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Spy Kids
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Co-Composed, Arranged, and Co-Orchestrated by:
Co-Composed by:
Danny Elfman
Harry Gregson-Williams Gavin Greenaway Chris Boardman
Heitor Pereira Marcel Rodriguez
Co-Composed and Produced by:
Robert Rodriguez
Co-Orchestrated by:
Bruce Fowler Ladd McIntosh Don Nemitz
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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Chapter III Records
(April 10th, 2001)
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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 are either a fan of the Spy Kids franchise
or seek a spunky and spirited, Latin-flavored spy thriller in the
children's adventure genre.
Avoid it... if you prefer not to spend most of the listening
experience trying to piece together the portions of the score written by
each of its numerous composers and featuring their distinctly disparate
styles.
BUY IT
 | Debney |
 | Elfman |
 | Gregson- Williams |
Spy Kids: (John Debney/Danny Elfman/Robert
Rodriguez/Various) In 2001, nobody could have imagined that El
Mariachi director Robert Rodriguez had wholesome family
entertainment like this in his system. The Spy Kids franchise
obviously became something of pet project for Rodriguez, whose entries
in the genre of children's spy thrillers were of high enough quality to
serve their purpose without completely abandoning all hope for adults in
the audience. It also more importantly gave the industry something that
simply did not exist within its ranks: a family of Hispanic heroes.
Regardless of your tolerance for the snazzy style of the Spy Kids
franchise, the music situation has been something of a curiosity in all
of its entries. These scores have been complicated by Rodriguez's desire
to write some, if not much of the music himself, relying on John Debney
to help flesh out his ideas into functional orchestral works. From a
logistical perspective, though, the music for this first adventure flick
to chronicle the endeavors of the Cortez family was the kind of
nightmare that would have been inconceivable in Hollywood just ten years
prior. The scoring by committee philosophy, as strange as it must have
seemed to the Elmer Bernsteins and Maurice Jarres of the community, had
actually become a popular avenue of scoring for the modern composer
guild. With the existence of organizations such as Media Ventures,
projects like Gladiator, with three primary composers and a
number of contributors, had been proven to actually work. Composers can
step in for a week of messing around on the scoring stage, write a theme
or screw around with another guy's theme, and then take off. Whether he
or she actually gets credit on the cue sheet is another matter. In the
case of Spy Kids, however, this process is exploited to the
extreme.
The collaborative structure allowed guys like Danny Elfman
to score by telecommuting, writing a theme, sending it to Hans Zimmer
for a "beefing up" assignment by several of his in-house pupils, and
then having John Debney involved to orchestrate and oversee the final
production. Throw in a director who himself composes certain sections
and chooses instrumentation while delegating short cues to half a dozen
other composers who raised their hands when the call (or word of mouth)
for composers went out. For Spy Kids, you can picture these
people walking into the studio, mucking around for a while,
spontaneously conjuring up a minute of ideas, testing out these ideas
like a group of giddy teenagers with new band equipment in the garage,
and then going to lunch. Of course, it's not actually that simple, but
the true logistical nightmare in this case must reside with the
administrative studio assistant who has to figure out who gets what
share of the royalties and then cuts the checks by each ten seconds of
music contributed. You can almost picture several Golden Age composers
rolling in their graves. In any case, the frenetic, Latin-flavored score
for Spy Kids gives the listener the impression that the group of
composers had a lot of effortless fun working together on the project.
As a cohesive whole, the score surprisingly functions well enough.
Elfman and Debney, the two blockbuster names on the project, had
collaborated before ( My Favorite Martian), and their styles when
writing for this genre are well matched. But not all of the other styles
mesh as well. For the trained film music ear, it is easy to determine
where one composer left off and another began. Rodriguez's guitars,
Elfman's plucky acoustics, Gregson-Williams' keyboards, and Debney's
orchestra weave in and out with recognizable shifts in style. If you're
a style purist seeking a score of immaculate clarity and vision, Spy
Kids is not the answer.
The music's sheer zaniness creates the only consistency
that the film requires from it. On album, however, the jigsaw puzzle of
pieces begins to fall apart. The most obvious drawback of the "scoring
by committee of 8+ composers" approach is that each cue is short in
length and shallow in realization. Just as one composer's take on the
score begins to prevail, the music shifts 180 degrees and throws you
off. Such an example of this occurs between "My Parents Are Spies,"
which contains the rather mellow but stylish Elfman title theme, and
"Spy Wedding," which bursts into an immediate flamenco guitar and choral
subtheme. Not all of the cue cuts are as dramatic as this, but just when
you settle into the Debney school of spaciously orchestral kiddie action
cues, you get thrust upon a Gavin Greenaway array of newer Media
Ventures synthesizer tricks. Perhaps for someone who isn't familiar with
each composer individually, this won't be as much of a problem. The very
first music composed for the film was sent in by Elfman, who was
originally approached by Rodriguez for the project. In a page blatently
torn from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Elfman recycles his
song "This is Halloween" for "Floop's Song." With actor Alan Cumming
performing his best Elfman singing imitation, it's hard not to irritated
when hearing The Nightmare Before Christmas defaced like this.
The remaining Elfman cues, which are three or four in quantity, tend to
combine the acoustics of the composer's softer, late 90's material with
a marginal orchestral presence. The exception is the more robust "Buddy
Pack Escape," for which Elfman assembles an ambitious orchestral action
piece. Debney, who is the master at taking other composers' ideas and
translating them into a finished orchestral product, doesn't actually
have any trademark cues of his own throughout Spy Kids, though
you can occasionally hear a bit of My Favorite Martian or
Inspector Gadget in the more complex ensemble performances within
the action cues.
Unless you are a die-hard completist of either Elfman
or Debney's work, though, there is nothing substantially individual on
this short album other than the value that Elfman's fans may place on
the familiar "Floop's Song." Ironically, the best material in the Spy
Kids score comes from the auxiliary composers. The Latin flavor
infused by Rodriguez and Harry Gregson-Williams is a definite asset; the
various guitars alone are a tenacious spark of life. Unfortunately, this
ethnic style diminishes as the score progresses, losing its ability to
glue all the disparate pieces together. It is Gregson-Williams who
eventually finalizes the Cortex family theme for the film, with
performances of the heroic, synthetically aided theme (a highlight of
the score) in the short opening and closing tracks of the score portion
of the album. The selling point of the album for the label was the
obnoxious teenage rock song by Fonda at the end, a truly hideous entry
in its lack of originality. But as for the score in sum, it bubbles and
overflows with fun sense of creativity, and this wild ride can somewhat
compensate for rocky listening experience caused by the short length of
each cue and structural idea. You have to wonder what Debney thought
specifically of this project, given his spoken reservations about the
Media Ventures process of committee writing through the years. Musically
speaking, Spy Kids doesn't have the same kind of inspiring
integrity as most of the solo efforts by any of the involved artists,
nor does it overwhelm you with sonic grandeur at any point. But its
spunk is summarized perfectly by the flair of Rodriguez's "Spy Wedding"
track co-composed with Los Lobos. A vibrant recording of the orchestra,
extremely crisp from start to finish, is a major plus (if only Elfman's
concurrent Planet of the Apes had featured the same clarity, it
might have been a stronger listening experience). Parts of the album
will rock your room with energy, but the somewhat incongruous styles of
each involved composer will leave you with a fading, unenthusiastic
memory of the music once the fun stops. *** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check: |
For John Debney reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.27
(in 52 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.02
(in 45,190 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Floop´s Song Expand >> Leonel Pinheiro - October 4, 2001, at 8:50 a.m. |
5 comments (6810 views) Newest: December 6, 2011, at 9:04 p.m. by FominArkadij |
Total Time: 31:06
1. Cortez Family (1:38)
Composed by Gavin Greenaway, Heitor Pereira, and Harry Gregson-Williams
2. My Parents are Spies (2:07)
Composed by Danny Elfman
3. Spy Wedding (2:09)
Composed by Los Lobos, Robert Rodriguez, and Marcel Rodriguez
4. Spy Kids Demonstration (1:03)
Composed by John Debney, Robert Rodriguez, and Marcel Rodriguez
5. Parents on a Mission (1:15)
Composed by John Debney, Danny Elfman, Gavin Greenaway, and Heitor Pereira
6. Kids Escape House (3:12)
Composed by Gavin Greenaway and Heitor Pereira
7. Pod Chase (1:37)
Composed by John Debney, Danny Elfman, and Harry Gregson-Williams
8. The Safehouse (0:45)
Composed by John Debney and Danny Elfman
9. The Third Brain (0:58)
Composed by John Debney, Robert Rodriguez, and Marcel Rodriguez
10. Buddy Pack Escape (1:37)
Composed by Danny Elfman
11. Oye Como Spy (2:57)
Composed by David Garza and Robert Rodriguez, Performed by Los Lobos
12. Floop's Song (Cruel World) (0:58)
Words and Music by Danny Elfman, Performed by Alan Cumming
13. Spy Go Round (2:10)
Composed by Gavin Greenaway and Heitor Pereira
14. Minion (1:02)
Composed by Chris Boardman, Gavin Greenaway, Heitor Pereira, and Robert Rodriguez
15. Sneaking Around Machete's (0:34)
Composed by Danny Elfman
16. The Spy Plane (1:27)
Composed by John Debney and Danny Elfman
17. Floop's Castle (1:27)
Composed by Chris Boardman
18. Final Family Theme (1:40)
Composed by Harry Gregson-Williams
19. Spy Kids (Save the World) (2:20)
Arranged and Performed by Fonda
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The insert includes extensive credits and a March 2001 note from the director
about the process of creating the score.
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