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To supply the score adaptations in Gnomeo & Juliet, John went back to his old band collaborator, James Newton Howard, for the assignment, and it is an area in which the composer is comfortable from his lengthy contract working on Disney's non-musicals a decade prior. Assisting Howard for Gnomeo & Juliet are his longtime assistants, Chris Bacon and Stuart Michael Thomas. For film score collectors, there isn't much from Howard and crew in Gnomeo & Juliet in terms of quantity, and, as expected, unless you're an enthusiast of John's music, the score could become tedious quickly. The film touches upon several of his songs throughout its run and utilizes the score as a bridge element that quotes very liberally from these songs. John penned two new ones for Gnomeo & Juliet, led by a Western-influenced, slightly retro "Hello Hello" that bubbles along with friendly attitude. More appealing to romantics is "Love Builds a Garden," one of those prototypical John love songs that relies heavily upon the piano but eventually swells with string, acoustic guitar, and choral accompaniment of soft reflection. The rest of the film and soundtrack album is populated by vintage John recordings, with the exception of the unspeakably hideous mutilation of "Crocodile Rock" in a version specifically remade for this film. For enthusiasts of the performer, it'll be a decent buy, but it's difficult to ignore the differences in the man's voice as it matured and changed over such a long stretch; at times, his older recordings are almost unrecognizable compared to his tone of the past twenty years. The score by Howard and his associates (Bacon gets major credit as well even though he is only afforded direct attribution for two of the tracks) is standard material you'd expect for an animation film, stepping sometimes into Randy Newman territory. A regular orchestra is joined by cooing, light chorus and a handful of solo accents, including acoustic and electric guitars and harpsichord. They function admirably while also constantly referencing the melodies of the songs, a neat attraction for John collectors. Several shorter cues have been assembled into 17 minutes of score over four tracks on the album, the first two representing the lighter material and the latter two addressing the action.

The affable pair of "Gnomeo & Juliet" and "Dandelions" is where the best listening comes, the former opening with several surprisingly pretty renditions of "Rocket Man" for a couple of minutes before moving on to similarly alluring performances of "Tiny Dancer." The highlight of Gnomeo & Juliet is "Dandelions," opening with a few renditions of "Love Builds a Garden" on gentle piano and guitar before exploring "Your Song" for the remainder of the cue suite. By the time the full orchestra and chorus back the piano in that cue, you'd swear you're listening to Craig Armstrong's adaption of the same song in the classic Moulin Rouge, never a detriment to any album. As parody-level action takes over in "Bennie and the Bunnies," interpolations of "Bennie and the Jets" and "I'm Still Standing" take the score into a technologically glitzy direction symbolic of John Debney's work in the genre. Passages dominated by electronics or exotic percussion in that cue overshadow bursts of raw orchestral energy. Even more frantic is "Terrafirminator," merging most of the previous song adaptations with one of "Saturday Night's Alright" for five minutes of wildly stuttering action material alleviated only by twenty seconds of choral majesty at the end. The Carl Stalling-like material in these latter two cues won't really impress many listeners (sound quality is decent, but none of the solo elements stands out with distinction and the ambience is somewhat dry), but for John enthusiasts, the two new songs and first two score tracks may merit some exploration of the album. The product does not include the "Hello Hello" version heard in the film that features John's duet with Lady Gaga; chalk up another loss to squabbles between record labels and their ownership over artists. On the other hand, the album does include the source recording of "The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room," a fitting end to the two cartoonish Howard action cue tracks. Overall, Gnomeo & Juliet is targeted firmly at John listeners, so unless you film score collectors out there want to hear Howard and crew simply adapt John's songs into a decent but rather generic underscore, steer clear. That said, about nine minutes of that score is quite easy on the ears, the "Dandelions" suite a strong addition to any collection of lightly romantic movie music.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 60:24