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Earth Days
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Composed and Produced by:
Co-Orchestrated and Conducted by:
Allan Wilson
Co-Orchestrated by:
Chad Seiter
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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Little Jacket Music
(August 8th, 2009)
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Digital commercial release only.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you can forgive Michael Giacchino for nurturing decent
but underwhelming themes, this work adequate at its task but missing so
much potential.
Avoid it... if a near total lack of dynamism or passion in any
orchestral score's performance is disqualifying for you.
BUY IT
Filmtracks has no record of commercial ordering options for this title. However, you can search for this title at online soundtrack specialty outlets.
 | | Giacchino |
Earth Days: (Michael Giacchino) Showing the history
of the modern environmental movement in the United States that began in
the 1950's and flourished in the early 1970's, the documentary Earth
Days closed the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and had a limited
theatrical run that year before moving to become part of the "American
Experience" series on PBS in 2010. It's not a nature documentary but
more of a "talking head" analysis along with archival footage of the
environmental movement's roots, interviewing a variety of retired
American politicians and those who contributed to those early days from
outside the government. The film was received fairly well and was
nominated for some industry awards, but like most such documentaries,
its reach was limited. Although he had arrived in mainstream cinema by
the late 2000's, composer Michael Giacchino took this diversion to
provide his orchestral touch to the topic. Listeners have to remember
that Earth Days isn't the kind of documentary that soars with
grand vistas, which means that the composer's score is largely subdued
in a purely incidental background role for nearly the entire picture.
That didn't need to stop Giacchino from writing a propulsive,
inspirational underscore, and he seemed to be headed initially in that
direction. Interestingly, though, the demeanor of his music is dominated
by a glum outlook, his emotions occasionally hopeful but always
succumbing to the brooding foreboding of disappointment over the state
of the environment. It's not hard to imagine that this score could have
used the exact same personality of The Unknown Known by Danny
Elfman, but it instead totally succumbs to an inert posture that stirs
the pot but never allows the tone to boil. The work is orchestral
throughout, with an emphasis on woodwinds and no meaningful brass
presence. An acoustic guitar and electric bass eventually join for more
contemporary flavor in the middle portions of the movie. More
importantly, Giacchino's two themes move very slowly, almost as if
emulating John Barry of the 1980's and 1990's but without the associated
dramatic weight. There is zero dynamism or passion in any of this music,
the performance too understated and uninteresting for the topic. Not
much narrative connectivity exists throughout the work despite close
loyalty to the two themes, leaving this as an instance in which
Giacchino writes adequate themes that make absolutely no lasting impact
because of their bland rendering.
Listeners are left with an excess of mundane underscore
with no interesting features in Earth Days, anonymous string
ambience guiding "No Foresight," "Destroyed Beauty," "Assembling the
Team," and "America's Majesty." There are singular sideshows typical to
documentaries, like the jumping rhythmic formations in "Life is
Imperiled" and slight fantasy wonder with a militaristic snare in "The
Miracle of the Atom," but even these moments are surprisingly muted.
Neither of the themes will impress, the main one taking the repeating
minor third progressions dominant elsewhere and turning them major.
Tender on strings at 2:05 into "A Chance to Be Rich" and bouncing
thereafter on woodwinds, this theme is optimistically strummed by
acoustic guitars and electric bass in "The Whole Earth Catalog," and
similar tones occupy "Looking to Space" with a distinct James Horner
influence in the use of low string lines to augment the melody. It's
turned fully contemporary for guitar, bass, and drum kit in "Earth Days"
in pleasant but mundane ways, later taking these positive tendencies to
a minimal crescendo in "The Heart of It." The idea is lightly dramatic
on strings in "A Logger's Livelihood" without stoking any major
emotions, influences the nice but unmemorable tonalities of "The
Astronaut Hippie," and conveys a somber mood in "We're in This Together"
over the secondary motif. It provides a little more gravity at the
outset of "End Credits" but still crawls at very slow tempos; though
offering more hope, the theme still plods along, the crescendo at the
end lacking convincing power. The other theme seems to represent greed
and fossil fuels, applying the alternating minor thirds that adapt to
different harmonics and rhythms depending on the cue. Very slow,
deliberate, and sparse for much of "Addicted to Oil," this theme adopts
a more concerted, John Williams-like woodwind form at 1:03 into "A
Chance to Be Rich," jumps into similar action again in the middle of
"We'll Always Have Petrol" for near-comedy, and returns to its opening,
oppressive form in "Destructive Forces." It then bubbles lightly at the
start of "Silent Spring," enjoys a longer, more ominous and slower
rhythmic form in "Wastelands," and opens "The Curious Case of Stewart's
Buttons" on tentative piano and joined by woodwinds. Plodding through
the plucked rhythms of "Population Bomb" without much appeal, this idea
speeds up a bit in "The ZPG Speech" but still underwhelms, vaguely
guides "Undesirable Things" without much spirit or force, and reprises
its early Williams-like rendition in "True Sustainability." It follows
the main theme in "End Credits" with deep and repetitive propulsion of
additional Barry resemblance. It's a sour end to a disengaging score,
with no real highlights to appreciate.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Michael Giacchino reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.27
(in 54 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.06
(in 26,433 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Total Time: 64:15
• 1. Addicted to Oil (2:43)
• 2. A Chance to Be Rich (5:06)
• 3. We'll Always Have Petrol (0:51)
• 4. Destructive Forces (1:39)
• 5. Life is Imperiled (1:30)
• 6. The Miracle of the Atom (0:49)
• 7. No Foresight (1:19)
• 8. Silent Spring (0:55)
• 9. Wastelands (2:34)
• 10. Destroyed Beauty (3:26)
• 11. The Curious Case of Stewart's Buttons (0:41)
• 12. The Whole Earth Catalog (3:59)
• 13. Population Bomb (1:32)
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• 14. The ZPG Speech (1:34)
• 15. Looking to Space (4:58)
• 16. Assembling the Team (1:25)
• 17. Earth Days (4:45)
• 18. America's Majesty (1:38)
• 19. Undesirable Things (4:01)
• 20. Energy Demands Rise (2:59)
• 21. The Heart of It (1:27)
• 22. A Logger's Livelihood (1:22)
• 23. True Sustainability (2:26)
• 24. The Astronaut Hippie (2:04)
• 25. We're in This Together (2:30)
• 26. End Credits (6:02)
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There exists no official packaging for this album.
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