{"id":6931,"date":"2013-08-29T16:19:44","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T20:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6931"},"modified":"2013-08-29T16:19:44","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T20:19:44","slug":"cd-batman-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6931","title":{"rendered":"CD: Batman (1989)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>B<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Label: La-La Land Records\/ Released: July 21, 2010<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: CD 1: 30 tracks \/ (75:40) + CD 2: 29 tracks \/ (70:27)<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Special Notes: 2-CD set \/ 20-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ Limited to 5000 copies<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Composer: Danny Elfman<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Review:<\/p>\n

The release history of Danny Elfman\u2019s breakthrough score is a great example of how music dept. politics, star ego, and a general indifference towards original scores existed just as the new audio format of the day \u2013 the CD \u2013 was making further headroom in the commercial market.<\/p>\n

Because Prince was the bigger musical star, the Purple One\u2019s song album was massively hyped on radio stations prior to the film\u2019s release, ensuring Prince was perceived at the<\/em> composer of Tim Burton\u2019s fresh take on Batman. It wasn\u2019t until after the curtain had risen that more astute cinemagoers realized Prince\u2019s songs had been reduced to 2.5 in the film mix \u2013 two songs, plus a third worked into the score as a love theme \u2013 while every other note in the film was written, adapted and\/or arranged by Elfman, the director\u2019s longtime musical collaborator.<\/p>\n

It felt like months before Elfman\u2019s score was finally released in stores \u2013 naturally with different artwork, so as to distinguish itself from the Prince cover that used the Batman logo\/shield\/multi-purpose belt buckle. Then came the CD, which carried more music than the LP. (This was common at the time, and it\u2019s doubtful it was a marketing ploy; producers just realized you could cram more music onto a CD than a 12\u201d platter.)<\/p>\n

La-La Land\u2019s 2-disc set gives fans the best of both worlds \u2013 the original soundtrack album (the CD release, of course), and the unedited score, augmented to just under 76 mins. with a wealth of previously unreleased material.<\/p>\n

As with most expanded releases, the album and expanded score versions are two very different listening experiences. Fans will appreciate hearing the full score with long and short cues, cues in their unedited form, and more thematic bits that traced the film\u2019s dramatic flow; whereas the original album still holds its own as a crisply mastered portrait of every major event and theme.<\/p>\n

The unreleased material ranges from half-minute bridge cues (some unused) to meaty 5 mins. cuts like \u201cShootout,\u201d filled with all the kinetic orchestral energy typical of the composer during his comic book period. Elfman\u2019s style was extremely giddy: big sweeping gestures, child-like chorals re-quoted by trumpets, gliding xylophone patterns, percussion textures delivered in hard, fast rumbling clusters, skittering piano figures, and an incredible sense of speed.<\/p>\n

In revisiting Batman<\/strong>, one is struck by the animated energy that isn\u2019t <\/em>cartoonish; Elfman\u2019s music shouldn\u2019t have worked because it\u2019s so big and nearly wall-to-wall \u2013 quite classical, in terms of silver and golden age scoring styles \u2013 and yet it\u2019s filled with optimism, heroism, and wonderful brooding moments of malevolence that impact the listener without Jack Nicholson\u2019s sliced-up sneer.<\/p>\n

His quotation of \u201cBeautiful Dreamer\u201d is exquisitely perverse, as well as encapsulating the composer\u2019s love for classical Hollywood composition: elegance, melody, and majestically flowing strings.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the stunning gothic tenor of \u201cDecent Into Mystery,\u201d with low brass, chilling chorals, and lilting strings \u2013 all coalescing into a grandiloquent fanfare that\u2019s heroic (because of the heavy brass) and tragic (due to the slightly sad harmonics, which infer a hero steeped with personal issues no shrink can solve).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bat Cave\u201d is a mix of child-like wonderment and slowly unfurled grimness \u2013 an intricate crime busting operation that\u2019s discolored by Batman\u2019s revenge streak.<\/p>\n

To reconstruct the complete score, La-La Land had to use material from disparate sources, and sometimes one notices slight differences in the level of dynamic depth in some of the unreleased cues. It\u2019s not a serious issue, but there is a marked difference with the album master, which seems to have benefitted from better care in the intervening 21 years.<\/p>\n

Of course, the absurdity is having to reconstruct a 21 year old score written on the cusp of the Digital Age, but most CD producers have encountered similarly surreal situations where the complete score tracks aren\u2019t sitting in a hermetically sealed can in a neatly organized vault. There\u2019s sleuthing, the discovery process, and then mounting a practical commercial\/artistic game plan to present the score as best as possible. In some cases, the album master feels redundant; there\u2019s no reason (unused cues excepted) to listen to the abbreviated Boys from Brazil<\/a><\/strong> (1978) album, but the shorter Inchon<\/strong> (1981) album offers less thematic redundancies than the full monster score, and is arguably more satisfying in spots.<\/p>\n

There are a few thematic repetitions that could\u2019ve been pruned from Disc 1\u2019s full Batman<\/strong> score, but that\u2019s what the album on Disc 2 is for. Most :30 second cues aren\u2019t all that memorable, but their inclusions gives the listener the option to program a preferred version.<\/p>\n

The 2-disc set includes a lengthy track analysis by Jeff Bond, but those wanting more info are behooved to check out Janet K. Halfyard\u2019s excellent book from Scarecrow Press, Danny Elfman\u2019s Batman<\/a><\/strong> (2004), which presents a fair (if sometimes heavily musicological) analysis of both the Elfman and<\/em> Prince music. Prince, in fact, gets a lot of attention in the book, and what emerges is a view that both artists recognized Batman<\/strong> as an important project with the potential to not only challenge them, but boost their careers if the final work was done right.<\/p>\n

This 2-disc set is limited to 5000 copies, which should give fans some time to snap it up and enjoy both versions of Elfman\u2019s classic score, with some additional bonus and alternate cues at the end of Disc 2. Incidentally, the final cue, \u201cMain Title (ALT 2)\u201d has a funny 2 mins. coda where the orchestra performs \u2013 and hums \u2013\u201cBeautiful Dreamer\u201d under the baton of Shirley Walker.<\/p>\n

Batman<\/strong> made Elfman\u2019s career, but its success also typecast him as the de facto superhero composer, and as good as his music for Nightbreed <\/strong>(1990), Dick Tracy <\/strong>(1990), Darkman<\/strong> (1990), and Batman Returns<\/strong> (1992) are, one sensed he was exhausted after 3 years, hence his switch to atypical dramas and thrillers, where he found he could be versatile in any genre and write in any style.<\/p>\n

Batman<\/strong> benefitted from a superb team of orchestrators (Steve Bartek, Shirley Walker, Steven Scott Smalley), conductor (Walker), and engineer (Eric Tomlinson), which is why the score is a highpoint in film score production. Those wanting further adventures featuring Elfman’s theme plus Walker\u2019s own material should examine Batman: The Animated Series<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1992-1995).<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

External References:<\/p>\n

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

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Select Merchants:<\/p>\n

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

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0B<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ B . Rating: Excellent Label: La-La Land Records\/ Released: July 21, 2010 Tracks & Album Length: CD 1: 30 tracks \/ (75:40) + CD 2: 29 tracks \/ (70:27) . Special Notes: 2-CD set \/ 20-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ Limited to 5000 copies . […]<\/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":[128,126,1098,1247],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1NN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931"}],"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=6931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6944,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931\/revisions\/6944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}