THE ROCK

NICK GLENNIE-SMITH, HANS ZIMMER and HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS

Rating:

Original Review: Depending on your point of view, the score for The Rock epitomises perfectly everything that is wrong, or right, about action music in the 1990s. Since the advent of Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures organisation, and the subsequent compositions to come from there, such as Crimson Tide, Broken Arrow, Drop Zone and, more recently, The Peacemaker and Face/Off, action scores have tended to get bogged down in the familiar territory of driving synthesised beats, ear-shattering brass melodies and masculine choirs every time. Over and over again the likes of Zimmer, Glennie-Smith, Gregson-Williams, Mark Mancina and John Powell have retreaded the same old ground and written the same old scores, most of which sound like this one. It came as no surprise to me that this score would sound the way it does, considering that it was co-written by the three composers who are arguably the most to blame for this style of action music. If I may voice a personal opinion for a moment: although this type of score undeniably sounds fantastic in the cinema when accompanied by the increasingly arresting visuals Hollywood craves at the moment, and it also sells well with the casual listener, I think it's high time that this kind of generic action music was rethought and redefined. There is virtually no emotional content to grasp onto within a score like The Rock and, as a soundtrack collector, I'm beginning to get very tired with this sound. But onto the score. The first cue, 'Hummell Gets The Rockets' is by far the best - as I mentioned above, it's chock full of pounding synthesisers, deep brasses, low voices, wailing guitars and other high-octane orchestrations, and it really does sound absolutely marvellous. The first time you hear it. It's just that, as the score wears on, other than two extremely short cues ('Jade' and 'Fort Walton Texas) which present a soft, gentle love theme for woodwinds, there is precious little deviation from the formula and by the end of the album you are left with the music ringing in your ears like tinnitis, wishing that there had been some kind of respite from all the mayhem. It just goes on and on and on and on, with the (admittedly quite good) heroic theme, which was obviously the work of Nick Glennie-Smith (who would later go on to re-use large chunks of it in The Man in the Iron Mask, a much more well-rounded score), repeating over and over. For those of you who own and like Crimson Tide and/or Broken Arrow, The Rock gets a wholehearted recommendation. If you like one, you are likely to like them all. Personally, I enjoyed the main theme immensely. Just not enough to want to sit and listen to nothing else for over an hour.

Track Listing: Running Time: 60 minutes 37 seconds

Hollywood Records HR62062-2 (1996)

Music composed by Nick Glennie-Smith, Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams. Conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith, Bruce Fowler and Don Harper. Orchestrations by Bruce Fowler, Suzette Moriarty, Ladd McIntosh, Walt Fowler and Dennis Dreith. Featured musical soloists Bob Daspit, Michael Thompson and Michael Stevens. Recorded and mixed by Alan Meyerson and Bruce Botnick. Edited by Bob Badami and John Finklea. Album produced by Nick Glennie-Smith, Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams.


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These web pages were designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton copyright 1998. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those of my employer, the Trent Institute for Health Services Research, or those of the University of Sheffield.