 |
|
 |
|
 | |||||||||
| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
| . |
1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
 | ||||||||
|
|
|
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
From a first glance at the album, it might not seem that there is much original score at all. In fact, the executive producers of the album have arranged the text in the art direction to make it look like the album is a typical, song compilation. Not so. Over half of the music on the album is an original Graeme Revell product. Since Revell uses vocalists to perform much of his score, the album incorrectly credits the vocalists with the tracks, while placing the attribution for composition in tiny print on the insert. Personally, as a score fan, I absolutely hate when labels do this, but then again... we score people are in the minority. Nevertheless, Revell's music was at first... very strange. I had no clue what I was listening to. I am no fan whatsoever of electronica rhythms and instrumentation, but the when combined with the stunning operatic vocals, his score takes on a more new-age effect --definitely an effect that I haven't heard in the past. We had a less serious combination of genres in The Fifth Element, but nothing with as much raw power as that which is provided in Red Planet. The duality of this score fascinates me. It has a constant electronic keyboard and/or guitar presence, and yet Revell never loses track of his title theme or the choral accompaniment that adds the sci-fi edge to the music. The main theme of the score, a simple rambling of only four or five notes in range, is never performed out in the open... it simmers almost constantly as a secondary element to the ambience of the electronics. There are three tracks of pure underscore by Revell. Tracks four and eight offer a more traditional orchestral and deep male choral package, with the electronics mixed at a lower level. Track four, specifically, has an enjoyable piano performance by Revell. What score fans --if they give this score a chance-- will find intriguing are the four Revell score tracks in which the dance/rock beats are combined with the female solists. Parisan opera star Emma Shapplin's 24-year-old, soprano voice (on three tracks) is simply stunning in its clarity and appeal, singing in 14th Century Italian. Her performances with the electronics are accompanied by deep male choruses in Latin, and the mixture is so potent that it is easy to forget that the rhythm and beat are those of a normal dance song. These fifteen minutes alone are simply fantastic. Melissa Kaplan's voice in track nine is a less refined, harsher measure for a more unnerving, yet similarly haunting, vocal score track. It's important to say that all of the tracks --songs and scores-- are mixed as a dance or electronica album would be... with very heavy bass. This album will rock the walls of your room. Speaking of rock, the song inclusions on the album are highly advertised (in fact, in much of the press material, Revell's name is nowhere to be seen). The Peter Gabriel song (and remix) is simply unlistenable to the score-accustomed ear ('tis really heavy stuff), and the Sting (and knock-off Police) song are not of much consequence at all ("Thousand Years" seems to light for this album). By contrast, the "Strange Cargo" song in the middle fits rather well with Revell's original music. In the end, however, it is Revell's underscore which dominates this album. Only one of his tracks, "Crash Landing" resorts to unorganized noise-making, and his other score tracks are a risky and most interesting experience. Track seven has some upper-range distortion in the soprano vocals, unfortunately. At the very end of the album, we hear a fading cry for help from Carrie-Anne Moss' character as the vessel loses contact and the peril becomes most serious. Ultimately, the Red Planet score is a risk that I would advise open-minded score fans to invest in, regardless of its substandard album (i.e. songs and packaging). Revell has brought us by far the most original, postmodern score of 2000 so far. ***
Insert includes no extra information about the score or film, with only extensive credits and legal jargon. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
