WALL-E Soundrack Review
Examining Thomas Newman's Latest Pixar Score
Jul 8, 2008 David Abraham Dueck
The first thing one might notice about the soundtrack to WALL-E is the extra-long track listing: there are 38 pieces of music on this album! Considering that there is only 80 minutes available per CD, it’s pretty obvious that the length of these tracks is pretty short.
Only 14 of the 38 tracks are longer than a minute and a half, and only two of those are longer than three minutes. What this means is a plethora of rhythmic and exotic instrumental ideas: what it does not mean is substantial melodic development.
Fractured but Fun Construction
The album begins with a Michael Crawford song, "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from the musical Hello Dolly. The song fades away to the opening track of the score, "2815 AD," in which Newman quickly establishes an eerie fantasy mood with his glassy, trademark sound, using a descending harp figure and long washes of the string section. The mood lightens after a couple minutes and the music becomes lighter somewhat delicate in tone, but this doesn’t last long as the next track, "WALL-E," introduces a quirky, upbeat rhythmic piece for the title character.
Various other interesting musical ideas are introduced: "Eve" and "Define Dancing" both showcase a lovely, sparkling theme for strings (which appears to represent flying), the latter track presenting a full, expanded rendition of the theme. "Eve Retrieve," "The Axiom," and "Hyperjump" all contain some very entertaining work by the brass section, including a full-throated fanfare, which is perhaps the only typical, bombastic science-fiction-type music on the album.
"All That Love’s About" introduces an echoing, angelic-sounding woodwind figure which represents the romance of the story, but it’s a very short signature and only lasts for about half a minute, and only recurs once or twice on album.
A few very entertaining (and at times hilarious) musical ideas pop up, never to be heard again on album. For example, the tracks "BNL" and "First Date" are both quite funny and a surprise to hear from the composer, but they are very short and never show up again. Likewise, "Fixing WALL-E" has a haunting, melancholy figure for light bells, woodwinds and strings, but it only shows up again once.
Besides the opening Michael Crawford song, there is another Crawford piece ("It Only Takes a Moment", also from Hello Dolly), "La Vie En Rose" performed by Lois Armstrong, and a new song, "Down to Earth," composed by Thomas Newman and Peter Gabriel (who also performs the piece). The songs’ use in the film is humorous and effective, and their inclusion on the album is not jarring or out-of-place. "Down to Earth," which accompanies the inventive end credits sequence, is not a groundbreaking song, but the melody is quite catchy and it is undeniably charming. It is followed on album by the final score track, "Horizon 12.2," which uses electronic bleeps and bips (a la Wendy Carlos' Tron) as a background instrument. It’s a quite but still quite ingenious piece to round out the album.
Every track on the album features dazzling exotic and electronic instruments, (or three, or eight), and a catchy, wonderfully inventive rhythm: but few of the tracks are long enough to significantly develop any of the musical ideas presented in them, and themes and rhythms are only rarely reprised later in the album. ‘72 Degrees and Sunny’ is a rare track on the album which takes enough time (over three minutes) to present a satisfying evolution of a concept. ‘Fun,’ ’Upbeat,’ and ‘Inventive’ are good words to use to describe this score. ‘Consistent’, ‘Cohesive’ and ‘Flowing’ are not.
Summary
This, then, is the album’s main problem: there is no unifying thematic idea or instrumental constant which can effectively tie everything together. The lack of sustained melody alone may be enough to deter collectors of traditional scores, and it is a definite disappointment given Thomas Newman’s uncanny knack for melody. But there’s still quite a lot to explore and enjoy here, and the adept collector will find it easy to create an enjoyable suite out of the material.
WALL-E Album Cover
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