Buy it... if you want to hear Jerry Goldsmith at the very top of his comedy-writing talents.

Avoid it... if the search and price of the album is not worth hearing a composer poke fun at himself and nearly every musical genre in the book.

Goldsmith

The 'Burbs: (Jerry Goldsmith) If a person were to study the quality of director Joe Dante's satirical comedy films, the pair of Gremlins entries would likely top many critics' lists. At the other end of those lists is The 'Burbs. While the film struck the right set of chords for a handful of critics, it was universally bashed as simply being "not funny" and the project fell into the pits of obscurity quickly. Taking jabs at nearly every element of American suburbia, the film follows the at-home vacation of Tom Hanks' character and his reactions to the absurd neighborhood in which he lives. Caricatures of the general types of people you find in real life, the personalities and dwellings of the neighbors in The 'Burbs are the punch-line. All sorts of eccentricities are on display, as are the battles between neighbors, both real and imaginary. Dana Olsen's screenplay is a puzzle that's not really meant to be understood or solved, relying on the viewer's ability to underanalyze the film in order to enjoy its pithy discourse. While reviews of the film when it debuted in 1988 pounded on that script and the movie as a whole, even mainstream writers recognized that Jerry Goldsmith's score was one of (if not the only) bright spot for the picture. Goldsmith and Dante had already collaborated on five films at that point, one of them being the immensely popular Gremlins. While the projects in between Gremlins and The 'Burbs had been of a more serious action-oriented kind, the comedy fire had already been started. The 'Burbs kindled that fire into a roaring blaze, setting a standard so high that even Goldsmith would have a difficult time reprising it in his subsequent works for Dante (from Gremlins 2 through Looney Tunes: Back in Action). The success of Goldsmith's score resides in the fact that composer didn't even try to approach the project with serious intent. The people on screen are all ridiculous caricatures, and instead of attempting to straighten them out with dramatic musical representations, Goldsmith went in the opposite direction: he made them even more ridiculous. Every single moment in his score for The 'Burbs is a satire of some kind, even resorting to sensitivity during scenes that require suspense.

Before proceeding, though, it's important to mention that The 'Burbs was created at the very height of Goldsmith's experimentation with electronics and sound effects in his music, and while some fans of the composer might argue in favor of Gremlins 2, Goldsmith never achieved the same hopelessly optimistic wackiness from The 'Burbs again. If you don't enjoy the sounds of shooting guns, barking dogs, and shattering glass in your music, then stop reading now. If you don't want to hear a parody of classic Goldsmith themes of era past, including the echoing brass motif from Patton, then stop reading now. If you can't handle a score that jumps from Gothic organs to Western rhythms in an instant without warning, then definitely stop reading now. Goldsmith's choice to score each character on the street with not only a different theme, but a theme embodied by an entirely different genre all together, is the key to success in The 'Burbs. Apart from the film, the music is very badly schizophrenic, a basic requirement of the story. Even Goldsmith's usual sounds of the era --thematic constructs that he would develop throughout the early 1990's-- were exaggerated to parody levels. The theme for the neighborhood overall would on paper be appropriate for half a dozen light dramas that Goldsmith would pen, but with his ridiculous instrumentation, yipping dog sounds, and overly-enthusiastic performance of the full ensemble, he twists it into the bizarre. A seductive female voice and exotic jungle-like drums over pipe organ in "A Nightmare in the 'Burbs," among a few other cues, is unlike anything the composer would write elsewhere. Wild viola work in that cue resembles Danny Elfman's more spirited ideas. A string motif in the previous cue, "Neighborhood Watch," combines a waltz-like rhythm that is interrupted on beat by the squeaking of a baby toy (a pull-duck, maybe?). The end title exhibits the various genres in snapshot succession, leaving your head spinning in the fantasy world that Dante intended to create in our own back yards. Only one serious cue exists in the film, and Goldsmith provides "Storytelling" with a caring string and woodwind piece while a grisly ghost story is being told on screen... a smartly counterintuitive move that serves to only increase the suspicions of the viewer.

Most film music critics, while praising The 'Burbs as an above-average effort, sell this score short. Perhaps this is because the score is simply too silly to withstand, or maybe it's influenced by the music's scarcity on album. But The 'Burbs is the pinnacle of Goldsmith's comedy talent, and as such it belongs among the top ten classics in the composer's lengthier career. If this score doesn't bring a smirk to your face, then you should immediately seek either happy pills or the happy plant. The joy that Goldsmith must have had in conjuring up this work is self-evident, and on album it is the exact opposite of the intense labor that you hear out of something like Basic Instinct. The album exists only as the 10th entry in Varèse Sarabande's original club series, and is among the three most valuable of that group. Bootlegged forms of The 'Burbs began floating around the secondary market in the early 2000's, but with minimal extra material (consisting mostly of short snippets of themes performed in full on the club album) and with very substandard sound quality. Conversely, the quality of sound on the club album is superb, with the soundscape sculptured so carefully in the mixing that various elements within the sound effects and orchestral ensemble bounce with skill between the left and right sides. The entire grouping of sound effects that opens the "New Neighbors" cue enters the scene in only the right channel and slowly progresses back to center as the strings build up to one of the expansive electric guitar, bass string, and pipe organ motifs. As you might have guess by now, The 'Burbs is a friendly score to fans of bass-heavy music... a sub-woofer's delight. On album, because the cues are presented in film order, the score does switch genres and themes seemingly at will. Such is the way of a Dante film, so be aware and be prepared. What you might be unable to prepare yourself for is the price tag of an original copy of The 'Burbs, even though it really is worth the search. If you're simply trying to convince your roommates that film music is cool, however, The 'Burbs may not be the right choice. Playing portions of it over a building-wide intercom would not only get you punished, but would likely punch your ticket to an asylum... a sign of a perfect satirical score. *****

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.25 (in 82 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.46 (in 116,682 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.