Soundtrack Review: 9 (2009)

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This is a review of the motion picture soundtrack 9 by Deborah Lurie & Danny Elfman.

“Lurie’s lush orchestral sounding fantasy score grabs your ears from the beginning and keeps you close”

Machines versus rag dolls, who will win? In a nutshell, that’s the short version of this story, but of course there is more to it than that. The helpless humans faced a grim battle against the machines and lost (sounds familiar?). A scientist gave life to 9 rag dolls before he passed away and the world is in their hands. Tim Burton is listed as a producer of this animated movie and when I saw Danny Elfman’s name attached to this, well… you know what I was thinking. Alas (read my rant after the jump) it wasn’t to be, but what I found instead surprised me. This movie has a strong cast including Christopher Plummer, Elijah Wood, Martin Landau and Jennifer Connelly. Already doing well at the box office, it’s up to Deborah Lurie to finally shine or will she?

Track List

1. Introduction (****)
2. Finding Answers (****)
3. Sanctuary (****)
4. Winged Beast (*****)
   
5. Reunion / Searching For Two (****)
6. The Machines (*****)
   
7. Out There (***)
8. Twins (****)
9. Slaying The Beast (*****)
   
10. Return Of The Machines (****)
11. Burial (*****)
    
12. Reawakening (*****)
    
13. The Aftermath (*****)
    
14. Confrontation (****)
15. The Seamstress (*****)
    
16. Return To The Workshop (****)
17. The Purpose (****)
18. Release (*****)
    

Danny Elfman Themes

Here we have the marketing agency with their weird ideas again. “Let’s attach Danny Elfman’s name to this and it will sell like hotcakes!”. Maybe so, and maybe he wrote the themes (what themes?), but the big question is why they hired Elfman to do the themes in the first place when Deborah Lurie is more than capable, oh so capable. Clearly a marketing ploy if I ever saw one because the themes are nothing special, by that I mean that Elfman or anyone could have written these (no offense to Elfman of course). You can hear them in the cues ‘Burial’ and ‘Winged Beast’ to name a few. Nice anonymous themes, but it’s the overall mix with the great music composed by Deborah Lurie that makes this score fly above the radar.

This score screams attention and it is filled with lush orchestral sound from start to finish. It has epic battle themes in ‘Winged Beast’ and ‘Slaying the Beast’, particularly the latter one goes into a massive spectacle of choirs, or should I say battle cries towards the end. Then there are quieter cues like ‘Burial’ and ‘Release’, but it’s quiet in a good way. This movie looks spectacular and it got a score to match. The adventurous score Deborah Lurie has created (ok, with some help from Elfman apparently) is a great example of what’s right with today’s film scores (when done right).

Music Tells The Story

Lurie uses a lot of strings, percussion and metal filing sound to enhance the soundscape and it works great. The music tells a story in itself, and on the big screen it should be pretty spectacular. I particularly like the action cues like ‘Winged Beast’ that has a strong and heavy sound to it. Lot’s of percussion on top of pacey strings with some metal-ish sounds that almost sounds like screams. Yes, I admit I got goosebumps when I heard it (I was alone in the house at the time). ‘The Machines’ is a short militaristic action cue with a hypnotic rhythm. It’s a shame it’s only a minute long. More action is thrown at us in ‘Slaying the Beast’ with the highlight at the end (hint: Epic choir screams). I wish more people would use choirs these days. It seems only Jablonsky and Zimmer are not afraid to use them.

Let’s quiet down a bit and talk about the sensitive delightful cues that are ‘Burial’ and ‘Release’. The beginning of ‘Burial’ is a very magical sounding intro with just a hint of melody before a flute gives us the nice but anonymous theme. Anyway, it’s not the theme that makes this cue great, it’s the subtle underscoring and orcestration by Deborah Lurie. It’s short but so so good. ‘Release’ is the ending cue in 9 and it’s quite beautiful. The strings softly plays the main theme before it becomes more eerie (but still quiet and soft). It has a hint of a fourth theme in there, which sounds enthralling, but alas, there’s not much of it. A fitting end to a great score which has that old adventure sound (modernized of course).

Conclusion

Yes Deborah Lurie has done a lot of right with 9. When you look at that CD cover, watch the trailer (all before seeing the movie), then listen to the score, you’ll immediately nod and think: “This is perfect for this movie”. (The score is actually featured in the 2nd trailer, so duh!) Well at least that was my thoughts, and I bet I am not too far off. Lurie’s lush orchestral sounding fantasy score grabs your ears from the beginning and keeps you close. This is a score you shouldn’t miss, and if you never heard Deborah Lurie before (or didn’t like what you have heard in the past), then this is the score to get.

Listen to 9 by Deborah Lurie & Danny Elfman below:

Find more videos like this on Soundtrack Fans

Other articles of interest:

• Soundtrack Review: Terminator Salvation (2009)
• Soundtrack Review: Amelia (2009)
• Soundtrack Review: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
• Soundtrack Review: Agora (2009)
• Soundtrack Review: Sherlock Holmes (2009)

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