Soundtrack Review: The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network Soundtrack Review: This is a review of the motion picture score The Social Network by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

"The Social Network is an intriguing and interesting score"

The Social Network is the story of how Facebook, the biggest online community came to be. This is a fascinating subject and they hype has been high. It has on many levels delivered on that note and director David Fincher must be stoked. Starring the guy who is in every single movie Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself, it surprised a few people who didn't expect the movie to be so interesting. The score is created by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross.

Track List

Electronica

Everyone knows Facebook has been a huge success. I've read that it's even bigger than Google now and I am just waiting for Google to retaliate with Google The Movie. Even social networks needs a soundtrack and for the movie, they have chosen Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. This is Trent Reznor first major push into the motion picture art of scoring and it has been quite anticipated. Atticus Ross is also quite new and delivered a decent electronic score for the movie The Book Of Eli.

I suspected that they wouldn't make an orchestral score and I was right. Besides, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are not the ones you would associate with grand, epic orchestral music. Instead you will get exactly what you expect, a score well grounded in the world of electronica.

8-Bit

8-bit music seems to be all the rage now after Scott Pilgrim who enjoyed a brief, but welcome stay at top of the charts. Reznor and Ross has carefully put what can only be described as 80s video game music in cues like 'In Motion'. Even though Facebook wasn't created in the 80s, it goes well to describe the environment and the main characters. These are all computer geeks we are talking about and so Reznor and Ross hits the nail.

What I lack though is some kind of emotional offering or attachment if you will. Scores like this tend to end up in the category of "meh" with me, yet this score has grown on me since I first heard it a few weeks ago. It's interesting and rough, but does it have staying power? Will I still pick this up to listen to casually in five years? Unfortunately I don't think so. Even catchy cues like 'Intriguing Possibilities', 'Painted Sun in Abstract' and 'Penetration' can only go so far. It also includes an interesting remake of Edvard Grieg's 'In The Hall of the Mountain King' by the way, but I do prefer the original.

Conclusion

The Social Network is an intriguing and interesting score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, one that works well within it's context and also in certain situations. It does not however wow me in any way. I wasn't expecting greatness, and I wasn't impressed. It is a solid electronic score built around the premise of Facebook and goes a long way of representing just that. Should you buy it? Just to kill your curiosity, yes, go for it. It is also one of the cheapest score albums out there so I think it's well worth a listen or two.

->Buy the CD from Amazon<-

->Buy the MP3 Album from Amazon<-