Soundtrack Review: The Bucket List by Marc Shaiman (2008)

Posted by Soundtrack Geek

January 26, 2008

Jack Nicholson and Marc Shaiman are back together again for the first time since A Few Good Men in 1992. Will The Bucket List be just as good as that one?

The Bucket List is a nice family movie and the soundtrack reflects that in many ways. It’s very jazzy and uses the saxophone and piano a lot, but it’s also very light hearted, almost jolly in style, very unlike A Few Good Men. It is a feel good movie after all and Marc Shaiman thankfully respects that. As I reported earlier, I wasn’t too overexcited about it, so I didn’t have much expectations of this soundtrack.

Having low expectations is usually good for the soundtrack and I’m not sure if this one has benefited from it, but I did enjoy it. The soundtrack contains 23 songs, including songs from Sleepless In Seattle, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Goldfinger, Stuart Saves His Family and The American President). Marc Shaiman himself has made 18 tracks for this album. The runtime is a bit short though, only 50 minutes. Here is the tracklist:

Hospital Hallway
Like Smoke Through A Keyhole
Best In L.A.
Really Bad News
La Vie En Rose
Hotel Source
Did You Hear It?
Flying Home
Homecomings
Life And Death
The Mountain
End Credits
A Seed Of Grain
City Slickers
Simon Birch
The Addams Family
Mother
North
A Wink And A Smile
Blame Canada
Mr. Saturday Night
Goldfinger
What Makes A Family

What I like about this album, is the easy listening factor, it never fails to put me in a good mood. As far as comedy scores go, I can see myself listening to this in the future, and not many comedy scores have that effect on me. Marc Shaiman has with The Bucket List risen to the top of comedy scores composers 2008, but that’s because I haven’t heard any other comedy scores yet. Let’s see what John Debney can do. All in all, a fun soundtrack andif you like comedy scores, you must love this. Listen to it below and tell me what you think.