Danny Elfman - Nightmare Revisited
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Free Music Notes for Nightmare Revisited
Free Music Review: Instrumentals Come Out On Top
Hit: 3 Stars
I'd like to know how this project came together and how the artists were matched with their respective pieces. I picked up this album with mixed feelings and after a couple of listens those feelings remain mixed. I was glad to see that even the score elements of the original soundtrack were represented in this "revisitation". A good thing too, considering most of the vocal tracks fail to bring anything new to the table. The tracks by Manson, Korn and Rise Against are servicable but uninspired attempts to appeal to the goth kiddies that have helped turn Nightmare into a merchandising empire. The All-American Rejects, Flyleaf, Polyphonic Spree, Sparklehorse and Plain White T's all make slow, lifeless messes of their tracks (a real surprise from the usually hyper Spree). Yes, there's a dark element to the work, but it sounds like people needed to worry less about their eyeliner and have more fun - the element that's really missing from these tracks. Amy Lee is a pretty safe pick for Sally's Song, but that doesn't make the results any less gorgeous. And Shiny Toy Guns manage to turn the relatively minor Finale/Reprise into a mini epic with a genuinely creepy beginning, plaintive middle (Petree's cry of "What is this?" is perfect) and a lush, romantic finish. Rodrigo y Gabriela turn Oogie Boogie's song into a great, fast-paced guitar piece and that's this album's real strength - the instrumentals. Amiina and The Vitamin String Quartet take a more classical approach with great results. The Yoshida Brothers and Rjd2 have a lot of fun with Nabbed and Christmas Eve Montage, bringing a bit of dance and electronica to the mix. Datarock manage to make To The Rescue completely their own while honouring Elfman at the same time. Their take on the musical moment when Jack is revealed on Oogie's slab is inspired and (here's that word again) fun. The album comes to a beautiful close with The Album Leaf's hypnotic exploration of the first part of the closing credits. The risks taken and the fun had by the artists tackling the instrumentals make this album worth picking up if you're an Elfman or Nightmare fan. However, consider the cheesy cover art as fair warning for most of the remaining tracks.Free Music Review: Holiday Mix-Up Indeed
Hit: 3 Stars
I've been a fan of "NBX" as it's sometimes known since the original trailers for the film came out all those years ago. I've owned three versions/formats of the movie itself, and had spent a decade searching for the original soundtrack, which I'm surprised hasn't worn out yet do to over-playing. After hearing the covers from the special edition soundtrack, I was excited to check out this album.
While it includes the previous, excellent Marilyn Manson cover of "This Is Halloween", the rest of the album is a mixed (trick or treat) bag indeed. As mentioned in other reviews, the tracks that remained instrumentals are solid for the most part. The thing is, with the lyrical pieces, it's like some performers "got it" and some had no idea what they were doing.
KoRn's version of "Kidnap The Sandy Claws" is manic fun, bringing a real love of the feel of the material. "Jack's Lament" by All-American Rejects is solid, and Rise Against's "Making Christmas" is as energetic as Jack's Obsession is made out to be. Amy Lee is a perfect choice for "Sally's Song, definitely capturing the sadness the poor rag doll was filling up with. "Poor Jack" by Plain White T's is also decent, but not quite as good as Elfman's original.
Then, as I mentioned, some groups just didn't get it, if not just outright butchering the music in the all-together. "What's This?" by Flyleaf robs the song of all emotion in an emo-girl's monotone, and "Jack's Obsession" by Sparklehorse is even worse. "Town Meeting" is one of the worst pieces of "music" I have ever had to hear, a bizarrely performed, Wagnerian piece of mis-cast spoken-word drivel. One of my other favorite pieces, "Oogie's Song", is robbed of lyrics and made into a dreadful (if playful) bit of Latin guitar work. The "Christmas Eve Montage" is then made into a piece of woefully-dated electronica, mostly a glorified MIDI that some little kid who just discovered the synthesizer might have put together.
All-in-all, it's not a horrid album, but such an eclectic mix makes it strictly middle-of.the-road.
Free Music Review: Very Hit and Miss
Hit: 3 Stars
This album gave me mixed feelings about what the producers actually allowed to be played. I know a lot of the artists poured their heart and soul into one song, but thats just what some of them did and not capture the beauty and feeling of the original song. So lets get right to it...
The good:
Marilyn Mansons rendition of "This is Halloween". You could take out the original song from the movied and maybe even feel a little bit more scared to watch NBC. Fantastic version. KoRns cover of "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" gives a grungier version of those little children preparing to do just that! Outstanding! Amy Lee's version of "Sally's Song" made it just feel a lot more tragic. You can almost feel like its Amy in the movie. Rise Against's cover of "Making Christmas" caught the upbeat and fast paced frenzy that was that portion of the movie. Simply great.
The Bad:
Plain White T's version of "Poor Jack" and All american rejects version of "Jack's Lament" werent all that great. While they get an A for effort, to me they did not capture Jack. The corpse is pouring whats left of his heart out for us and these guys did not do him justice. While I love Gabriela and Rodrigo, I feel that the Oogy boogy song was not the correct choice for the producers to have them in. Danny Elfman's narration was ok at best. Other songs throughout the score of the movie arent worth mentioning.
THE UGLY!!!:
simply put...Flyleaf's version of "What's this" and Sparklehorse's "Jack's Obssesion" SUCKED! They slaughtered these songs twice! Everytime i hear them (and believe me i try not to), I think that these two songs alone tried to sabotage the whole album. I cant say enough on how bad these songs are. But i will for now.
Free Music Review: A tragically flawed, yet interesting album
Hit: 3 Stars
I had never heard of this CD before I saw it on store shelves. The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my most beloved movies - still, I was hesitant to buy it, since I passionately dislike artists like Marilyn Manson, and I had no idea as to what to expect from the album.
I ended up being surprised, in more ways than one.
First - the album, as a whole, does not capture at all the essence of the original soundtrack. Granted, one would expect a wide range of musicians adding a lot of their own character to the original songs. The problem here is that, apparently, not many of the artists were intimately familiar with the source of this songs - the movie itself. "Jack's Lament" is positively terrible - it's just random phrases being talked to random music. Instead of the original song's feeling, we get... well, basically nothing. "Jack's Obsession" made me want to toss the disc out of my window - it may be the worst song of them all. And that's the problem with 60~70% of this CD - it's not "Nightmare", it's just a collection of egos trying to outdo each other in anger and fake depression...
Except for a few stand-out tracks - beginning with, oh boy, Marilyn Manson. His rendition of "This is Halloween" is amazing - it captures the spirit of the situation, and develops it further. It's amazingly true to the original. The Overture, while strange, is pretty good. "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" and "Making Christmas" are both a blast - very, very enjoyable.
It's kinda sad to see so much potential wasted on this disc. I'd rather buy a couple of individual songs (Marilyn Manson, Korn, and Rise Against), and forget the rest.
Free Music Review: Takes some getting used to...
Hit: 3 Stars
I was pretty excited to see this new release of the soundtrack, fully realizing it would be different from the actual movie soundtrack. It has a bunch of different artist doing their own take on the songs from the original movie music. Some of it is really fun, and others are REALLY different...
Only a few were in the same spirit as the originals, meaning you could sing along with them and such (like This is Halloween, or the bonus track version of Oogie's Song). This CD, in my opinion, is definitely not very kid-friendly, with some of the songs sounding a little scary and dark; Kidnap the Sandy Claws was pretty close to the original in tempo and such, but the artists do some screaming and sound really angry. I barely recognized most of the Town Meeting Song and Jack's Obsession, as compared to the originals. Most of the instrumentals were very nice though, Nabbed being my favorite.
This CD really takes creative liberties, some to a new, fun level, and others not so much. The CD is nice to have, but I would imagine that the actual soundtrack will be more popular in the long run.