Genre Music Scores: The Best of the 1990s
By: Randall D. LarsonDate: Thursday, February 10, 2000
Looking back at the 1990s with an ear toward film music and a leaning toward the fantastic, we can identify plenty of effective, likable musical scores but only a few real milestones. Perhaps the major trend found in the decade was the true marriage akin to the fusion of computer imagery with live action of the electronic with the acoustic, from the malevolent ambiences of Mark Snow's THE X-FILES to the labyrinthine tonalities Don Davis's THE MATRIX.
All the same, symphonic scores continued to thrive despite technological and creative advances made during the decade in adding bytes to balladsit is becoming increasingly uncommon to find symphonic scores that don't contain some kind of electronic embellishment for effect or musical coloration. From Danny Elfman's BATMAN RETURNS to Jerry Goldsmith's THE MUMMY, orchestra-driven scores have always maintained the most emotional depth, acoustic instruments achieving a sense of warmth and intimacy that even the most cleverly disguised Synclavier samples can't best.
The Elfman Decade
If any one composer defines mischievous mayhem in cinema music, it's Danny Elfman, who has carved out an entirely memorable and extraordinarily effective new career as a film composer. His first horror score, BEETLEJUICE (1988) set the stage for a wealth of creative musical insanity that carried through his two BATMAN scores and such interesting compositions as DARKMAN and NIGHTBREED, and the cheerfully manic MARS ATTACKS! (1997). Elfman crafted a slightly lunatic style that was perfect for the emerging mix of humor and horror that embodied many of these films, a style that was frequently and respectfully emulated in other films, from Marc Shaiman's THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1991) to James Horner's CASPER (1995).
It was Elfman's original score for Tom Burton's BATMAN (1989) that set the stage for the tonality of much of the 1990s dark super hero adventure music, heard later in such notable super scores as Goldsmith's THE SHADOW (1994), Randy Edelman's THE MASK (1994), and David Newman's THE PHANTOM (1996). Gone, it seemed, were the bright brassy heroics of John Williams' SUPERMAN; instead we had the gloomy, haunted heroics of fallible men, and heroic music that retained a darker, shadowy edge. Elfman's BATMAN RETURNS (1992) retained the famous theme he composed for the first film, but the music was broader and emotionally richer. It still contained some of the over-the-top Joker-isms that drove the first score, but with varied motifs for Penguin and Catwoman, Elfman's second score was perhaps more satisfying.
Perhaps Elfman's most ingenious score of the decade is THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1994). For Tim Burton's wondrously animated musical fable, Elfman combined his dramatic scoring talents with the songwriting capabilities he had demonstrated in the group Oingo Boingo to create a treasure of macabre musical delight, interspersing catchy and clever songs with the kind of cheerfully malicious music Elfman does best.
Blazing Orchestras
When Joel Schumacher took over the directorial helm of BATMAN FOREVER (1995), composer Elliot Goldenthal accepted the musical reins. His score was every bit as dark as Elfman's musical vision, but his theme was less doleful. Where Elfman's score even at its most energetic maintained a purposeful despondency, Goldenthal's approach, with its furiously ascending/descending notation, is perhaps more exhilarating. Goldenthal maintained the same approach for 1997's BATMAN AND ROBIN, and both his and Elfman's take on music for the Dark Knight defined superhero music for the decade. Meanwhile, for the animated feature, BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993). Shirley Walker gave this atmospheric, animated mystery adventure a compelling, evocative score full of symphonics, synths, and choir.
Unlike John Williams, whose dabblings in the genre have been restricted to Spielbergiana like JURASSIC PARK and THE LOST WORLDeffective and likable scores if not major musical marks of the decadeJerry Goldsmith has maintained a strong presence in science fiction and horror scores while simultaneously achieving a stature and reputation far and above most other film composers. Perhaps his best score of the decade was his eloquently stated music for STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (1996), surely the richest and most poignant melody to grace science fiction cinema in more than ten years. Goldsmith embroidered his score with a sense of grand legendry, his theme seasoned and elegant rather than bombastic and vigorous, commenting on the entire Star Trek milieu with reverence and admiration.
Equally eloquent but far more vigorous is his resonant music for THE MUMMY (1999). For this high-adventure reworking of the Karloff classic, Goldsmith's bold score articulates amongst the sandy vistas of ancient and modern Egypt. From the lyrical and sympathetic introduction of the Imhotep theme through its metamorphosis as a charismatic main theme capturing the passion, pathos, and power of the Egyptian priest, Goldsmith's score maintained an exotically-toned dynamic that alternately raged and wept as it accentuated the tragic romance told within the story.
Another tragic romance was MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN (1994), effectively sustained by a massive score from British composer Patrick Doyle. Doyle here composed a lavish symphonic evocation, eschewing obligatory monster music for a carefully constructed composition centered around a pulsing, rhythmic resonance that became the heartbeat of the doctor's scientific passion. Doyle's music supported the film's temperament as a tragic romance with surging, tonal passages that achieve an intelligent and expansive work.
Goldsmith protégé James Horner continued to ride high during the 1990s as one of the A-list composers. His music for CASPER (1995) was a tour-de-force of mischievous music, accentuated with fast-chanted female vocalisms and fast-paced orchestration, while his thunderous music for MIGHT JOE YOUNG (1997) created a primitive musical soundscape that embodied the misunderstood personality of the oversized gorilla, and his poignant melodies for BICENTENNIAL MAN (1999) spoke layers of emotional depth for the heart of the cyborg man. Horner rode in and out of the '90s in so many genres and styles (including TITANIC) that it's difficult to pin a single high point on him, but these three scores are among his best of the decade.
David Arnold came to the fore in the 1990s. After a notable debut with STARGATE (1994), the muscular orchestrations of INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996) put Arnold on the map as a formidable composer of symphonic sensibilities. He went on to score GODZILLA (1998) with a mighty and massive orchestral work; his enormous bombastic surgings and doomsaying chords transformed the traditional plodding-crashing-shrieking monster music into a coherent symphonic romance, given an added sense of size and import through the use of choir. Arnold's position as heir to the musical 007 throne was secured with his scores for TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997) and THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999), proving himself equal John Barry in achieving the perfect musical counterbalance to James Bond.
Basil Poledouris continued to be one of the most impressive composers at work during the 1990s, his command of eloquent musical statements of folk-like simplicity carry an enormous emotional power. His score for STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), one of his few genre compositions during the decade, was an inspiring musical summation of courage and nobility, a bold, ascending theme for the Mobile Infantry and plenty of purposeful action and battle cues.
Perhaps the decade's most ferocious orchestral horror score was John Debney's THE RELIC (1997), one of the scariest and most incredibly dynamic horror scores to come our way in a long time. Debney scored this film with a series of orchestral onslaughts, each growing in power and force and fury, built around the same sense of relentlessly onrushing motion, capturing not so much the heart of the biological beast but the visceral fury of its malignant violence. THE RELIC is a tone poem for a runaway freight train.
The return of James Bernard to film scoring after a hiatus of 25 years is cause for celebration indeed, and his thoroughly massive score for a video restoration of the classic 1922 film NOSFERATU is rife with the kind of thrilling orchestral undulations and hammering crescendos that Bernard did so well in his DRACULA scores for Hammer Films. Entirely orchestral without a synth in sight, Bernard's music is compelling, mysterious, suspenseful, and thrilling.
Howard Shore emerged from the early low-budget horrors of David Cronenberg to become an under-appreciated yet extremely talented composer of some of the decade's best scores, from the subdued psychologies of SILENT OF THE LAMBS (1990) to the nostalgic ED WOOD (1994). His erogenous music for Cronenberg's CRASH (1997), performed by an unusual ensemble of six electric guitars, three harps, three woodwinds, and two percussionists, was entirely suitable to the obsessive, aberrant darkness of the director's darkly erotic vision. There are no real melodies, but more a miasmic ambience of guitar and harp glissandi, remixed, resynthesized, and overlayed to create a chaotic, claustrophobic sensitivity, and a quite remarkable sound.
Joseph LoDuca's music for television's XENA, WARRIOR PRINCESS (debuted 1995) continues to be one of the freshest and most inventive scores on television. Emphasizing an eclectic mix of styles, samples, and voices, LoDuca has crafted a compelling sound design for the show. The ambiguous ethnicity and multi-layered texture of the music is constantly refreshing, and LoDuca's new scores for each episode are among the best elements of this goldmine of television creativity.
Electronic Sound Designs and Musical Patterns
With the advent of synthesizers in the 1970s, first heard as solo instruments in such scores as THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, THE SHINING, and HALLOWEEN, composers began experimenting throughout the 1980s with the combination of electronic instruments within the symphonic orchestral family. Scores like Wendy Carlos' TRON, Vangelis' BLADE RUNNER, and Richard Band's METALSTORM (reportedly the first score to attempt the performance of an array of electronics recorded live in the same session with a 75-piece orchestra) developed the notion, and it was soon embraced by such top composers as John Williams in HEARTBEEPS, Jerry Goldsmith in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, Elmer Bernstein in GHOSTBUSTERS, Basil Poledouris in ROBOCOP, and Alan Silvestri in PREDATOR and CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR. Some scores dispensed with orchestras entirely and used synthesizers to mimic them, at great cost savings, but more satisfying were composers who embraced this new technology to enhance the sonic texture of their orchestras, creating new sounds that wove psychological tonalities into their orchestra scores. During the 1990s, this trend really emerged in a dramatic way, with a number of notable compositions that really elevated and stretched the parameters of the use of electronic instruments within orchestral film music.
Christopher Young ran rampant throughout the decade like a wily werewolf, his best for the genre emerging midway in 1995. Always at home in the horror genre, he made SPECIES a fertile embodiment of synths and symphs and choir, creating a relentless mysterioso for unearthly beauty and violent passion. COPYCAT was an exercise in restrained apprehension, offsetting a musical portrait of a serial killer's psyche with moments of delicious spookiness and diffusive fright. From murderous violence to virtual reality, Young's multi-layered composition for VIRTUOSITY was rich in high tech tonalities and effecting textures, his percussive rhythms creating a perfect accompaniment for the film's virtual multiverses.
Mark Snow's musical ambiences for THE X-FILES were some of the most evocative compositions to emerge from the small screen, and when Mulder and Scully took their adventures to the big screen in 1997, Snow had the rare opportunity to expand and enlarge his TV music into a broad canvas that surged with power both restrained and unleashed. Adopting an amalgamation of modern and traditional scoring styles to create a 12-tone, atonal, aleatoric language, Snow's music intensified the mystery and mythology of the show, amplifying its sense of cosmic wonder and conspiratorial terror with orchestral music embellished with synth textures.
Shirley Walker's score for HBO's SPAWN series (debuted 1997) contained some of the most unearthly and savagely haunting mixes of samples, synth overtones, and voices heard during the decade. From her darkly heroic music for the animated BATMAN series, Shirley threw out all the stops to concoct a multi-layered and mesmerizing sound design for SPAWN, literally raising musical hell as she depicted the stygian soul of the unwittingly hell-spawned hero and the demonic entitles fighting against him. The music is thoroughly electronic, built around modules of sound-oriented intonations and textural elements, a very engaging and unforgettable musical brew.
Perhaps the most powerful electro-acoustic score of the decade was Don Davis's THE MATRIX (1999). Accompanying this brilliant film of astonishing visual depth, Davis composed a score equal to the task. From the digital descension of the matrix code that opened the film, like through the hornlike blaring figure that heralded the 'bullet time' visual effects, the music bristled like wild scurrying insects. Davis' reflective treatment of orchestral, choral, and electronic layers, the pacing of the music which alternately rages and then brakes into slow motion, and his inventive morphing of unearthly sonic mysteriosos, blaring dissonances, and crashing percussive pulses...were simply extraordinary.
With the score for THE MATRIX, the journey film music began at the start of the 1990s, with its integration of the electronic with the orchestral, became thoroughly consummated. In many ways it may herald the advent of film music's evolution into in the 21st Century, an unbridled culmination of all that music can be to cinema, in both purely traditional and technological possible terms.
Randall Larson was a senior editor for Soundtrack Magazine(www.soundtrackmag.com), former publisher of CinemaScore, a long time film music writer for Cinefantastique and author of several books including Music from the House of Hammer.
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