[mo] Whoa whoa whoa whoa… [/mo] Don’t hurt yourselves over tracks 7 and 17 guys. If you’re not getting anything from the first 10 seconds of both tracks, then it’s probably just me. Thanks for trying, though! 
I didn’t figure those two out until reading something about them here in this thread. I bought the cd in mid-September, having little need for it since the movie was still in the local theaters. After listening to it 15 times or so, I noticed some of the above duplicate tracks, but not those two tracks, then read in mid-October about them. You know, many people listed those two as their favorites without even realizing, as you said, the same exact track. It was sort of embarrassing all around, wasn’t it… so we decided to figure this soundtrack out. Being a bit abstract and with few lyrics made it a hard nugget to crack.
Netbug009 on July 6th started the search for reprised, duplicate tracks and snipets within, just in case you want to read about this. People like him and Cybearg, who is long gone, woke people up to Newman’s shenanigans.
Strangely, this thread died for like 5 weeks, until after the Australian release, then died again for over a month. Fortunately, the thread starter, the indefatiguable Rachelcakes1985, keeps breathing new life into it.
Eheheh. Well, it’s just that I love music (understatement), yet don’t have that many favourite soundtracks, really, but the ones I do like, I get really obsessive about. There haven’t been that many days were I’ve not listened to a track from the WALL•E OST ever since I saw the movie. Glad I’m not the only one who didn’t make that connection between the flying/dancing tracks straight away, or even until months later. Same story with the beginning of “WALL•E’s Pod Adventure” and “Desperate EVE”.
With tracks 7 and 17, I have an idea of what may be happening: I think every second note of “72 Degrees and Sunny” (starting from 0m 1s) is the same as the beginning of “Bubble Wrap”. Too bad I can’t transcribe music from ear yet to see if that’s true, but that’s my hunch. Or it could simply be a faster version of the beginning of “Bubble Wrap”. I could be dead wrong on those two theories, though, and hearing things. You could always ask miafka to see if he/she can hear any similarities between the two. They would be the one to know if there were any.
Thanks for putting this soundtrack under the microscope with me, DarkHand. =)
I just haven’t had the time to be on here much the past couple of weeks, and have probably missed a bunch of stuff, but just wanted to say what a great job of cataloging the recurring themes. I haven’t listened to the CD for a while… I’ll have to take it out again.
OK, well… you’ve made me take it out again.
You could always ask miafka to see if he/she can hear any similarities between the two.
“He?” “She?” What about “It?” miafka could be an “it” too, you know… 
(To quote Daffy Duck… “Pronoun Trouble!”)
Well, having a listen on the CD, the two tracks are very similar (same key/tonality at the beginning), but not exactly the same. Track #17 at the very beginning (1s-6s) is basically:
F, B-flat, F (twice)
G, B-flat, F (twice)
F, B-flat, F (twice)
E…
And track #7 (0s - 11s) is basically:
B-flats and Fs, with a few Es and A-flats thrown in, which is tonally very similar to track #17.
I downloaded the soundtrack since last year but have only heard a few tracks every now and then. Yesterday I was doing a major spring cleaning of iTunes (obtaining album arts, relinking missing source files and other stuff) and gave a couple more tracks a listen. I’m definitely liking this soundtrack! I should try to find other Pixar soundtracks, but yeah, this is my first.
I’m surprised none of you have noticed the opening chords of “Down to Earth” that was referenced in “Repair Ward”! I noticed it while watching the film for the third time last week (I was preparing for the commentary) and confirmed it last night by listening to that track. It occurs between 1:29 and 1:39. Very cute, and poor Wall-E was being frightened to death in that scene while that innocuous music plays! 
I’ll probably post my thoughts on the other tracks as I keep exploring this album, but I’ll have to say “Define Dancing” is my current favourite for its sheer beauty and wonder.
Wow, you would be the first to find that out, altho I haven’t had time to go thru this entire thread, yet again, to find out if it was mentioned before. After I did the big ‘Soundtrack’ posts 2 months ago, I purposefully haven’t listened to the cd, so I wouldn’t burn out on it. I was carrying my dvd player, which also plays cd’s around and posting on various computers during those days. It took days to write down everything and edit and such, and make for colorful writing, cause who is going to want to read something cut and dry.
Define Dancing won a Grammy for best instrumental arrangement in a film.
Ok, I edited the list - thanks for the correction, DarkHand.
- track 2: “2815 AD” + track 12: “EVE Retrieve”.
- track 2: “2815 AD” + track 13: “The Axiom” + track 38 “Horizon 12.2”.
- track 3: “WALL•E” + track 18: “Typing Bot”.
- track 5: “EVE” + track 22: “Define Dancing”.
- track 7: “Bubble Wrap” + track 23: “No Splashing No Diving”.
- track 12: “EVE Retrieve” + track 33: “Hyperjump”.
- track 16: “Repair Ward” + track 25: “M-O”.
- track 16: “Repair Ward” + track 37 “Down to Earth”.
- track 17: “72 Degrees and Sunny” + track 30: “March of the Gels”.
- track 21: “WALL•E’s Pod Adventure” + track 34: “Desperate EVE”.
- track 24: “All That Love’s About” + track 28: “Fixing WALL•E”.
- track 28: “Fixing WALL•E” + track 35 “Static”.
And thanks for the help miafka and thedriveintheatre. Thomas Newman would be proud!
miafka, I’m going to try playing those notes now, thanks! thedriveintheatre, you’re the first person here to point out the same sections of “Repair Ward” and “Down to Earth”! It’s so obvious now… Thanks so much.
Welp, that’s most if not all the recurring themes. If anyone has any corrections or anything we’ve missed, let me know. Nice work, team!
lol, yeah it is pretty hard getting around the pronouns when you don’t know someone’s gender.
This seems as good a thread as any for this. For anyone else who was disappointed that Gabriel didn’t get to perform his own song (and the full version) at The Oscars, here’s the very first live performance of Down to Earth!
youtube.com/watch?v=dQLTunr5nEw
It’s too bad the Soweto Gospel Choir wasn’t there with him, that would’ve made it all the better. Still, it’s better (by a mile) than the John Legend version.
I haven’t listened to the WALL•E soundtrack in… weeks… 
I think I’m going crazy. I had challenged myself to not listen to it from like late January to March 19th, it worked, and forced me to find other music. For anyone who thought it was ok/liked/loved/is obsessed with/depends on to live the WALL•E soundtrack, you would probably like these too:
- A series of unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket (2004) (Soundtrack by Thomas Newman)
- Bourne’s Ultimatum (2001?) (Soundtrack by John Powell)
- The Green Mile soundtrack (1999) (Thomas Newman)
- Horton hears a who (2008) (Soundtrack by John Powell)
- Big Buck Bunny (2008) (Soundtrack by Jan Morgenstern)
- Elephants Dream (2006) (Soundtrack by Jan Morgenstern)
- An American in Paris, not a movie but the song (Sometime in the 1930s) (George Gershwin)
There’s probably more, can’t think of it at the moment.
I’ve actually seen the movie. I thought it was pretty funny. I know you were referring to a song but it reminded me of the movie… lol…
On the subject of movie scores: I absolutely adore anything by John Powell or Harry Gregson-Williams. Also Thomas Newman and Michael Giacchino are amazing beyond words. I find the works of Thomas Newman to flow so beautifully - out of all the Pixar soundtracks I own, I find I can listen to Finding Nemo and WALL•E all the way through and never feel like I’m jumping too fast into another mood vein. I found that the Cars soundtrack, which I used to love so much, was really sporadic when it came to the mood of the music. You didn’t flow right into the next song. When I first listened to the WALL•E soundtrack I had a hard time distinguishing when the track changed. 
little chef
Harry Gregson-Williams?!! He’s the composer for one of my favorite video game series, Metal Gear Solid! His stuff is always very powerful and moving…
I just got the Wall•e soundtrack after weeks of searching.
Mmm, is it good!
It is, in my opinion, as close to a perfect soundtrack as I have ever heard.
The cascading strings in ‘2815 A.D.’, the heavy percussion in ‘The Axiom’ the whole thing is sheer brilliance on a disk!
I loved it! I thought it was one of the most beautiful musical soundtracks I’ve ever listened to. Thomas Newman is my favorite composer. I wish I could come up with something as brilliant as him. My songs are usually terrible.
There’s no need to quote someone’s whole post, especially when that post is directly above yours. — Rachel. =)
It’s actually pretty strange to me, no other soundtrack I’ve listened to has been as perfect as this one, even though I’ve been completely open and searched hard. Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched all the movies? Or maybe Thomas Newman and Pixar are really the ultimate combination… 
To me it’s not a perfect soundtrack, but I used to listen to it a lot. My least favourite track is “Thrust”, mostly because of the title. Probably the grower track for me would be “Eye Surgery”. At first I’d skip it because it’s so short, but it really is a nice little piece. If you’re familiar with the Finding Nemo soundtrack, notice the similarities between “P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney” and “Worry Wait”? Except “Worry Wait” is made up of a slower crescendo, but still. I have to admit though, after the music dies down, I kinda zone out.
I was thinking of starting a new thread for this, but I think I’ll post it here instead.
Anyway, Neil and Level_Head from Wall-E Forums have brought to my attention two instances of the soundtrack from Wall-E being used in other productions!
The first is this ident for RTE TWO, an Irish TV channel. Have a listen:
youtube.com/watch?v=tj_P_DrV … r_embedded
The opening chords are unmistakably from ‘Bubble Wrap’.
I don’t have a link for the second, but it’s in the Discovery Channel/BBC wildlife documentary ‘Life’, in the episodes ‘Primates’. Again, ‘Bubble Wrap’ makes an appearance around the 31:45 mark. I really want to watch this show (David Attenborough FTW), and this has given me another reason to do so!
Both are apparently “original music” by George Fenton, a film score and TV jingle composer who is quite prominent in the UK. I find it highly suspicious he didn’t at least credit his ‘influences’, since the music is exactly note-for-note… but it’s cool to see Wall-E has successfully permeated pop culture.
The question really is: Did T. Newman ‘borrow’ from the great George Fenton, the veritable king of London department store’s elevator music!?
It was a treat to listen to it. I’m not sure what in the world it’s trying to sell (laundry detergent?), but it’s visually attractive, and I watched it many times. And yes, it’s startlingly, suspiciously influenced by T. Newman.
Just watched Wall-E again a couple weeks ago, I actually haven’t listened to the cd for over 15 months so I won’t burn out on it and the movie, for some reason I can’t stop listening to the cd once I get it in my player.
Here is more on this Fenton fellow:
youtube.com/watch?v=XI7WjbyU0WE
His credits include ‘GroundHog Day’ and ‘Anna and the King’, and a bunch of other movies whose titles you will recognize, or at least you will have heard of either the directors or some actors.
Here is a nice interview about some of his nature programme work with Attenborough, which explains the effects he is trying to get across:
youtube.com/watch?v=KqlBDcHr5Lg
So he represents a classical music specialist who is bringing ‘challenging’ orchestral music to people who want to hear that sort of thing without the intimidating (and $$) experience of a concert hall.
Hm… I never considered the other possibility… but seeing the vid was posted last year and we assume it’s a recent ad, I think it’s most likely GF ‘pinched’ TN.
Oh, and the ad is a channel ident.
I crafted my response to make it look silly, I wasn’t really serious in the first sentence. Channel ad? hmm, sure looks like soap to me…lol !!
Maybe Mr. Fenton felt that TN ‘pinched’ one of his tunes earlier, and he was just returning the favor. Who knows about these things.
Fenton has 70 movies for which he is credited, in addition to the tv stuff. He has been nominated for plenty of Academy Awards, BAFTA’s, Emmy’s …etc. But I have to admit that I had never heard of him. Time to start focusing more on who really is making these productions, and not just the actors.
I cannot believe I haven’t seen this thread before! Hereare my favorite pieces in order of preference:
Eve
Static
Define Dancing
It Only Takes a Moment
The Axiom
Down to Earth
Horizon 12.2
2815 A.D.
Put On Your Sunday Clothes
Desperate Eve
All That Love’s About
WALL•E
First Date
Fixing Wall•E
No Splashing No Diving
Rogue Robots
Repair Ward
Eve Retrieve
The Spaceship
Directive A-113
La Vie en Rose
The Holo-Detector
Foreign Contaminant
Tilt
Wall•E’s Pod Adventure
M-O
Gopher
72 Degrees and Sunny
Hyperjump
Thrust
Bubble Wrap
Mutiny!
Eye Surgery
March of the Gels
Worry Wait
Typing Bot
Septuacentennial
BNL
That’s my list in order…bye