I usually wait until after a film comes out before buying a soundtrack (last year I bought the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 soundtrack a month before seeing the movie, and I spent more time paying attention to the music cues than the film itself), but I just couldn’t help myself with Wall-e. I was at the store, and there it was! To make up for my lack of self control, I promised myself that I would only listen to the soundtrack once before seeing Wall-e. That way I wouldn’t become too familiar with the music and be anticipating it at the theater.
To start off, miafka is right about the packaging. The cardboard look might look dull on amazon.com’s preview page, but it looks fantastic on actual cardboard (“made from 100% recycled material”, the back cover points out). The front flap opens to reveal two more flaps, one containing the booklet and the other the CD. No text inside the case, just artwork on the textured brown background. My one issue with the case is the storage of the CD itself. To be honest, the disc is a little difficult to get out. It can slide entirely into the flap where you can’t reach it, or get stopped by the bulge in the middle flap where the booklet is stored. I also wonder if the roughness or the fine grain of the cardboard might cause the disc to scratch more easily than in a standard case.
The 20-page booklet is more the standard sleek-looking laminated-pages sampling that most CD’s come with. Images are scattered across the book, with every other page containing a full-page picture (focusing mainly on Wall-e, Eve, and M-O). The text in the booklet includes: an introduction by Andrew Stanton, a track listing, multiple pages of full orchestra and recording credits, complete lyrics to Peter Gabriel’s “Down to Earth”, copyright information for the two Hello Dolly songs and La Vie en Rose, and a closing credit/special thanks page. The disc is, as miafka said, mostly white and very simple, yet stylish and cool.
As for the music itself: wow, where to begin? Let me just say that if you enjoyed Finding Nemo’s soundtrack, you will love this one! It’s 100% Thomas Newman, and is truly spectacular. Not always lyrical, but always rich with emotion. I started a list of my favorite tracks, but later realized that I had written down nearly every one! Still, a few (but not all) of the tracks that stick in my head as being great are (spoiler tags for those who don’t want to see track names):
[spoil]2. 2815A.D.
5. EVE
11. First Date
12. EVE Retrieve
13. The Axiom
15. Foreign Contaminent
22. Define Dancing
…And the final dozen tracks are an absolute blast to listen to! I’d say were in for one crazy climax![/spoil]
I do, however, have a couple of complaints. First off, the fact that only a portion of [spoil]Put on Your Sunday Clothes[/spoil] and [spoil]It Only Takes a Moment[/spoil] are included in the soundtrack. There was certainly room to put the entire songs on the disc, and from the film clips I’ve seen, more of each song will appear in the movie than is included here. And since La Vie en Rose is included in its’ entirety, why not those two? Also, a handful of tracks start off or close with bit’s of sound effects and “robot dialogue”, in a couple instances overlapping the music. I’ve got nothing against the sound effects in Wall-E, I just prefer that it would have been strictly music on the soundtrack.
That aside, this is a very powerful soundtrack! There’s a lot of variety here, and the way one track leads into another is exhilarating (particularly toward the end). I have to admit that I prefer Michael Giacchino’s score for Ratatouille over this one, but this is still a fantastic score! It definitely deserves a nomination for Thomas Newman at the Oscars next year!
waiting to listen to it on the car ride to vegas lol.