Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you are expecting to embrace the challenging sound of David Arnold's arguably most heavily techno-influenced score, with no harmony, awkward sound effects, and an extremely bad attitude. Avoid it... if even the mild techno style you heard in Arnold's edgier James Bond scores turned you off. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Changing Lanes: (David Arnold) Considered a diversion for director Roger Michell, who is better known for comedies (and a partnership with composer Trevor Jones for his scores), Changing Lanes starts with a traffic accident and develops into a tale of vengeance and desperation between the two involved men (played by Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson), both of whom battling their own internal demons and having little to lose. The story is saturated with the ills and struggles of urban lifestyles, with the fates of the two men intertwined in a nasty, self-destructive battle. The film never plays the race card, however, which is one of the reasons it was critically acclaimed, and that also makes a statement about the soundtrack. Despite David Arnold's use of his rock, funk, and techno knowledge to fit well into situations requiring hip styles of music representing black culture, the racial differences in Changing Lanes are not the reason Arnold choose his path here. Instead, the brooding oppression of an urban nightmare is the inspiration for this choice, and Arnold is equally up to the task for this experiment of his own. The composer was, of course, a punk rocker in his years before feature film scoring, and the techno sounds heard in his British television works of his previous years are arguably the true sound of Arnold's personal style. After announcing himself back into a non-orchestral scene of style in a different genre with Shaft in 2000, he began accepting scoring assignments with which he could vary those techno elements in different urban settings. The hip score for Baby Boy followed in 2001, and at roughly the same time as his suspenseful, but stylish effort for Enough, Arnold went to the far, abstract end of the techno scale for Changing Lanes. Enthusiasts of Stargate and Independence Day may not have wanted to believe this at the time, but Changing Lanes was, more or less, a return to Arnold's most familiar territory. Unfortunately, his work for Changing Lanes is the kind of music that, despite some necessarily irritating moments in the context of the film, simply doesn't translate well onto album. You really have to understand the troubled environment of the film to have an appreciation for this music whatsoever, because without that context, you're left with an extremely underwhelming and occasionally obnoxious listening experience on your stereo. Unless Varèse Sarabande was intentionally targeting a crowd of demented listeners with this product, there's no good reason for it to exist. This is a composition as far removed as possible from the orchestral melodies and harmonic sensibilities that Arnold has displayed in his mainstream hits. Instead, he utilizes every synthetic drum loop, sound effect sampling, and keyboarding technique in his library for Changing Lanes, pushing them at you with a different combination of sounds every time. The only overarching tone, motif, or style that exists to define the score is a deep bass droning that underlines the character flaws and primordial emotions that grip the story. Otherwise, there is seemingly little organization to the techno-madness that is presented for the entire length of this work. Neither the beats of the rhythms, nor the volume of the electronic instrumentation, are elevated to an unforgiving, loud, and irritating level. The score doesn't conduct an ass-kicking in any part, for instance, but rather maintains a consistent level of suppressed anger and mid-level angst. The score also doesn't offer rhythms in an enticingly cool sense, either, which Arnold had done over the previous two years with his techno rhythms. The emotional distress heard in Changing Lanes has caused comparisons to arise between this score and Thomas Newman's most serious, introverted efforts for arthouse dramas, though with a distinctly synthetic edge. Some of Arnold's looped or singular sound effects, mixed forward and backwards, imitate the sounds of seagulls, sirens, a wobbling sheet of plastic, or even those revolutionary, pulsating mob control devices meant to disperse angry crowds of rock-throwing juveniles. These effects define the score, making the rather large list of performers for the recording a rather curious aspect of the production. Overall, the music fails to identify with the listener on any level, remaining impersonal, abrasive, and distant as necessary for the on-screen battle of wills. The mixing of the score accentuates this difficulty, with considerable reverberation and deliberate distortion of string effects adding to the nightmarish scenario. It is almost as though the music puts you in the head of a person who has an immense headache, and that either signifies a great success by Arnold or a total musical failure. Regardless of the score's effectiveness in the film, though, Changing Lanes will try your patience on album. The product does not include the end credits song performed by Annie Lennox ("Waiting in Vain"), a fatal omission for the film's fans. The album also has 26 tracks, but no track names. Ultimately, Arnold's techno abilities are varied and marginally effective, but Changing Lanes is simply too disorganized and distressing to enjoy to any degree on album. * Track Listings:
Total Time: 39:48
All artwork and sound clips from Changing Lanes are Copyright © 2002, Varèse Sarabande. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/11/03, updated 3/2/09. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2003-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
