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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The score itself is the best that Arnold produced in the 1990s, and proved to film score fans that his previous two major scores, Last of the Dogmen and Stargate, were not flukes. Arnold tackled ID4 with the same ferocious patriotism for Americana as the vigor he would use to manipulate the John Barry style for the Bond series in Tomorrow Never Dies. His score utilizes a massively recorded and mixed orchestra and chorus in pure form, without the hinderence of electronic cost-cutting measures. This pure orchestration has led to comparisons between ID4 and some of the very best orchestral work produced by the likes of John Williams (as a matter of fact, the talk of the scoring community in 1996 was about the prospect of Arnold eventually replacing Williams in the next generation of composers for the 21st Century). Arnold has been criticized for ID4 because of its sheer volume and robust noise, but I would argue that those people who are fixated on the noisy parts of the score (and yes, anyone who has heard the middle of the "Base Attack" track, with its percussion banging from speaker to speaker, will testify that noisy is precisely the right term for it) are missing the bigger picture. Many of the best moments of the score feature the choral and delicate thematic work, and only two or three minutes of this material was featured on the commercial album. Many people, including myself, called for an expanded album of ID4 because we wanted such cues as "Area 51," "Spaceship from Rosewell," and "The First Lady Dies," none of which is particularly loud. An expanded album was originally promised by some label or specialty outlet in mid-1996 --I can't remember which-- and it was supposed to hit the stores late that year. But financial restrictions made such a release impossible, and the fans were denied. Even a promotional album failed to appear. Meanwhile, the themes from the Independence Day score have been showing up everywhere in the American public over the past four years, from small-town band performances to Memorial Day ceremonies in large American cities. In only a span of a few months, I heard the finale of the end credits cue used in synchrony with the rememberence fireworks displays for the final professional baseball games at the Kingdome in Seattle and Candlestick Park in San Francisco. With Arnold's full score continuing to be in popular demand, it was only a matter of time before someone produced a bootleg of the entire score. While substandard attempts have been floating around for a few years, the first mass-produced bootleg of ID4 hit the soundtrack specialty stores in 2000 as the sixth part of the so-called "World Records" series. Normally, as a member of the commercial soundtrack community, I loath bootlegs... especially those that take profits away from existing commercial versions of the score that they are ripping off. Bootlegs are not only illegal, but they make it harder for other scores to be produced in the future. That said, there are a select few (only 2 or 3 for me) scores that deserve a bootleg release, usually because of a totally inadequate original and absolutely no future commercial plans for the score. And ID4 is one of these examples. The score has no commercial future worth speaking of, and has fifty minutes of great, unreleased material. The "World Records" bootleg is exactly what fans of this score want. It quickly squashed my skepticism about amateur bootlegs with its completeness and good sound quality. In sort, the bootleg contains 99+ minutes of score (twice the length of the original) on two CDs and has all of the great omissions from the first album. As an extra bonus, the bootleg features stunning sound quality. On some tracks, a slight bit of upper-range hiss can be detected, but the overall sound of the music is surprisingly fuller than it was on the original 1996 album. Arnold's music for Independence Day is truly remarkable when you are able to hear the score in its entirety. With his attention to detail in every track, down to the short Russian chorus and Stargate-like Arabian measures in the "International Code" track, ID4 is a thematically complex and interesting work. There are sequences of the score that would inspire themes and motifs in later Arnold efforts, such as a preview of the Tomorrow Never Dies theme in the "First Lady Dies" track. The bootleg reveals more of these moments than ever, from the lengthy "Nuke Attack" track to the impressive but short "Spaceship from Rosewell" track. The only weakness of the bootleg is the poor English in its track listings, which I have corrected in the track listings on this page; I've also included a list of cues below that have been altered for the albums from their original form in the film itself. Overall, and I don't say this often, get this bootleg now, before it disappears from the market and shoots up in price. Its sound quality is superb, and Arnold's newly-provided music is spectacular.
Music as heard on the 1996 album: *** Music as heard on the 2000 bootleg: *****
* Previously Released
A complete list of cues altered on the albums from their original form in the film:
• "S.E.T.I. Radio Signal" • "Cancelled Leave" • "Evacuation/Firestorm" • "The Day We Fight Back" or "Lift Off/Mothership/Rebellion" • "Jolly Roger" • "End Credits" Insert notes on the commercial album contain a note from producer Dean Devlin. The bootleg contains no extra packaging. In a 1999 interview, David Arnold spoke about ID4: "Independence Day was my fourth film. I'd already done Last of the Dogmen, which was quite quick. Independence Day was still done while I was working in a little hotel room in Los Angeles. Not particularly glamorous. We had quite a sizable budget for it. The movie was a lot more expensive, and I've got no idea how much we spent. I know it's quite a lot, but then with Independence Day you're looking at a choir and a ninety piece orchestra, 90 and 100 minutes of music! It felt kind of effortless in a way. There was a real flow to that one, and you never found yourself tapping your fingers." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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