Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,018
Written 7/2/03, Revised 1/26/09
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Buy it... if you have a little extra money to spend on a uniquely subdued and
relaxing rhythm & blues entry in David Arnold's career.
Avoid it... if you, like many mainstream listeners, prefer the ensembles of
your Arnold scores to make the walls shake with overwhelming symphonic power.
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| Arnold |
Baby Boy: (David Arnold) Through the decade of the 1990's,
director John Singleton was known best, of course, for 1991's Boyz N the
Hood, and his 2001 companion film Baby Boy is a similarly structured
urban drama involving the disadvantages and trials of African American black men in
urban settings. The film is once again a challenging look at the central themes
that Singleton often raises in his projects, and while critics praised his ability
to maintain a realistic perspective within the genre, many black audiences were
less than pleased about the stereotypical portrayals of gang-tempted blacks in
predictable and disappointing situations. Many viewers agreed, however, that
Singleton's film presented far more questions than answers. An interesting answer
to one question was David Arnold, whose hiring to write the music for the project
was considered a curious move by the fans of the composer only familiar with his
small body of soundtrack work. The British composer was widely recognized as the
composer of several very large-scale orchestral film scores of the 1990's in
America, and the last genre that came to mind when most fans thought of Arnold was
rhythm & blues. And yet, Arnold's fans should never have been surprised that he
could pull it off, because his ability to adapt his talents to several different
genres, whether pop, electronica, jazz, or orchestral, is well established. He was
already better known in the United Kingdom for his pop arrangements and the
production of albums across a variety of genres. For Baby Boy, Arnold would
venture successfully into the troubled territory of black urban drama, and
Singleton's risky choice would be rewarding for both the composer and the film. It
is important to remember that Arnold, at his very core of talents, has a keen sense
of style, and it is that style that allowed him to step into this new genre
like a veteran with all the right tools in the shed. While some of the flashier
elements of the James Bond scores have helped to illuminate the edges of these
talents, fans of Stargate and Independence Day should be aware that
Baby Boy couldn't be more strikingly different from those works.
Although much of the attention paid to the music of
Baby
Boy was due to famous rapper Snoop Dogg's involvement with the picture,
Arnold's score contributes most of the dramatic weight of the project. The film
made use of rap song selections for its outwardly hip, attitude-driven scenes, and
many of these songs appeared on the first soundtrack album that hit the stores two
months before the score-only product. The mass of the film, though, is devoted to
the personal development of its principle characters, and these lengthy scenes
feature Arnold's stylish R&B material. Devoid of a title theme, the score instead
serves its purpose by establishing an appropriate atmospheric mood with R&B rhythms
and instrumentation, allowing itself to sink into a relatively soft and inglorious
role. The rhythms are performed by drums, a bass, guitars, keyboards, various other
percussive elements, and a solo female voice for two highlighted cues of
nightmarish sequences. These easy-going rhythms persist for most of the album, with
a hip and lazy swing that often continues for several uninterrupted minutes
(rearranging this material for the film must have been a piece of cake). You don't
have to be an R&B fan to enjoy easy cues such as "Sweetpea's Yard," though to fully
appreciate them, you need to approach the listening experience expecting that very
specific mood. Ironically, the inclusion of a studio string section of moderate
size breaks from the normal boundaries the genre and carries portions of the score
into the more demanding and dramatic realm. While these cues appropriately address
emotionally charged sequences of tough decisions and extend into threatening tones
for the pivotal suspense portions of the film, they unfortunately disrupt the
listening experience on album. To his credit, Arnold integrates the strings well
with R&B band elements, begging for even more integration of the strings directly
into the hip rhythms. Even as it is, though,
Baby Boy is an effective
mood-sustaining score by Arnold for a very specific genre. Collectors of his scores
should know that
Baby Boyis quite a subdued work as well, so even if you
enjoyed his music for
Shaft (which obviously approaches the genre from an
entirely different direction), you won't hear the same spirit here. Approach with
cautious optimism.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For David Arnold reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.53
(in 15 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.28
(in 44,976 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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