of counterpoint, trumpets and woodwinds flailing about in complimentary lines. Breathy winds and acoustic guitar bridge the score's disparate parts in this theme, the latter's rambling base for the trumpet renditions of the theme especially appealing. Jones shows the range of capabilities that this theme can express during his several expressions of the idea in other circumstances, including the downright gorgeous tones of "The Casket Arrives" (with a vintage Jerry Goldsmith style from flute and harmonica) and the opening portion of "End Credits," which puts Jones' standard high string drama methods into effect. Reminders of the theme are present throughout the score and are far more memorable than the secondary suspense motifs that bury themselves in less consequential cues. The most notable other theme in Arachnophobia is the jazzy saxophone, piano, and harmonica identity for John Goodman's character, summarized nicely in "Delbert's Theme." A retro monster-movie motif with blaring brass for the final cellar sequence is almost laughably immense. The atmospheric suspense music in the score isn't as impressive, though Jones does sprinkle some interesting sound effects into these passages to keep the listener on edge. When stepping back from the score, the five minutes of full-fledged performances of the primary theme are the easy highlights, worthy of any compilation of Jones' best work. When the new studio's record branch released Arachnophobia on album, it did so in disastrous fashion, producing one of the worst soundtrack products of all time. Irrelevant song additions combat 27-minutes of score, all of which layered with quotes from the film in mono sound. While this American product covers all the basic highlights, the presentation is extremely annoying, and thankfully the label's European branch dropped most of the songs and dialogue for its own release, which ads 14 minutes of score that expands upon previously released ideas (but still in rather poor sound quality). Seek the European album for Arachnophobia if you have interest in appreciating Jones' intelligently rendered and accessible score.
Music as Heard on the American Album: ** Music as Heard on the European Album: *** Overall: *** Track Listings (American Album):
Total Time: 57:46
Track Listings (European Album):
Total Time: 52:53
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Hollywood (American)