{"id":3608,"date":"2011-09-24T13:21:47","date_gmt":"2011-09-24T17:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3608"},"modified":"2011-09-24T13:21:47","modified_gmt":"2011-09-24T17:21:47","slug":"cd-it%e2%80%99s-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-world-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3608","title":{"rendered":"CD: It\u2019s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>I<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label: La-La Land Records<\/a>\/ Released: March 18, 2011<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length:\u00a0CD1: 25 tracks \/ (73:00)CD2: 14 tracks \/ (39:08)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 24-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond and Ray Faiola \/ Limited to 2000 copies..<\/p>\n

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Composer: Ernest Gold<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something inherently absurd where not a single cue from the original recording sessions to what was probably the most expensive comedy film up to 1963 no longer exists.<\/p>\n

As Ray Faiola, Chelsea Rialto Studios<\/a>\u2019 chief engineer, recounts in La-La Land\u2019s sumptuous booklet, the search for surviving tapes was unsuccessful, forcing the CD set\u2019s producers to make a radical decision that\u2019s only happened a few times among soundtrack CD releases: rebuild the score from the surround sound music stems.<\/p>\n

Not quite an isolated music score (but pretty close, given the Mad<\/strong> music stems used for this release came from the rear surrounds), Mad<\/strong> was rebuilt, and what\u2019s contained in this 2-disc set is both the re-recorded soundtrack album + source songs in full stereo on CD 2, and the reconstructed score on CD 1, of which only the \u201cOverture,\u201d \u201cEntr\u2019acte,\u201d \u201cEnd Title\u201d (partial) and \u201cExit Music\u201d are in stereo.<\/p>\n

Those accustomed to archival recordings won\u2019t be disturbed by the mono remix, in which two partial stereo stems where combined to create a robust mono track, but fans might feel let down, since even the DVD contains a rousing surround sound mix of Ernest Gold\u2019s score.<\/p>\n

Any disappointment ought to evaporate early into the score because Gold\u2019s original film soundtrack recording features a greater array of thematic variations and quotes, and it\u2019s more energetic than the re-recorded version released on LP by United Artists. (The 2010 CD from Kritzerland Records reissued the LP version with the usable stereo film versions cited above.)<\/p>\n

Gold\u2019s knack for melody are evident in every cue, but his skill in crafting bawdy, bouncy, and even genteel theme versions are quite startling. Known for epic scores (Exodus<\/strong>) and most of producer \/ director Stanley Kramer\u2019s Message Film output, the two longtime collaborators must have startled a few critics when they successfully pulled off a grand comedic movie without a hitch, going against their professional personas as Very Serious Men.<\/p>\n

Gold\u2019s background included shorts, cartoons, and dramas, but Mad<\/strong> deserves to be placed alongside Exodus<\/strong> as one of his finest achievements because there\u2019s plenty of gravitas in Mad<\/strong> \u2013 such as the resonating strings in \u201cPike Piqued,\u201d or the trilling tension in \u201cTruck on Down.\u201d One could characterize the bulk of the Mad<\/strong> score as mickey-mouse music \u2013 never settling in one place, always covering action \u2013 but Gold also wove in plenty of subtext, tension, and mystery into many cues.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s mystery element, however, does deepen as the characters make their way towards the supposed location of the buried loot. Will they find it? Who will get it all? Will the police foil their greedy desires? And will there be any consequences for the troupe having broken a few rules and buildings along the way?<\/p>\n

The vocal parts in the \u201cOverture\u201d and \u201cEntr\u2019acte\u201d have dated, but they\u2019re written with tongue firmly tongue-in-cheek, and Gold\u2019s carnival waltz, while heavily used, suits the scenes of chaos, particularly where planes and cars nearly smash into solid structures at outrageously high speeds.<\/p>\n

Engineer Faiola met the tough challenge of building up cue volumes (some cuts had dips to accommodate dialogue and sound effects), removing severe hiss, and adding a slight depth to the bass and lower tones, so while the original Mad<\/strong> cues aren\u2019t in stereo (aforementioned excepted), what\u2019s been reconstructed is a rewarding listening experience that also allows one to marvel at Gold\u2019s deft writing, and some fine orchestrations.<\/p>\n

Jeff Bond\u2019s liner notes provide an excellent background to the film and its production, often adding info lacking in the hour-long doc included in the DVD and Blu-ray editions<\/a>. The graphic design reproduces the original sprawling campaign art, and cue breakdowns provide a good narrative to the film\u2019s epic montage of scenes.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n


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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0I<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ I . Rating: Excellent Label: La-La Land Records\/ Released: March 18, 2011 Tracks & Album Length:\u00a0CD1: 25 tracks \/ (73:00)CD2: 14 tracks \/ (39:08) . Special Notes: 24-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond and Ray Faiola \/ Limited to 2000 copies.. . Composer: Ernest Gold . . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Wc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3608"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3613,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions\/3613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}