Buy it... only if you are a James Horner completist and you don't mind his blatant re-use of lovable themes from his previous children's scores.

Avoid it... if only twenty minutes of Horner material (re-used or not) mixed in between vintage jazz songs isn't worth the price of the out-of-print album.

Horner

Once Around: (James Horner) Along with several other films that attempted the same perspective on the family genre in the late 1980's and early 1990's, Once Around is a story about a dysfunctional family that, like so many in real life, is not really meant to be understood. That was the problem with Once Around in retrospect: who wants to watch a film about a family with all of its real life problems when most of us can go to our parents' houses on any given holiday and witness the same trauma firsthand? In this case, the weight of the film's success is carried by a cast consisting of Holly Hunter, Danny Aiello, and Richard Dreyfuss. It was the first American feature by Sweden's Lasse Hallstrom, director of 1987's critically acclaimed My Life as a Dog. The funny factor that made the 1987 film a success is largely absent from Once Around, contributing to its demise. Composer James Horner's name was in flashier letters on much bigger screens in 1991, and yet he took the time to provide a short contribution for a genre that his peers were also dabbling in. Whether it was John Williams working on The Accidental Tourist and Stanley & Iris, or Jerry Goldsmith working on Not Without my Daughter, the family genre seemed to be an alluring idea for not just filmmakers, but composers as well. For Horner, Once Around would turn out to be similar to his later work on Swing Kids in that the attention on the music was definitely placed first and foremost on outside, adapted material. It just so happens that, like in Swing Kids, the wider jazz genre is the source for much of the music heard in Once Around. Unlike the disappointing way in which he handled Swing Kids, however, Horner does adapt his own original material into a vintage, big band jazz cue for Once Around, proving that his singular jazz era piece in Field of Dreams wasn't just a fluke.

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Horner's contribution in underscore to Once Around is not that great in length; only 20 minutes of his recordings made it onto album, and even at running time, the repetition is notable. Lightly orchestral in its majority, the four major cues are dominated by "Big Band on Ice," the big band jazz piece that opens the album and serves as the only true highlight for fans looking for any music that'll get the pulse pounding. Three other cues are soft, lovable Horner underscore at its most sensitive, with warm and fuzzy feelings at every moment. A light electronic choir lends a bit of magic to a score otherwise defined by piano, solo woodwind, and small grouping of strings. Prevalent in all four of Horner's score cues are two themes he weaves into nearly every moment; in fact, one of the more interesting aspects of Once Around is to hear these delicate pieces pumped up and adapted into the opening jazz cue. The major problem with these two themes is the extremely obvious fact that they are both rip-offs from two previous, well-respected Horner scores. If you take the final cue, "The Passage of Time," as an example, the cue opens up with the first sub-theme heard in The Land Before Time (usually performed by horns), with absolutely no care whatsoever taken by Horner to manipulate the theme into something fresh for Once Around. At the two-minute mark in that same track, you hear several minutes of what is likely the primary theme for Once Around, which is unfortunately a regurgitation of "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail. Hearing these two children's themes from Horner's staple scores may be odd in a family drama, but for listening sake, they are both beautiful themes. Quartet style minimalism takes its turns in that final track, but in "The Apology" and "The Arrival," the choral effect over these re-used themes makes for simple bliss. Not so blissful, however, is Varèse Sarabande's album release for Once Around, which disperses Horner's music in between classic jazz pieces. One awkward (although enjoyable in and of its own funkiness) is the Arabic "Sulu Kule" song, which despite its ability to make you want to crank up the volume, has absolutely nothing to do with the score or the other songs. Overall, this album contains pleasant restatements of Horner's previous thematic tenderness, one roaring jazz cue from Horner among a handful of decent vintage jazz songs, and that crazy Arabic piece. Only the true Horner fanatic will find much merit in the price of this out-of-print product.

Score as Written for Film: ***
Score as Heard on Album: *
Overall: **

Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.12 (in 89 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.34 (in 158,769 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.