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•	2015 Album

Versatile because of his experience recording overseas, Young seems to have placed himself in a position to whip up one of these grand film score epics every three or so years, and The Monkey King is to 2014 what Priest and Drag Me to Hell were for their respective years: a dazzling whirlwind of symphonic, choral, and electronic style uninhibited by any notions of modesty. The effort was truly an international one, with Young opting to use Slovak National Orchestra and Lucnica Chorus in Bratislava for the bulk of the performances while also employing Los Angeles vocal soloists (including a child performer selected out of hundreds of auditions) and an impressive variety of Chinese-centric instrumental soloists, including erhus, gongs, dizis, and dulcimers. Throw in some totally Western rock instrumentation (electric guitars and drum kits) and you have the ultimate in multi-ethnic flair, a score true enough to its location to serve its basic purpose but also exhibiting all the modern techniques of a Hollywood blockbuster to ensure that the godly battles on screen are accompanied by ass-kicking, no-nonsense rhythmic force in the score. The vocal elements feature most combinations of inflective tone you can imagine, leading up to even the Enya-like closing song. This wide palette of sounds is one of two key characteristics of the score for The Monkey King; the other is Young's undeniably bombastic application of rhythm to the work. There is more overt drum-pounding in this music than any other in recent memory, taking the Basil Poledouris philosophy of developing folk rhythms into full battle mode to a new level. Young has always done this in his bigger scores, often shifting gears (quite literally, sometimes, as in the train sequence in Priest) through tempo and instrumentation alterations when needed but always shamelessly emphasizing the propulsive aspect. Expect to be blasted out of your seat by the incessant slamming and banging of this score during each of its full ensemble portions. Even the lighter portions for comedy or respect ("Ruxue, the Silver Fox," "Erlangshen, the Three-Eyed Warrior," and "Subhuti, the Old Master") rely heavily on loftier, tingling percussion rhythms to carry the same movement. This is certainly a score of emphasized texture, though Young also supplies an endless stream of harmonically tonal bliss as well. There is some dissonance to be heard, especially in the striking broken chords of the ensemble hits in the opening "Yu Huang Da Di, the Jade Emperor," but the listening experience is largely accessible. It's interesting to appreciate how Young's action techniques have matured in broad listenability since The Core.

The single most intriguing aspect of Young's approach to The Monkey King is the general lack of interaction between his multitude of themes in the score. Since the film largely rotates between godly encounters in its plotline, Young simply provides a unique identity for each one and doesn't make a serious effort to mingle them together. Even the title character's theme doesn't directly engage often with the other themes, leaving the score as one of several massive but mostly singular suites that share the same instrumental vocabulary and some seemingly incidental progressions, but no overarching connecting narrative in the melodies. Such was reportedly the result of the filmmakers' instructions to Young. The main theme in "Sun Wukong, the Monkey King" only features fully and at length elsewhere in "Nuwa, the Goddess of Works." The secondary theme for the Monkey King, a softly romantic interlude in his suite, becomes the basis for the song, "Just Dreams," which, as previously suggested, is an Enya knock-off of completely shameless proportions. You will find that some of the other character themes in The Monkey King, notably the passage at 4:20 into "Yu Huang Da Di, the Jade Emperor," will supply inspiration to later sequences, including the latter half of "Ao Kuang, the Dragon King of the East Sea," but don't go looking for more obvious connections. While irksome for a few listeners, this absence of narrative flow in the score is countered by Young's strength in each individual idea. For the album releases, Young features them in ten combined suites, each representing a character (though, as mentioned above, the "Nuwa, the Goddess of Works" cue offers the theme from "Sun Wukong, the Monkey King" extensively in its first half) and thus explores many unique melodies. Some, as in those for the Tieshan Gongzhu, Nuwa, Subhuti, and Guanyin characters, are downright lovely in their choral and erhu beauty. Others, as in the tracks "Niu Mo Wang, the Buffalo Demon King" and "Yu Huang Da Di, the Jade Emperor," are outrageously bombastic. The Buffalo Demon King's suite requires special attention, the Jerry Goldsmith-like nobility countered by Ghost Rider coolness culminating in all-out rock attitude. The entire work is saturated with the best of Young's mannerisms, with several homages to his past greatness whipped up with zeal. The score was initially only provided promotionally to film music critics in 2014, presenting a tremendously unfortunate dilemma for enthusiasts worldwide. But by 2015, Intrada Records pressed the same contents to a limited CD for all to enjoy. There is no doubt that The Monkey King makes for a stellar listening experience, one of Young's most vibrant and entertaining career efforts, and his continuing involvement in the franchise is most welcomed.  *****   @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 3.11 (in 9,238 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.