Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you're an enthusiast of the concept and want to complete your collection of all three albums for this film with Aaron Zigman's conservatively pretty, piano-led underscore. Avoid it... if you're a film score collector in search of superior romantic comedy music, because originality (and the series' main theme, outside of one token cameo) is absent from this effort. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Sex and the City: (Aaron Zigman) During its highly acclaimed and popular original run on HBO from 1998 to 2004, "Sex and the City" managed to do something that most female-targeted shows failed to achieve: lure men with dark humor and blatant sexuality. The balance between sensual hilarity and serious women's issues was a triumph of the series that gained it an intensely loyal fanbase, and after years of speculation (and delays caused by demands made by actress Kim Cattrall), a feature film extending its narrative arrived in 2008. To the delight of its followers and the rolling eyes of critics, the cinematic version of Sex and the City is essentially a very long (two and a half hours!) episode that begins with a summary of the events of the show's sixth season and simply continues the story. Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big still struggle with their on and off-again romance (but finally get married), Samantha Jones turns 50 years old but still lusts after young hunks, Charlotte York Goldenblatt finally realizes her dream of having children, and Miranda Hobbes deals with the infidelity of her live-in boyfriend and father of her child. A whole host of recurring characters and their ever-changing wardrobes return for this feel-good reunion, though the edge of the series' raw sexuality (not to mention the loss of the first season's "to the camera" bystander commentary) was absent from this rather mundane and straight-forward extension of the concept. With characters as embraced as those in Sex and the City, however, it's no surprise that the movie became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time, eventually hauling in over $400 million worldwide and spurring development of a sequel that would also earn massively for the studio in 2010. The music for TV's "Sex and the City" was most notably credited to Douglas J. Cuomo, who wrote the catchy, cosmopolitan title theme and is one of seven composers credited with the episodic music heard throughout the six seasons. While he was involved in the writing of one of the songs that would factor into the film (and populate its main soundtrack albums) and his famous theme would be given cameo status on its own and in the score, the original music for the 2008 movie fell on the shoulders of romantic comedy and light drama veteran Aaron Zigman. The composer's involvement represents a safely conservative choice for the assignment, his experience all but assuring a relatively effective score. The orchestral ensemble is very large given what was necessary for this film, but the entire group only plays together for a couple of minutes in the score. A bevy of upbeat percussion, electric bass, and guitars provide the bulk of the tone in the surprisingly few colorful passages. The centerpiece of the Sex and the City score, however, is Zigman himself on the Steinway piano he professes to love. He performs the score's only new main theme, a romantic but restrained melody heard extensively throughout the film to accompany the perpetually evolving relationship between the Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth characters. Introduced in "Love Letters," the idea is developed in practically solo form in "It's Me & You Suite," "Penthouse," "Did I Dream It," "Water Breaks," "Leaving Wedding," and "City Hall." It contains several different passages, the best of which saved for the fuller expressions in the two "It Was Love" cues, where it oddly reminds of David Arnold's closing romantic piano cue for The World Is Not Enough. Usually, however, it is a blend of Cliff Eidelman and vintage James Horner sensibilities and is about as harmlessly pretty as it is insubstantial and generic. The dominance of the score by this theme could potentially cause some disinterest when listening to the album. Conversely, Zigman is at his best in Sex and the City when he emulates some of the snazzier tendencies of Cuomo's music for the series, most of which is contained the lazy but cool Latin rhythms of "Dante." As the hunk tempts Samantha in California, Zigman treats the situation to extended hints of progressions from Cuomo's title theme and one fuller performance at about 1:00 into the cue that nearly perfectly matches the instrumentation of the original theme for its one token insertion in the context of the score. A reprise of this flashy material exists at the very end of the score as well. In between, Zigman does offer some deviations from this motif and the piano melodies. The dramatic string atonality of "Big Screws Up," augmented by synthetic choir, is followed by plucked comedy rhythms in "Penthouse" and "Louise Leaves" that are common to the genre. Accelerated percussive bursts or contemporary looped rhythms in "Water Breaks" and "Taxi" provide the bulk of the action. Faux Italian romance material in "76 Guests" and cheesy Japanese parody in "Sushi" are moderately entertaining. Troubled electronic ambience in "Leaving Wedding" and light rock references in "Girls Walk Up" and "Carrie Sees Vogue" (the latter with awkward silences throughout) round out the score. Overall, Zigman succeeds in providing the heart and style that Sex and the City needs, though the sentimental portions are highly redundant and the usage of the series theme is disappointingly minimal. If you seek a far more interesting listening experience, try the composer's music for Sex and the City 2, which reprises the love theme in moderation but features much fuller symphonic sequences that often involve smirk-inducing parodies of Maurice Jarre's classic Lawrence of Arabia. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 44:48
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