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The Core
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Composed, Co-Orchestrated, and Co-Produced by:
Co-Orchestrated and Conducted by:
Pete Anthony
Co-Orchestrated by:
John Kull Bruce Babcock Frank Bennett Bill Liston
Performed by:
The Hollywood Studio Symphony
Co-Produced by:
Flavio Motalla
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LABELS & RELEASE DATES
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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No commercial album has ever existed for this score. The 2-CD bootleg of
2003 contains one additional alternate cue not included on the 2004 2-CD promo pressed
by the composer. That 2004 promo was provided as a gift to customers who bought one of
the 1,000 copies of Young's The Tower from Intrada Records, so at least 1,000
copies of the promo probably exist. At their height, they sold on the secondary market
for $150 or more. Its value diminished to $30 after the 2011 Intrada 2-CD set debuted
for the same cost. That product is limited to an unknown quantity.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you have long ago lost patience with the insipid,
mundane trash usually recorded for blockbuster disaster films, in which
case Christopher Young's score for The Core will impress you with
surprising intelligence in its sustained volume.
Avoid it... if you can't handle being challenged by a composer who
tosses aside the notion of easy, harmonic statements of a bold theme in
every action cue and instead offers the kind of robust "wall of sound"
that will overwhelm you with its transcendent structures.
BUY IT
 | Young |
The Core: (Christopher Young) Is the 2003 Jon Amiel
disaster flick The Core so bad that it's actually unintentionally
funny? For some critics, the only entertainment value with which to
redeem the production came from its plethora of scientific fallacies,
over-performing cast members, and downright ludicrous dialogue. Even
amongst its peers in the apocalypse genre at the time, the story of
The Core is unsalvageably silly, based on the premise that an
evil government weapon meant to cause earthquakes anywhere in the world
accidentally stops the rotation of the core of the Earth. The crew of a
radical digging machine is forced to descend far into the planet and
deliver a nuclear payload that will hopefully restore the planet's
original electromagnetic energy and prevent further magnificent scenes
of destruction in iconic human cities. What was in novel form meant to
be a somber, intimate, submarine-style tale eventually became a bloated
Hollywood blockbuster, exhibiting all the worst traits of the genre's
stereotypes. It should suffice to say that the death count in this film
is unrestrained. Paramount had originally intended for The Core
to be released in late 2002, but in an effort to hide its deficiencies
from the public, it delayed the debut until early 2003 and poured $30
million into an advertising campaign meant to gloss over the wretched
product and push to recoup its money through the force of audience
curiosity. That plan failed, however, with The Core's press
coverage so terrible that Paramount did not retrieve even half of the
film's $85 million budget domestically (worldwide grosses didn't account
for the cost, either). The evolution of this film, from Amiel's far
different concept to the embarrassing result, caused an equally
challenging period of development for the director's trusted
collaborator, Christopher Young, when it came to decide upon an
appropriate type of score for The Core. Already facing an
impossible deadline to finish before the film's original release date,
Young not only went through a variety of trial themes with Amiel (all
the way back to pre-production), but he was still fiddling with thematic
structures in the time during which he needed to be writing over 100
minutes of music, his longest career score at that time.
Like the film itself, the score for The Core
ended up sounding much different from Amiel's original intent. He was
not seeking bombastic blockbuster music with a massive symphonic sound,
but that's eventually what the film demanded, and it became a
breakthrough assignment artistically for Young. The recording was not
only long, but it contained extended periods of action sequences that
required the composer to enter uncharted territory in terms of sustained
volume. The orchestral ensemble for the project was as ambitious as any
in Young's career. Roughly 120 musicians, including the most muscular
brass section he had ever used for an entire recording, were augmented
by an adult chorus of over 40 members, extending the momentous depth
heard in portions of Hellraiser II and Hard Rain out to
the majority of The Core. Slight electronic embellishments
include an occasional electric guitar and thumping or tingling loops
usually in the bass region; the latter are slightly obnoxious in a
couple of cues, but overall Young managed to keep these accents
tasteful. He somewhat de-emphasized the role of his themes in The
Core, refraining from making simplistic fanfare statements of his
primary identity and instead choosing to intelligently develop it over
the course of the film. Once it is provided extended treatment over the
end titles, by which point it exposes the clear development of a
secondary march-like interlude that has also been slowly revealing
itself as the score progresses, the primary thematic identities are
gloriously harmonic and conventionally satisfying. The leading brass
theme consists of a pair of similar three-note figures, the second
preceded by two bridge notes, and this theme, along with some rhythmic
flair from snare and violins, will remind listeners of Jerry Goldsmith's
1970's action works (and especially Capricorn One). Other
thematic material includes an ominous minor-key expression that often
accompanies the awe-inspiring shots in the tale, and this idea,
particularly when aided by choir, will recall the majesty and descending
movements of Hellraiser II. A more hopeful, flowing string theme
of descending and ascending malleability (closer to vintage James Horner
territory) addresses the romantic element of human perseverance and the
sensitivity that accompanies the various death scenes.
Ultimately, though, the themes in The Core
aren't the selling point. What attracts so many listeners to this score
is its relentless depth, with lines of activity so creatively robust
that the score becomes a delight to study as a composition. Young, in
fact, confesses to using three or four cues from the score when
instructing his own students when teaching. The unconventional
techniques may be disruptive to the flow of the listening experience on
album, but the ambitious spirit of the score foreshadows Drag Me to
Hell in intensity. For some listeners, the experience could be
considered a "wall of sound," mainly due to Young's choice not to place
too much weight on lengthy expositions of the themes. It is, in the end,
a score of high quality that requires the listener to dig into its many
action and suspense sequences to uncover the composer's interesting and
often highly complex layers of activity, including very subtle
applications of the themes. After the score was bootlegged immediately
in 2003, Young generously paid for a promotional release of The
Core and surprised collectors with a complimentary copy when they
ordered his score for The Tower through Intrada Records in 2004.
That promo mirrored the 2-CD bootlegs in quality and contents, with the
exception of one alternate 4-minute cue available only on the bootlegs,
and eventually fetched high prices on the secondary market. In 2011,
Intrada officially returned with a double CD set of similar contents for
$30 in a limited release of unknown quantity. Young personally
rearranged this presentation and included a fair number of alternate
takes to boost the overall time by another fifteen minutes. While his
arrangement of cues is completely out of chronological order, the
album's insert includes details of where each recorded take was placed
and Young's result is, surprisingly, quite well done. Sound quality, an
important element given the subtleties engrained in this canvas, has
always been outstanding with The Core, the depth of the ensemble
very well maintained without resorting to additional reverb. The 2011
listening experience benefits from Young's choices and the edits are
well executed, though an avid enthusiast of the film (if such a person
exists) may find the presentation frustrating. For most listeners,
though, any of the releases will be an impressively robust
representative of Young's talents. Expect to be overwhelmed by the
composer's intelligent response to the array of insipid, mundane trash
usually recorded for similar films. **** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check: |
For Christopher Young reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.44
(in 25 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.1
(in 9,119 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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MEGAKULT! Ghostek - November 29, 2011, at 12:18 p.m. |
1 comment (1216 views) |
2003 Bootleg Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 89:58 |
CD 1: (46:02)
1. Main Titles/Heart Attacks (4:37)
2. Launch (6:01)
3. Bubble Trouble (7:05)
4. Roman Fireworks (3:21)
5. Hero, Deep Fried. (4:26)
6. Crash Landing (5:50)
7. Floating Endeavour/Golden Gate Meltdown (5:29)
8. Diamond Dogs/Healing the Core (4:30)
9. Peer Pressure (4:46)
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CD 2: (43:56)
1. Building Virgil (3:29)
2. Into Nothing (3:13)
3. An Emotional Moment (3:11)
4. The Journey Back (4:19)
5. Problems (7:10)
6. Collide With D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. (Alternate) (2:44)
7. Stones in the Pond (6:23)
8. Whale Song (3:50)
9. End Titles (5:35)
10. Diamond Dogs/Healing the Core (Alternate) (4:06)
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2004 Promo Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 84:17 |
CD 1: (46:38)
1. The Core (4:37)
2. Resurrection in Descent (6:03)
3. Origami Lava (7:06)
4. A Terror Toccata (3:21)
5. In Drucke Ick Moet Sterven (4:29)
6. Tactile Shifts (5:52)
7. Project Destiny (5:50)
8. Mantle Passage (4:31)
9. Cor Cordium (4:49)
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CD 2: (37:39)
1. Liberte (3:32)
2. Diamonds are Forever (3:14)
3. Moved to the Core (3:12)
4. Interred Servants (4:23)
5. Saknusemm (7:12)
6. Mundus Subterraneous (2:45)
7. Ubobtanium (6:24)
8. Stellar Phrenology (3:50)
9. The Terranaut March (5:41)
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2011 Intrada Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 100:31 |
CD 1: (51:37)
1. The Core (3:00)
2. Resurrection in Descent (6:04)
3. In Drucke Ick Moet Sterven (5:14)
4. Origami Lava (7:10)
5. A Terror Toccata (3:04)
6. Tactile Shifts (5:56)
7. Project Destiny (5:39)
8. Moved to the Core (2:08)
9. Virgil T. (3:37)
10. Mantle Passage (4:35)
11. Cor Cordium (4:52)
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CD 2: (48:54)
1. Liberte (3:23)
2. Diamonds Are Forever (3:17)
3. Saknusemm (7:16)
4. Intered Servants (4:24)
5. Mundus Subterraneous (4:25)
6. No Left Turns (5:07)
7. Unobtanium (6:26)
8. Clouds Imagined (4:44)
9. Stellar Phrenology (4:12)
10. The Terranaut March (5:42)
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The inserts of the first two albums include no extra information about
the score or film. That of the 2011 Intrada product contains extensive details
about both, though they are somewhat difficult to read as formatted.
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