Danny Elfman - Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.00 You Save: $11.98 (86%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.19 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
Free Music Review: Quirky, Fun, Beautiful
Hit: 5 Stars
Danny Elfman has done it again with the score to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It's a mix that can go from zany to nasty to beautiful. I've had this CD for almost a month now and I haven't been able to listen to much else! It's perfect for getting the thinking juices flowing, or for just reliving the movie, if that's your thing.
1) The CD kicks off with Willy Wonka's Wonka song, which is bound to get stuck in your head. It sounds sort of like the theme song to a dated kid's show, which fits Willy Wonka perfectly. And it has...yodeling?! It's perpetually, creepily cheery. The way it's intentionally way too happy reminds me of Thomas Newman's "Loverly Spring" that opened the movie A Series of Unfortunate Events.
All the "Brat Songs" are here, too. Elfman used Roald Dahl's lyrics in the songs, so they're a bit nastier than the good old "Oompa Loompa Doopadee Doo" lyrics from the 1971 musical, but they're much more fun! They're completely different, too, not just variations on the same tune like in the original movie.
Augustus Gloop is like an overblown musical, with wailing trumpets and conga-like drums
Violet Beauregarde is my least favorite Brat song. It's pure 70's with funk guitars.
Veruca Salt sounds like an Abba Song! One part sounds like Dancing Queen, but at the end they've got some great 60's sitar. Ha ha ha! This one's just so zany and fun.
Mike Teavee is heavy metal, electric, pumping, and hyperactive. Very Oingo Boingo.
6) The Main Titles is one of the tracks you'll listen to over and over again. It's fun in a sort of nasty way and is sprinkled with quirky little noises that sound like they're from a factory Tim Burton would create (imagine that). This song has a great driving beat to it and has some moments reminiscent of "Spider-Man". At the end it melts perfectly into the much sweeter theme of the poor Bucket family. This is an unforgettable part of the soundtrack!
7)Wonka's First Shop has lots of mood changes and ends triumphantly with the opening of Willy Wonka's factory.
8) The Indian Prince starts off with a minute of great, India-inspired sitar, then the music changes to the ingenius music that is played when Wonka's competitiors steal his recipes and start copying his ideas. It ends on a sad note as Wonka closes his factory "forever". So really, there's much more to this song than the title would suggest.
9)Wheels in Motion is another one of my favorite tracks. There are so many twists and changes throughout. It begins with Charlie's theme, which is just as sweet and loveable as he is, then the pace picks up again and we get a relapse of the Main Titles. It changes to a wonderful hodge-podge of music from around the world, to the blaring Middle-East market music to the bouncy New York consumer tune as the world hunts for Golden Tickets.
10) Charlie's Birthday Bar is held together with strings and xylophone which perfectly convey the sweetness and innocence of Charlie Bucket.
11) Golden Ticket/Factory begins again with beautiful sweeping strings then escalates as the visitors wait outside the factory.
12) Chocolate Explorers is played when the visitors are introduced to the Chocolate Room. You can almost see the chocolate waterfall and the candy trees when you listen to this song.
13) Loompa Land has a very primitive feel to it, with tribal drums and Oompa Loompa chants. You really get the feel of the dangerous and primitive world the Oompa Loompas come from.
14) Boat Arrives in it's pink candy splendor. It has great tribal beats and Loompa vocals like the previous track and has a very magestic feel to it. You can really see the boat towering over you at some parts.
15) River Cruise is more of the same. It has some nice beats and buzz-like Oompa Loompa hums. The strings keep things flowing along like the chocolate river. This track manages to be both myserious and quirky.
16) First Candy has some great instrumentals-xylophones, organ chords, choir-like vocals, blasts from the brass section, and sweeping and leaping strings. It's not the best track, but still fairly enjoyable.
17) Up and Out is intense and a bit scary, but not so scary that it's not fun to listen to! It also includes the music played when we see what became of the other 4 kids, which is again littered with quirky sounds. There are these great sci-fi moments near the end of the track that just make me smile every time. They're so awesome!
18) The River Cruise-Part 2 revisits the tribal stuff you hear earlier in the CD but has some awesome string and brass accents and more good beats.
19) Charlie Declines is one of the most beautiful bits in the album. It's simple, short and perfect.
20) Finale is beautiful and happy. The strings, flutes, and piano convey the inevitable "Happy Ending" so sweetly and and perfectly. How can you not be happy listening to this song?
21) End Credits feature instrumentals of the Willy Wonka Welcome Song and all four Brat Songs. It's a lot of fun! The CD ends with a chorus of Oompa Loompas laughing, then you press play again and listen to the whole album over again!
This is Danny Elfman at his finest. It's as eccentric as the chocolate factory. You won't regret buying this album after you find yourself listening to it over and over.
Free Music Review: Danny Elfman is a genius!
Hit: 5 Stars
Danny Elfman is truly a genius. He is up there with the likes of John Williams and Howard Shore, in my opinion.
This album is *BRILLIANT*! Let me write a brief review of each individual lyrical song, and then an overview of the instrumental score....
1) Wonka's Welcome Song -- This song is awesome. It gives one the feeling of listening to "It's A Small World" or "Welcome to Duloc". Couple that with the visuals we've seen in the trailers, and we've got ourselves a truly disturbing, but very fun song. It's creepy, it's annoying, and it serves its purpose well! You'll have this song stuck in your head for *days* (even Tim Burton himself mentioned that he couldn't get it out of his head.)
2) Augustus Gloop -- This song will have you tapping your toes and humming along (or singing, if you know the words, like many fans of the book do). It is catchy, fun, and upbeat. Pure Bollywood. Danny Elfman provides the voice for all the Oompa-Loompas, in all of the kids' song.... But you would *never* be able to tell! It's so hard to describe how great this is!
3) Violet Beauregarde -- This one makes you think of "Kung Fu Fighting" or those Mad TV parodies of '70s cop shows with the pimp-type music, girls with afros, and bellbottom polyester pants. Danny brilliantly rearranged Dahl's words to make this song all about Violet, and it works perfectly. This one, too, will have you itching to get up and dance!
4) Veruca Salt -- I love this song. I'm a huge fan of ABBA, and you can tell Elfman was influenced by them for this song. There is one point in the song where it sounds almost *exactly* like an ABBA song (I'm blanking on which one at the moment). It's brilliant! Dahl's lyrics are put to very good use (a fishnet cut from a halibut; an oyster from an oyster stew), and makes this song seem like an ABBA-style Dr. Demento song ("Fish heads! Fish heads! Eat 'em up, yum!"). It's awesome!
5) Mike Teavee -- This one is my second favorite behind Augustus'. This one uses a wonderful mixture of '80s hair bands, then goes into an obviously Queen-influenced bit... And then it goes into a Sgt. Pepper's-era Beatles-influenced part. It is catchy and fun and just all-out great!
As for the score of the film. Well, it's just pure and brilliant Elfman all the way through.
The use of the sitar in Track 8: The Indian Palace, which is for the Prince Pondicherry scenes, immediately recalls me back to Sgt. Pepper's yet again...
Track 13: Loompa Land is very catchy and it's the kind of music for a movie that you'd want to put as the background music for a fan website or something. The River Cruise tracks and The Boat Arrives are brilliant as well; the use of the drums and Oompa-Loompa chanting really gives us a feel of them being a primitive race of people from the jungle, just like in the book!
The only small, small part I didn't like was the very end of Track 7: Wonka's First Shop, because it goes very briefly from sounding like Danny Elfman music to sounding like John Williams music. It's brief, but to me it stuck out like a sore thumb. And it isn't that I don't like Williams' music; he's another of my favorite composers, but it just didn't fit in with Elfman's score very well....
But, the entire score is just brilliant and touching and it's just great! Oh, and the End Credits are 7 minutes long and include instrumental-only versions of the Wonka Welcome Song, and the four kids' songs. It's a great way to end a perfect soundtrack!
This movie soundtrack gets 5 out of 5 stars. Danny Elfman is a genius!
Joy
Free Music Review: It's a Wonka candy delight for the ears! Kiddie music for the child in everyone!
Hit: 5 Stars
I have yet to see the movie, but I read the book and heard the soundtrack, and the soundtrack is DELIGHTFUL!! (Yes, I have listened to the soundtrack while reading the book) OK, I may get some heat for this, but although the soundtrack to "Willy Wonka" from 1971 has its charm, the talented Danny Elfman's quirky melodies make Newley-Bricusse's little ditties about the Candy Man making the World Taste Good, and Pure Imagination and "guzzling down sweets like an elephant eats" sound absolutely sappy. Not to slam on "The Candy Man," but I think "Willy Wonka's Welcome Song sounds so much more infectiously delightful, and in my opinion, Elfman's Ooompa Loompa laments for each of Charlie's naughty tourmates have the Newley-Bricusse Oompa tunes beat all hollow. Whereas the "doompity doo" Loompa Laments by Newley all sounded alike, the ones by Elfman each have their own style -- a Latin beat for Augustus Gloop, 80s new-wave for Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teavee, and a 60s hippy-trippy sound -- complete with sitars -- to mark Veruca Salt's tumble into the trash. The instrumentals are excellent also, (River Cruise Part 2 is a standout and sticks in my brain!) but it's on the vocal "laments" that the CD really shines. That's Danny E himself lending his pipes on those four musical numbers, harking back to his days in the 80s as front guy for new-wave band Oingo Boingo (Slap me sideways if "Augustus Gloop's" and "Violet Beauregarde's" laments don't both sound sorta-kinda like Boingo's minor hit "Dead Man's Party" and if "Mike Teavee" doesn't sound slightly like "Only a Lad" and "Little Guns")and time-warping me back to my 80s teenhood.
Another neat-o thing about the four "laments" is that they are taken right from Roald Dahl's verses for the book and set to a remarkably danceworthy beat. Roald Dahl must be smiling and dancing in his grave. While this CD does have kid appeal, this isn't kiddie music in the classic sense -- music outgrown once one leaves the single-digit age group. This is kiddie music for the kid in everyone, a musical confection guaranteed to make any Tom, Dick, or Carlos feel like a Tommy, a Dickie, or a Carlito. Five stars, my left eyelash! I'd like to give it 10 big fat Chocolate Stars. (Oh, rats, now I have a weird craving for Brach's Chocolate Stars!)
Free Music Review: Hurrah! Danny's Back in Form Again!
Hit: 5 Stars
I listened to this CD for the first time on my way to work this morning. I smiled the whole ride.
This is Danny at his absolute best-something for everyone.
The opening cut is a great hommage to those wonderful antique mechanical musical Orchestrions, right down to the trilling deadened xylo bits. You just have to love a guy that incorporates that much melodic percussion into everything he writes.
The CD follows up with a song for each kid, and what an assortment! The "themes" are brilliant interpretations of music from different generations- influences of Earth Wind & Fire, The Mammas and the Pappas, Queen, and (blissfully) some old style Oingo Boingo.
The main theme is a blast, incorporating heavily from Mars Attacks and MIB, but funner, faster, and longer for those of us who couldn't get enough of those little snippets of themes.
There is the usual tinkly yet darkly goosebumpy NBC/Scissorhands sound (Danny's trademark sound, and the one that all those "wannabee's" try so unsuccessfully to mimic), and some smashing Indian sounding stuff.
I think my favorite has to be Augustus Gloop, which has a very Malaguena-ish horn sound, and I bet will appear on the program for lots and lots of high school marching bands, and (hopefully for some top drawer junior corps) by next year. It just screams "FEATURE!" and I can mentally picture just who I'd like to see field it.... *cough* Madison Scouts *cough cough*
All in all, a fun and extremely satisfying CD. I can already see I will have to fight my daughter for it. I remember the good old days, when she didn't like either Danny OR Oingo Boingo....and then she discovered Nightmare. Oh well, at least she has superb taste, even if it means having to hunt my CDs down all the time.
We are both waiting with baited breath for Corpse Bride......if it's anything on a par with this, 2005 will have been a VERY good year, indeed!
Free Music Review: Wonderfully fun, different, and zany!
Hit: 5 Stars
Tim Burton and Danny Elfman's most recent project as director/composer duo shines like all the rest. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY is a feast for the eyes and the truest of treats for the ears. Elfman uses his incredibly keen talent to transform the oddball Willy Wonka and his five Golden Ticket holders into musical entities in their own right.
"Wonka's Welcome Song" is both kooky and hilarious, much as Wonka himself turns out to be. Wonka's (Depp) deadpan humor and odd mannerisms are transformed well into music by Elfman, who orchestrated themes for the character that reflect these interesting characteristics. The same goes for the five children who visit the factory -- each, with the exception of Charlie Bucket -- gets his/her own theme that plays on some humorous aspect of his/her character. These themes are sensational and quirky, but so much fun!
As for the true orchestrations, Elfman's "Main Titles" showcases them the best. The ambience created by this track is truly delightful and slightly ominous, fast-paced but smooth in its flow. The variety of instrumental tracks is impressive, going hand-in-hand with thematic changes in the movie -- others to focus on are "Wonka's First Shop," "The Indian Palace," "The River Cruise," and (of course) the "Finale." Each carries a marvelous mix of instrumentation that is sometimes delicate, sometimes brusque, but always exciting.
While this film and soundtrack will certainly not appeal to everyone, I would recommend giving both a shot. The film is different in its own right -- if you haven't seen it, you've surely never seen anything quite like it -- and, thus, so is the accompanying score. The idiosyncracies of each character aside, Elfman has done yet another marvelous job of creating a world all his own through music. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, for all of its quirks and goofiness, is strangely charming and inviting. Drop in and give it a listen. Very highly recommended.