Nightmare Revisited.
Because everyone was just clamoring for a detailed review of the Nightmare Before Christmas cover CD "Nightmare Revisited."
Overall it's pretty good. There's an interesting mix of styles which aren't all on the geek-goth-metal continuum, and many of the artists do a good job of making songs from a musical sound like standalone songs in their own right. Nearly every track keeps Danny Elfman's themes intact while adding a good dose of originality.
1 - Overture - DeVotchka
This track has a theremin, so, you know, automatic awesome. Because, dude, theremin. Other than that, it's a mostly faithful rendition of the overture with a sort of Russian-folk-song accent. It's listenable, not amazing. Theremin.
2 - Opening - Danny Elfman
The man just has no restraint these days. The orchestral part is the original score or a very close soundalike, but Danny Elfman's narration has a weird scary-Halloween-man goofiness to it that the original storybook-style narrator didn't have. Except for getting Danny Elfman directly into the project somehow, I'm not really sure why they did this.
3 - This Is Halloween - Marilyn Manson
Kind of incredibly awesome. Manson's overdone spooookiness and transgressiveness (er... transgression) fit this song perfectly. It's loud, melodramatic, all over the place, kind of obnoxious, and awesome. You can totally picture your parents calling it "noise."
4 - Jack's Lament - All American Rejects
The lyrics of this song always sounded dirty to me. ("There are who deny at what I do I am the best... when it comes to surprises in the moonlit night... with a wave of my hand and a well-placed moan I have swept the very bravest off their feet.") Now it sounds even dirtier. The singer is affecting a little bit of a funny nasal voice that I don't love, but the instrumentals are talented and understated, the band sounds like they're having an assload of fun, and the meaning of the song has now been completely ruined. Also, are those castanets? Why the hell are there castanets?
5 - Doctor Finkelstein/In The Forest - Amiina
It's like mall-music meets really subdued electronica, I guess. It's not bad, but it's one of those songs you can forget you're listening to. Except that there's this ineffable, slightly sad weirdness to the whole deal. I couldn't put my finger on it until I looked up Amiina and discovered that they're from Iceland. That explains everything.
6 - What's This? - Flyleaf
My favorite track. The instrumentation is lush and textured and has a kind of crazy drive behind it, and the singer sounds just amazingly soulful and tortured about the whole Christmas thing. I completely love her voice, and for once an attempt at subverting the original song comes off as brilliant rather than juvenile. Lacey Mosley gets more drama out of lyrics about elves hanging mistletoe than most singers could get out of a double suicide in a graveyard.
7 - Town Meeting Song - Polyphonic Spree
It's ten minutes long, and they're... they're kind of doing their own thing here. I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment. I think it's some kind of amazing grand sonic epic, but honestly I skip this track most times I listen to this album. It's not bad, it's just... beyond me.
8 - Jack And Sally Montage - The Vitamin String Quartet
Technically well done, but this is the only track that suffers from being too faithful to the original--large parts of it are nearly identical to the movie soundtrack. The only divergence is that parts that weren't originally played on strings are now played on strings. Whoo. There are a few cool innovations, but on the whole it just sounds like the movie.
9 - Jack's Obsession - Sparklehorse
This track opens with a guy singing in a ridiculously obnoxious whiny little-girl voice to a background of cloying plinky-plink. And then, slowly, comes the horrifying realization that the entire song sounds like this. AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
10 - Kidnap The Sandy Claws - Korn
FUCKING METAL. Completely balls-to-the-wall metal, completely awesome. Turn it way up.
11 - Making Christmas - Rise Against
Another great track. It's punk-rock-ified and hyper-energetic and another song that must be appreciated at high volume. You will not forget that this one is playing. There's lots of screaming and super-fast drums and super-distorted guitar and I'm still young enough to think that's awesome.
12 - Nabbed - Yoshida Brothers
This is pretty cool. I couldn't put my finger on it until I looked it up and they're playing the shamisen! Crazy. That might almost beat the theremin for novelty instrument appeal, except that there's also a lot of synthesizer filling in so that it sounds more like Danny Elfman and less like a guy playing the shamisen. Meh to that. But the shamisen parts are pretty cool.
13 - Oogie Boogie's Song - Rodrigo y Gabriella
Acoustic Mexican guitar was the natural choice for this song right? At least this group has an excuse for the castanets. And actually it works surprisingly well if you put away preconceptions. There's a completely infectious enthusiasm to their playing. This song lacks faithfulness sometimes, though; it's more a piece that reminds me of Oogie Boogie's Song than a literal playing of the song, and that's not great--sometimes it feels like they're kind of meandering around.
14 - Sally's Song - Amy Lee
Amy Lee's voice is amazing. I can't believe she's the singer from Evanescence! This throws my whole worldview into disarray. This is a relatively faithful rendition of the song from the movie, except that Amy Lee has a whole lotta pipes compared to Catherine O'Hara. Plus at the ending it gets all intense and stuff. I like it.
15 - Christmas Eve Montage - RJD2
Nice. I wouldn't know it for a "Nightmare Before Christmas" song if you didn't tell me, it's not faithful at all, but it's a good sort of hip-hop-ish electronic... um, thing. It's pleasant enough.
16 - Poor Jack - Plain White Ts
The opposite of Track 14 - the singer just doesn't have the pipes that were on display in the movie. With a pretty generic instrumental backing, it becomes way too obvious that either Tom Higgenson just can't match Danny Elfman's crazy bellow-sing, or he's just not trying as hard. There's a lot less intensity here and not much else original going on.
17 - To The Rescue - Datarock
For beepy-beepy dork music, this is pretty good. It strikes just the right balance between being recognizable from the movie and still doing something new with it. Even if that new thing is beepy-beepy. (I'm being totally unfair, it's not just beepy, there's also a considerable dose of untz-untz.)
18 - Finale/Reprise - Shiny Toy Guns
I really don't like this one. They're just needly spookifying up a happy song with scary monster voices and morose readings of originally happy lines and it comes off as juvenile. What worked for Flyleaf is totally not working here. Possibly because there are stupid halloween sound effects all over--a pipe organ, screaming witch voice, a guy who sounds like he's singing through a drainpipe--seriously?
19 - Closing - Danny Elfman
See Track #2.
20 - End Title - The Album Leaf
A nice sweeping epic instrumental sound to tie it all together. Kind of generic? I have trouble identifying the individual instruments. But on the whole I like it. Except that there's this weird sound occasionally that almost sounds like a disc glitch, but I checked a couple different sources for this song and it's on all of them. Either they published the album with a glitch, or that's someone's weird idea of intentional.
Bonus Track - Oogie Boogie's Song - Tiger Army
See track #16, and multiply my complaints about cover artists with weak voices by, like, a hundred. Spectacularly ballsy psychobilly guitar is hamstrung by a singer whose voice sounds horribly bland and small. Especially when the original movie singer's voice was both far more agile and ENORMOUS. I really wish they'd done an instrumental-only version of this song, that would have been great.
Overall it's pretty good. There's an interesting mix of styles which aren't all on the geek-goth-metal continuum, and many of the artists do a good job of making songs from a musical sound like standalone songs in their own right. Nearly every track keeps Danny Elfman's themes intact while adding a good dose of originality.
1 - Overture - DeVotchka
This track has a theremin, so, you know, automatic awesome. Because, dude, theremin. Other than that, it's a mostly faithful rendition of the overture with a sort of Russian-folk-song accent. It's listenable, not amazing. Theremin.
2 - Opening - Danny Elfman
The man just has no restraint these days. The orchestral part is the original score or a very close soundalike, but Danny Elfman's narration has a weird scary-Halloween-man goofiness to it that the original storybook-style narrator didn't have. Except for getting Danny Elfman directly into the project somehow, I'm not really sure why they did this.
3 - This Is Halloween - Marilyn Manson
Kind of incredibly awesome. Manson's overdone spooookiness and transgressiveness (er... transgression) fit this song perfectly. It's loud, melodramatic, all over the place, kind of obnoxious, and awesome. You can totally picture your parents calling it "noise."
4 - Jack's Lament - All American Rejects
The lyrics of this song always sounded dirty to me. ("There are who deny at what I do I am the best... when it comes to surprises in the moonlit night... with a wave of my hand and a well-placed moan I have swept the very bravest off their feet.") Now it sounds even dirtier. The singer is affecting a little bit of a funny nasal voice that I don't love, but the instrumentals are talented and understated, the band sounds like they're having an assload of fun, and the meaning of the song has now been completely ruined. Also, are those castanets? Why the hell are there castanets?
5 - Doctor Finkelstein/In The Forest - Amiina
It's like mall-music meets really subdued electronica, I guess. It's not bad, but it's one of those songs you can forget you're listening to. Except that there's this ineffable, slightly sad weirdness to the whole deal. I couldn't put my finger on it until I looked up Amiina and discovered that they're from Iceland. That explains everything.
6 - What's This? - Flyleaf
My favorite track. The instrumentation is lush and textured and has a kind of crazy drive behind it, and the singer sounds just amazingly soulful and tortured about the whole Christmas thing. I completely love her voice, and for once an attempt at subverting the original song comes off as brilliant rather than juvenile. Lacey Mosley gets more drama out of lyrics about elves hanging mistletoe than most singers could get out of a double suicide in a graveyard.
7 - Town Meeting Song - Polyphonic Spree
It's ten minutes long, and they're... they're kind of doing their own thing here. I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment. I think it's some kind of amazing grand sonic epic, but honestly I skip this track most times I listen to this album. It's not bad, it's just... beyond me.
8 - Jack And Sally Montage - The Vitamin String Quartet
Technically well done, but this is the only track that suffers from being too faithful to the original--large parts of it are nearly identical to the movie soundtrack. The only divergence is that parts that weren't originally played on strings are now played on strings. Whoo. There are a few cool innovations, but on the whole it just sounds like the movie.
9 - Jack's Obsession - Sparklehorse
This track opens with a guy singing in a ridiculously obnoxious whiny little-girl voice to a background of cloying plinky-plink. And then, slowly, comes the horrifying realization that the entire song sounds like this. AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
10 - Kidnap The Sandy Claws - Korn
FUCKING METAL. Completely balls-to-the-wall metal, completely awesome. Turn it way up.
11 - Making Christmas - Rise Against
Another great track. It's punk-rock-ified and hyper-energetic and another song that must be appreciated at high volume. You will not forget that this one is playing. There's lots of screaming and super-fast drums and super-distorted guitar and I'm still young enough to think that's awesome.
12 - Nabbed - Yoshida Brothers
This is pretty cool. I couldn't put my finger on it until I looked it up and they're playing the shamisen! Crazy. That might almost beat the theremin for novelty instrument appeal, except that there's also a lot of synthesizer filling in so that it sounds more like Danny Elfman and less like a guy playing the shamisen. Meh to that. But the shamisen parts are pretty cool.
13 - Oogie Boogie's Song - Rodrigo y Gabriella
Acoustic Mexican guitar was the natural choice for this song right? At least this group has an excuse for the castanets. And actually it works surprisingly well if you put away preconceptions. There's a completely infectious enthusiasm to their playing. This song lacks faithfulness sometimes, though; it's more a piece that reminds me of Oogie Boogie's Song than a literal playing of the song, and that's not great--sometimes it feels like they're kind of meandering around.
14 - Sally's Song - Amy Lee
Amy Lee's voice is amazing. I can't believe she's the singer from Evanescence! This throws my whole worldview into disarray. This is a relatively faithful rendition of the song from the movie, except that Amy Lee has a whole lotta pipes compared to Catherine O'Hara. Plus at the ending it gets all intense and stuff. I like it.
15 - Christmas Eve Montage - RJD2
Nice. I wouldn't know it for a "Nightmare Before Christmas" song if you didn't tell me, it's not faithful at all, but it's a good sort of hip-hop-ish electronic... um, thing. It's pleasant enough.
16 - Poor Jack - Plain White Ts
The opposite of Track 14 - the singer just doesn't have the pipes that were on display in the movie. With a pretty generic instrumental backing, it becomes way too obvious that either Tom Higgenson just can't match Danny Elfman's crazy bellow-sing, or he's just not trying as hard. There's a lot less intensity here and not much else original going on.
17 - To The Rescue - Datarock
For beepy-beepy dork music, this is pretty good. It strikes just the right balance between being recognizable from the movie and still doing something new with it. Even if that new thing is beepy-beepy. (I'm being totally unfair, it's not just beepy, there's also a considerable dose of untz-untz.)
18 - Finale/Reprise - Shiny Toy Guns
I really don't like this one. They're just needly spookifying up a happy song with scary monster voices and morose readings of originally happy lines and it comes off as juvenile. What worked for Flyleaf is totally not working here. Possibly because there are stupid halloween sound effects all over--a pipe organ, screaming witch voice, a guy who sounds like he's singing through a drainpipe--seriously?
19 - Closing - Danny Elfman
See Track #2.
20 - End Title - The Album Leaf
A nice sweeping epic instrumental sound to tie it all together. Kind of generic? I have trouble identifying the individual instruments. But on the whole I like it. Except that there's this weird sound occasionally that almost sounds like a disc glitch, but I checked a couple different sources for this song and it's on all of them. Either they published the album with a glitch, or that's someone's weird idea of intentional.
Bonus Track - Oogie Boogie's Song - Tiger Army
See track #16, and multiply my complaints about cover artists with weak voices by, like, a hundred. Spectacularly ballsy psychobilly guitar is hamstrung by a singer whose voice sounds horribly bland and small. Especially when the original movie singer's voice was both far more agile and ENORMOUS. I really wish they'd done an instrumental-only version of this song, that would have been great.