Friday, December 19, 2008

Batman: The Animation Series Soundtrack Review

It's a rare find to come across a soundtrack for a television show, but this is what we have here. The '90s Batman television. The mini-film soundtrack for the half-hour instant classic stories that aired every Saturday morning is now available in limited units for your enjoyment. On two CDs!

The first disc opens with an overture of memorable themes. Namely Batman's theme, followed by Man-Bat, Joker, Charlie Collins, Batgirl, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Penguin, and a very rare Harley Quinn theme. The track flows very nicely between each theme, though it ends rather abruptly. My only gripe is that it doesn't have either of the Robin themes or Nightwing's theme.

From there, the listener is treated to 11 episodes picked by the writers and producers based on dynamic range and the visual cues evoked by the audio. There are some very classic ones such as the Two-Face episodes and Joker's Favor. However, there are several classic ones missing such as Robin's Reckoning and Heart of Ice. Hell, they don't even have Read My Lips, which was the first time Shirley Walker talked about the music on the DVD commentary. And it has probably one of the nicest jazz tracks in any of the Batman episodes.

The last track on the second disc is titled Music of the Bat 101. It is a short track where Walker explains the inner workings of the Batman animated theme. This sounds like it was recorded for a music class, but the insert book says it was from a press interview. Definitely for the music buffs.

But even then, these tracks are beautiful to listen to. Relaxing but also evoking emotions that made those episodes run chills down my spine.

I found my new background music when I'm working on something.

1 comment:

Robert Stone said...

Soothe a savage breast?
Music has charms to also
savage up the bland
.

"Music has Charms to soothe a savage Breast"

The phrase was coined by the Playwright/Poet William Congreve, in The mourning bride, 1697.