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Review of The Mole (David Michael Frank)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you are a fan of the concept whatsoever and are
prepared to pay higher prices for either of the two impressive albums
featuring David Michael Frank's accomplished library cues for the show's
American run.
Avoid it... if the stylish exploration of almost every musical genre known to man is too disjointed on its two long album presentations to function as a coherent listening experience.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Mole: (David Michael Frank) One of the
longer-running reality show concepts of the 2000's has been "The Mole,"
originating in Europe but produced in America originally for four
seasons early in the decade before being resurrected in 2008 for a
single, fifth season. In all the various international variants of the
idea, "The Mole" is essentially a game show in which contestants have to
solve mysteries in order to win cash, though the producers insert a mole
into the cast each year to try to spoil those endeavors. The third and
fourth seasons in the United States, (termed "Celebrity Mole,"
transformed into cheap celebrity versions of the concept, though upon
the original debut of "The Mole" on ABC in 2001, with CNN darling
Anderson Cooper as the host, there actually was a strong reception for
it. After the failed fifth season in 2008, the concept continued
overseas under its many guises. Composing the music for all the seasons
of the show's American incarnation was David Michael Frank, whose career
in the decade had literally been dominated by such music, including one
of several Emmy nominations for his fifth season theme here. At the time
of his initial recordings for "The Mole," he entered a year in 2001 that
was an odyssey of greatness for television music, with the compositional
work for the small screen putting the majority of big screen scores to
shame. The show's producers who bought the rights to edit and
rebroadcast the European show in America had a tough task when it came
to the finished product's pre-existing score. The original Belgian
creators of "The Mole" didn't feel constrained by the usual royalty
payments on American film music, so they had inserted pieces from major
film scores into nearly every episode of the show. Music by Hans Zimmer,
Danny Elfman, Bernard Herrmann, James Horner, Trevor Rabin, and John
Barry was commonly heard in the show, and since such use would be
flagrantly illegal in the United States (unless the producers wanted to
pay astronomical royalties to the composers and the unions), the
Americans had to dump the borrowed scores. Conjuring a fresh new
selection of large-scale library cues for a reality television show is
no easy job, but Frank accepted the challenge. The American producers of
"The Mole" wanted scores with more meat than typical reality shows of
the era, requesting dramatic and distinct episodic music with lush
themes and large orchestrations.
Frank not only succeeded within the time frame of the assignment, but his music for "The Mole" was a primary reason for its fantastic American success. Because there is such a vast variety of settings for the premise, many of which romantic in locale, Frank's job of setting a consistent sound of mystery and intrigue was a difficult task. There is some evidence that he or the producers may have been guided by what essentially had become temp-tracked material already in the edit, but the composer does very well at avoiding the major pitfalls of blindly imitating that material. He began with a melding of recognizable styles from James Bond music and Mission: Impossible and wrote a snazzy title theme that was so popular that it alone warranted a release of the score on album. Because the show was theatrically more intelligent than the run of the mill "Survivor" kind of arrangement, Frank successfully utilized the full power of the City of Prague Orchestra to perform several intensely exotic and action-packed themes that were recycled throughout the first four seasons. His original title theme is continuously referenced as well, especially in the end-of-episode scenes of revelation. To accompany the physical and mental challenges of the contestants, Frank's music is often on edge, gritty with a streak of sneakiness. The scope is largely orchestral, though Frank also employs a perfect balance of acoustic and synthetic elements to propel some of the modern, urban settings and the American angle on the concept. On occasion, Frank produces a stunningly expansive and melodic burst of orchestral sound, with a momentous choral cue ("Floating") as the highlight. He also explores several waltzes, children's genre tinkering, all out electric guitar busting, and tango-inspired dance cues. The remarkable aspect of all these collections of styles and constructs is that Frank manages to compose and conduct each one of them with equally impressive attention to detail, making these library cues an engaging listening experience. Frank does, in very clever ways, interpolate the film music originally used by the Belgians. There are suggestions of Elfman's children's scores, Horner's The Mask of Zorro, Rabin's Armageddon, Zimmer's The Rock, Carpenter's Halloween, and Barry's The Specialist, among others, but really only veteran film music collectors will notice these similarities. There is even some clunky Thomas Newman keyboarding seemingly influencing a few tracks, but each referenced element stands well enough on its own rearranged merits to serve. For the belated fifth season of "The Mole," the producers asked Frank to write all-new music, this time recorded with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra before some later electronic embellishments were added. The tone of this season's library of material loses much of the prior snazzy attitude and quirks, instead focusing on a more robust, muscular personality. All the themes of the original seasons were dumped, even the new "Reunion" cue replacing its earlier romantic counterpart with an all-new equivalent secondary romance theme. (It's nicely reprised in "Leaving.") The abandonment of the original melodies is somewhat disappointing, but Frank's replacements are arguably more appealing in their weightier demeanor. Thumping bass rhythms on key drive the Emmy-nominated main theme this time, and that melody is better adapted into several cues in this season. The ethnic flair is less obviously conveyed in the general cues, though, and the hip spy-thriller attitude is lost outside of a few clear James Bond references ("Santiago Shuffle"). Expect the production value of the recording and mix to be technically improved in the later season, even though that dry sound drains some life from the ambience. The two recordings may ultimately appeal to different listeners, really, and while the evolution to the heavier tone for the fifth season is understandable, it will be a regrettable shift for enthusiasts of the initial four seasons' quirkiness in music. In general, the most crucial aspect of these scores in terms of their listenability on album is the fact that Frank rotates between ethnic and instrumental genres from track to track without doing it so rapidly as to cause the albums to become a totally disjointed listening experience. Almost every motif and theme is fleshed out for an enjoyable two/three-minute track on the albums, likely to allow for easier placement by the editors of the show. There are a few cues in which the silliness of their tone detracts from the whole, but these few tracks aside, Frank's work is highly commendable. With so many musical genres well written and performed for "The Mole," these albums served as a superb promotional tool for Frank, who had already written fantasy music for everything from the small screen to IMAX screens at the time. Undoubtedly, this series of music should be of a quality to convince anyone of his talents. The 2001 Varèse Sarabande album with library cues from seasons one to four went out of print before long, and the fifth season album from BSX Records in 2009 was limited to 1,000 copies and likewise became scarce. If you can find either album for a reasonable price, don't hesitate to indulge in this surprisingly cohesive and stylish extravaganza. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
2001 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 75:24
2009 BSX Records Album: Total Time: 76:35
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of both albums include notes about the production of the
music for the series.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Mole are Copyright © 2001, 2009, Varèse Sarabande, BSX Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/13/01 and last updated 6/20/18. |
