Soundtrack Review: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull by John Williams (2008)

Posted by Soundtrack Geek

May 16, 2008

This is a review of the motion picture score for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull by John Williams.

“It all starts like any Indy soundtrack with the infamous Raiders March blasting its heroic sounds into our ears like Dr. Jones slashing his whip into bad guys”

Aah, do you remember 1981? Not me, but Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. I was only 4 at the time, but little did I know what an impact the movies and John Williams would have on my life. I didn’t see the movie until the late 80s, but it was worth the wait. Of course the music in it was exciting, it was different somehow. John Williams didn’t compose all last year, so I bet a lot of people have missed him and here he is with his latest score. This is the track list for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull:

Track List

Raiders March
Call Of The Crystal
The Adventures Of Mutt
Irina’s Theme
The Snake Pit
The Spell Of The Skull
A Whirl Through Academe
The Journey To Akator
”Return”
The Jungle Chase
Orellana’s Cradle
Grave Robbers
Hidden Treasure And The City Of Gold
Secret Doors And Scorpions
Oxley’s Dilemma
Ants!
Temple Ruins And The Secret Revealed
The Departure
Finale

For Fans Only

There are 19 tracks in all with a total play time of 1:17:16 so it’s pretty much filled up and I bet you a 2 CD version is coming. It all starts like any Indy soundtrack with the infamous Raiders March blasting its heroic sounds into our ears like Dr. Jones slashing his whip into bad guys. Yes, it’s just as great as ever, and has only been updated slightly. The rest is all “new” though. New is of course relative. It’s new music, but to be fair, if you have heard the music of Indiana Jones before, you will not find that John Williams has changed his style. This of course is great news for John Williams fans and Indy fans, and not so great for those who are not, but come on, who isn’t?

Expectations

Right, so what do we think of it? Well, apart from “nothing new here, but please stay” I like this as I did the previous Indiana Jones soundtracks. If it ain’t broken, why fix it? It’s funny, as I listen to it, I remember how childish it could be at times, almost like listening to E.T. or Home Alone at times, but it is the john Williams way, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That being said, I admit I wasn’t too excited over this one until it was in my mailbox simply because I kind of already knew what to expect. The bottom line is that this is exactly what I expected and I am happy with that. You can’t change when it’s Indy, Superman or Star Wars, the fans won’t allow it and neither do I. If you can live with the fact that this score is Indiana Jones through and through you can’t go wrong here. I am listening to it for the third time now and enjoying it a lot. Listen to Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull by John Williams below:

Negatives: