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| 7/31/11
- | Corpse Bride: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you cherish every moment of Danny Elfman's melancholy writing for strings and choir and
await another morbidly entertaining extension of his songwriting abilities.
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Avoid it... |
if you seek a reprise of the superior narrative integrity of the songs in the comparable The
Nightmare Before Christmas, for those in Corpse Bride are weak, too infrequent, and lacking
Elfman's natural singing voice.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 7/29/11
- | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you desire small doses of Danny Elfman's majestic side that trade in the electric bass for
a large bass string section and return to the magic of his early works, even if this material
exists in the minority of the score's wild ride.
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Avoid it... |
if a certain continuation of schizophrenia in Elfman's style, especially in the inclusion of
songs featuring the composer as a human kazoo, leaves you seeking other scores in which to
hear his more consistently raw emotional tendencies.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 7/27/11
- | Big Fish: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you are an enthusiastic Danny Elfman collector who can enjoy hearing his talents in several
different genres intermingle in one spirited and diverse but introspective and melancholy
score.
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Avoid it... |
if you are distressed by Elfman's ability to establish and convey a somber tone and are hoping
for a dose of grand choral or symphonic beauty of a massive scale to compensate for this mood.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 7/25/11
- | Planet of the Apes: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you expect a fair amount of chest-thumping aggression from the percussion and brass
sections in a largely dissonant romp of brutally rhythmic stomping.
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Avoid it... |
on the commercial album if you expect a well-rounded presentation of the music actually heard
in the film, some of which wasn't even written by Danny Elfman at the time the product was
arranged.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 7/23/11
- | Sleepy Hollow: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you seek Danny Elfman's most accomplished and violent horror score, complete with truly
haunting choral layers and a superbly recorded and mixed series of mostly palatable orchestral
romps.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect this return to the realm of gothic darkness by Elfman to exude the same
personality and spirit in the fantasy genre as the composer's early classics.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 7/21/11
- | Mars Attacks!: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you are a hardcore collector of Danny Elfman's most zany and frenetic symphonic works and
are not deterred by headache-inducing parodies of already quirky genre staples.
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Avoid it... |
either if theremines give you nightmares or if you recognize that good parody music has to
take itself seriously in order to truly function, a quality completely thrown out the window
by this intentionally ridiculous score.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 7/19/11
- | The Nightmare Before Christmas: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you have any doubt whatsoever about Danny Elfman's talents, because his writing and
performances in The Nightmare Before Christmas produce one of the most uniquely attractive
musicals ever to scare the big screen.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the Broadway style of songs or light-hearted atmosphere of Alan Menken's
musicals for Disney during the same era. Also avoid it on the disgraceful 2008 cover-version
album at all costs.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 7/16/11
- | X-Men: First Class: (Henry Jackman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you have a high tolerance for the brainless Hollywood blockbuster music sound and seek an
entry that actually features a better rounded orchestral ensemble and more melodic continuity
than most of its contemporaries.
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Avoid it... |
if you stopped reading the above sentence at "brainless Hollywood blockbuster music sound."
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 7/14/11
- | Batman Returns: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Albums |
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Buy it... |
if you prefer your Batman score to better reflect the morbidly tragic sensibilities of Danny
Elfman's dominant style in his early career works.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the same heroic power and resonance of the vastly superior orchestral
performances, recording, and mixing you heard in the production of the music for Batman.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 7/12/11
- | Edward Scissorhands: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you don't mind scores that jerk the tears right out of you, for Edward Scissorhands is the
most impressively tragic fairy tale score of the digital era.
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Avoid it... |
if subtlety or minimalism is your preferred method of introspection, because restraint is the
last word a person could use to describe the overwhelming emotional appeal of this music.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 7/11/11
- | Batman: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you have any affection for vibrant, exciting, and tragic superhero scores, for Danny
Elfman's Batman is among the best ever recorded.
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Avoid it... |
if Elfman's famous theme for the character has become too overexposed for your liking, or if
you disapprovingly recall some of the passages that reveal the composer's inspiration from
others' works.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 7/9/11
- | Beetlejuice: (Danny Elfman)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you consider yourself a Danny Elfman enthusiast to any degree whatsoever and desire his
unofficial "Handbook for the Recently Discovered Composer."
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Avoid it... |
if the uniquely zany and frenetic scores from the very early period in Elfman's career are
still too wild and inconsistent for your tastes.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 7/6/11
- | Masada: (Jerry Goldsmith/Morton Stevens)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on either of its albums if you value Jerry Goldsmith's few but memorable forays into the realm
of massive historical epics, this one perhaps as impressive in its scale as any in his career
despite existing for a television mini-series.
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Avoid it... |
if you are deterred by the potentially overwrought sense of melodrama inherent in expansive
biblical scores or Goldsmith's robust military marches, or if for some insane reason you are
not impressed by The Wind and the Lion.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 7/2/11
- | The X-Files: (Mark Snow)
- Updated and Expanded Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the comprehensive 2011 4-CD set spanning all of the seasons of Mark Snow's impressive
contributions to the concept if you desire most of the noteworthy and prominent cues heard
within the context of the show.
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Avoid it... |
on that set and instead seek the 1996 single-CD release if you have no interest in the more
dynamic, humorous, and strikingly beautiful music from the show's later seasons and instead
want the darker, more atonal and atmospheric music from the first three seasons.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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