{"id":6290,"date":"2013-03-21T15:54:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T19:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6290"},"modified":"2013-03-23T12:14:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-23T16:14:00","slug":"cd-jennifer-8-1992","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6290","title":{"rendered":"CD: Jennifer 8 (1992)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>J to L<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Label:\u00a0La-La Land Records<\/a> \/ Released: February 28, 2012<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: \u00a0CD1: 17 tracks \/ (47:30) + CD2: 18 tracks \/ (39:17)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 24-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ 2-CD set limited to 2000 copies..<\/p>\n

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Composers: Christopher Young (replacement score) \/ Maurice Jarre (rejected score)<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Jennifer 8<\/strong> represents a specific phase in Christopher Young\u2019s career where the composer was trying to find non-horror material to show he could handle other genres, and demonstrate his style was versatile in comedy, drama, and suspense films. Suspense tales were perhaps Young\u2019s best \u2018venue to temporarily stray away from horror, since he\u2019d already proven he could score eerie scenes and disturbed characters with the full weight of an orchestra (Hellraiser<\/strong>), a brilliant fusion of avant garde and classical techniques (Hider in the House<\/strong>), or a blend of orchestra and electronics with an action bent (the underrated Bat 21<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Jennifer 8<\/strong> represented a plum opportunity to build a delicate score with a triste<\/em> romantic theme, repeated motifs for beautifully drawn main characters, and hinting at the malevolent characters director Bruce Robinson kept hidden from audiences as much as they were unseen by the film\u2019s blind heroine.<\/p>\n

Although it bears a slight resemblance to John Williams\u2019 Presumed Innocent<\/strong> theme (which was heavily used in trailers of the early nineties), Young\u2019s effort is filled with that delicate melancholy which has remained integral to Young\u2019s signature sound, and his innate knack for grasping the deep rooted sadness of characters struggling with inner torment. Even with the accompaniment of strings, the main theme still comes off as a quiet chamber piece, and it\u2019s one of the reasons Young\u2019s scoring style is so dramatically effective and affecting to audiences: no matter what orchestral chaos or unsettling chords dominate whole cues, Young\u2019s always able to cut tension and get to the root of a character\u2019s emotional state by effortlessly gliding to a significant fragment or gentle theme quotation before returning to his orchestral carnage.<\/p>\n

In Hider in the House<\/strong> (1989) \u2013 arguably his finest musical portrait of tragedy mutating to a nightmarish experience \u2013 it\u2019s the contrast between mixed children\u2019s chorals and amazing dissonance, whereas in Copycat<\/strong> (1995) he saves a full quotation of his main theme for just a trio of moments to ensure when we hear his simple and painful theme, it cuts through the film\u2019s preposterous story and reminds audiences of the central character \u2013 a burnt out, alcoholic psychologist.<\/p>\n

Unlike the aforementioned films, Jennifer 8 <\/strong>has a structured romance, and the tenderness of his main theme captures the awkwardness of a cop and a witness meeting minds and souls amid the elements of a grim, British-styled suspense-thriller. La-La Land\u2019s CD features cues newly edited by Young to create a smoother listening experience, and certainly in breadth, it\u2019s largely an improvement over the original Milan CD which featured the score\u2019s main cues plus lengthy classical source cues.<\/p>\n

In the LLL release, Young\u2019s suspense cues are more kinetic (the synth bass really<\/em> resonates), and woven into the score is a theme variation where Young reworks fragments into little motifs to trace fluctuating states of tenderness and longing. (\u201cCello for Helena\u201d drifts from the main theme\u2019s intro bars to a short but affecting pensive variation, also performed by piano.)<\/p>\n

Unique to this 2-disc release is the inclusion of Maurice Jarre\u2019s rejected score, which has a slightly legendary status, since the composer\u2019s departure from the project enabled Young to score his first major studio picture (in spite of his brilliant The Fly II <\/strong>score in 1989, the film was a complete dud), and enjoy a career boost as Hollywood took note of his exquisite skills in more diverse genre efforts.<\/p>\n

Jarre\u2019s music doesn\u2019t sound like a wholly wrong approach \u2013 parts of the abstract electronic elements are quite effective, and his main theme, when reduced to chamber arrangements and solo cello, is quite beautiful \u2013 but the score lacks the melancholy tone of Young\u2019s style which matches the characters\u2019 romance.<\/p>\n

When it plays in its purest form (\u201cMain Title\u201d), Jarre\u2019s own romantic theme is filled with the composer\u2019s idiosyncratic melodic structure, and ends up sounding like a variant of his prior suspense film themes (Fatal Attraction<\/strong>), but what\u2019s unique to his version of Jennifer 8<\/strong> is a greater reliance on orchestral elements than in his prior scores. The migration \/ blending of electronic and classical instruments is flawless, and for once his tense cues aren\u2019t a haphazard mess of synthetic clamor. (It\u2019s a problem that makes a good chunk of No Way Out<\/strong> almost unlistenable.)<\/p>\n

LLL\u2019s set features lovely mastering of both original scores (the performances and orchestrations for Young\u2019s contribution is superb), some alternate Jarre tracks, and extensive liner notes which trace the film\u2019s production, Paramount\u2019s hope of having an award-winning blockbuster (instead of what became the marginalized cult film on home video), and reasons the film went through two composers.<\/p>\n

For many of the film\u2019s fans, the original Milan CD probably became their first intro to Christopher Young\u2019s brand of exquisite melancholy, and the popularity of his main theme and score (which, unsurprisingly to longtime fans, contains all of the delicate touches already present in prior horror scores) soon replaced Williams\u2019 Presumed Innocent<\/strong> as the \u2018new\u2019 theme for trailer editors.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2013 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB: Christopher Young<\/a> \/ Maurice Jarre<\/a> — Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composers Filmographies: Christopher Young<\/a> \/ Maurice Jarre<\/a><\/p>\n

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Select Merchants:<\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" —\u00a0BSX<\/a> —\u00a0Intrada<\/a> —\u00a0SAE<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0J to L<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ J to L . Rating: Excellent Label:\u00a0La-La Land Records \/ Released: February 28, 2012 Tracks & Album Length: \u00a0CD1: 17 tracks \/ (47:30) + CD2: 18 tracks \/ (39:17) . Special Notes: 24-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ 2-CD set limited to 2000 copies.. . Composers: […]<\/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":[304,1934,512],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1Ds","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290"}],"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=6290"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6306,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions\/6306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}