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Sex and the City
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Composed, Co-Orchestrated, Conducted, and Produced by:
Aaron Zigman
Co-Orchestrated by:
Jerry Hey
Brad Warnaar
Patrick Kirst
Performed by:
The Hollywood Studio Symphony
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Regular U.S. release.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you're an enthusiast of the concept and want to
complete your collection of all three albums for this film with Aaron
Zigman's conservatively pretty, piano-led underscore.
Avoid it... if you're a film score collector in search of superior
romantic comedy music, because originality (and the series' main theme,
outside of one token cameo) is absent from this effort.
BUY IT
 | | Zigman |
Sex and the City: (Aaron Zigman) During its highly
acclaimed and popular original run on HBO from 1998 to 2004, "Sex and
the City" managed to do something that most female-targeted shows failed
to achieve: lure men with dark humor and blatant sexuality. The balance
between sensual hilarity and serious women's issues was a triumph of the
series that gained it an intensely loyal fanbase, and after years of
speculation (and delays caused by demands made by actress Kim Cattrall),
a feature film extending its narrative arrived in 2008. To the delight
of its followers and the rolling eyes of critics, the cinematic version
of Sex and the City is essentially a very long (two and a half
hours!) episode that begins with a summary of the events of the show's
sixth season and simply continues the story. Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big
still struggle with their on and off-again romance (but finally get
married), Samantha Jones turns 50 years old but still lusts after young
hunks, Charlotte York Goldenblatt finally realizes her dream of having
children, and Miranda Hobbes deals with the infidelity of her live-in
boyfriend and father of her child. A whole host of recurring characters
and their ever-changing wardrobes return for this feel-good reunion,
though the edge of the series' raw sexuality (not to mention the loss of
the first season's "to the camera" bystander commentary) was absent from
this rather mundane and straight-forward extension of the concept. With
characters as embraced as those in Sex and the City, however,
it's no surprise that the movie became the highest grossing R-rated
comedy of all time, eventually hauling in over $400 million worldwide
and spurring development of a sequel that would also earn massively for
the studio in 2010. The music for TV's "Sex and the City" was most
notably credited to Douglas J. Cuomo, who wrote the catchy, cosmopolitan
title theme and is one of seven composers credited with the episodic
music heard throughout the six seasons. While he was involved in the
writing of one of the songs that would factor into the film (and
populate its main soundtrack albums) and his famous theme would be given
cameo status on its own and in the score, the original music for the
2008 movie fell on the shoulders of romantic comedy and light drama
veteran Aaron Zigman. The composer's involvement represents a safely
conservative choice for the assignment, his experience all but assuring
a relatively effective score. The orchestral ensemble is very large
given what was necessary for this film, but the entire group only plays
together for a couple of minutes in the score. A bevy of upbeat
percussion, electric bass, and guitars provide the bulk of the tone in
the surprisingly few colorful passages.
The centerpiece of the Sex and the City score,
however, is Zigman himself on the Steinway piano he professes to love.
He performs the score's only new main theme, a romantic but restrained
melody heard extensively throughout the film to accompany the
perpetually evolving relationship between the Sarah Jessica Parker and
Chris Noth characters. Introduced in "Love Letters," the idea is
developed in practically solo form in "It's Me & You Suite,"
"Penthouse," "Did I Dream It," "Water Breaks," "Leaving Wedding," and
"City Hall." It contains several different passages, the best of which
saved for the fuller expressions in the two "It Was Love" cues, where it
oddly reminds of David Arnold's closing romantic piano cue for The
World Is Not Enough. Usually, however, it is a blend of Cliff
Eidelman and vintage James Horner sensibilities and is about as
harmlessly pretty as it is insubstantial and generic. The dominance of
the score by this theme could potentially cause some disinterest when
listening to the album. Conversely, Zigman is at his best in Sex and
the City when he emulates some of the snazzier tendencies of Cuomo's
music for the series, most of which is contained the lazy but cool Latin
rhythms of "Dante." As the hunk tempts Samantha in California, Zigman
treats the situation to extended hints of progressions from Cuomo's
title theme and one fuller performance at about 1:00 into the cue that
nearly perfectly matches the instrumentation of the original theme for
its one token insertion in the context of the score. A reprise of this
flashy material exists at the very end of the score as well. In between,
Zigman does offer some deviations from this motif and the piano
melodies. The dramatic string atonality of "Big Screws Up," augmented by
synthetic choir, is followed by plucked comedy rhythms in "Penthouse"
and "Louise Leaves" that are common to the genre. Accelerated percussive
bursts or contemporary looped rhythms in "Water Breaks" and "Taxi"
provide the bulk of the action. Faux Italian romance material in "76
Guests" and cheesy Japanese parody in "Sushi" are moderately
entertaining. Troubled electronic ambience in "Leaving Wedding" and
light rock references in "Girls Walk Up" and "Carrie Sees Vogue" (the
latter with awkward silences throughout) round out the score. Overall,
Zigman succeeds in providing the heart and style that Sex and the
City needs, though the sentimental portions are highly redundant and
the usage of the series theme is disappointingly minimal. If you seek a
far more interesting listening experience, try the composer's music for
Sex and the City 2, which reprises the love theme in moderation
but features much fuller symphonic sequences that often involve
smirk-inducing parodies of Maurice Jarre's classic Lawrence of
Arabia.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Total Time: 44:48
• 1. Love Letters (3:42)
• 2. Dante (4:23)
• 3. The Closet (2:30)
• 4. Big Screws Up (2:48)
• 5. It's Me & You Suite (4:47)
• 6. It Was Love (3:34)
• 7. Penthouse (2:20)
• 8. Did I Dream It (2:26)
• 9. Water Breaks (1:44)
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• 10. Taxi (1:06)
• 11. 76 Guests (0:56)
• 12. Leaving Wedding (3:21)
• 13. Louise Leaves (1:41)
• 14. City Hall (2:07)
• 15. Girl Walk Up (1:12)
• 16. Carrie Sees Vogue (0:57)
• 17. Sushi (1:50)
• 18. It Was Love (3:27)
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The insert includes a list of performers and a short note from Zigman.
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