Search - Hans Zimmer :: The Simpsons Movie

Nice Elfman score ...

G. Kroener | Bamberg, Bavaria Germany | 08/23/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"So, after nearly 20 years, the Simpsons finally made it to the big screen, didn't they? And nobody really expected them to fail, or did you? The current hype around animated movies certainly helped the project come to life, but there's no harm in that.

Now for the score ... neither Danny Elfman, nor Alf Clausen, who did almost all of the TV shows, return to this musical project. And the answer, I suppose, is quite simple: the producers wanted a name to sell. Too harsh?

The reviews on this page raging about the absence of some rock and pop rubbish clearly show what demographics the company aims at.

Otherwise you can't explain why Alf Clausen, who built this house, wasn't allowed to crown his achievement with scoring this film.



But on to the actual score. We start with Danny Elfman's original title theme, which Hans Zimmer makes sound, orchestrally, unbalanced and all over the place. Bongos, Drums and Violin runs bounce off each other in desperate tries to emulate Danny Elfman's style.

In the subsequent tracks, this pattern is followed, and Zimmer even uses some typical Elfman "La-La" choir, but ultimately, the album runs by without leaving the impression of having heard anything but random tries at Danny Elfman music.

That doesn't mean Hans Zimmer wasn't able to leave some of his fingerprints on the music; that would obviously be impossible. But you can clearly hear that he isn't at all comfortable with having to juggle a musical style that is alot more complex and stylistically demanding than his own.



"Basically, I see myself as Danny's orchestrator" he said in a recent interview. Well, but it needs more than throwing together some Elfman-isms to do him justice.

To break the never-stopping flood of quirky, mischievous underscore, Hans Zimmer included some of his well-known, and well-feared by some, "experiments"; "Release The Hounds" and "Recklessly Impulsive" feature a rock/trance vibe that, while not particulary listenable, at least works somewhat in the film. For one horrible moment, though, you wonder whether the record company accidentally pressed the dreadful, dreadful TJ Tiesto Remix of "He's A Pirate" onto the Simpsons soundtrack.



All taken into account, it is an unusual score for Hans Zimmer, it shows some orchestral colour and range, and that is alot more than you can say about the last few years of Zimmer's work, even if this score just sounds like a failed attempt at Elfman music in the end.



By the way, is Hans Zimmer so proud of having produced a (almost) purely orchestral score that the "Simpsons Theme" needs to be labelled as "orchestral version"? Any version of the Simpsons Theme, in the shows and the film, was orchestral."

Clap For Alaska

mikey mike | 11/10/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"-The long awaited Simpsons movie finally arrived, and it got a very enjoyable score to boot. Despite Zimmer's name being on the album, this is a very Danny Elfman score with a dash of John Debney and John Powell thrown in there. It's rather refreshing to hear pretty woodwinds and harp in a Zimmer score. *cheap shot* I didn't even know he knew they existed */cheap shot*



-"Clap For Alaska" is a great piece of music that makes the whole album a great purchase for me. It starts off very noble then builds into this beautiful and silly choral piece. I wish I could explain why I've become so addicted to that track but I just can't stop listening to it. It's just one of those things that makes you glad you have ears. I think most people though will probably find their highlight in "Spider-Pig". It's a cute little moment but I don't really care for it that much.



-The one track that I can't figure out why it's on the album is "Recklessly Impulsive", which is 5 minutes of club music. I can't even remember hearing that in the movie. It's a terrible track that's more noise than music. I just delete that from my playlist on iTunes so I don't have to waste a second listening to that nonsense. Other than that abysmal blunder everything else is peachy on the album.



-Cheers to Zimmer and his countless assistants and orchestrators for providing a very pleasing score to a very satisfying movie.



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