Thursday, June 27, 2013
As stated in my blog bio, I love listening to movie soundtracks; in fact it’s probably my number one music genre. There’s a long list of soundtrack composers which I’m a fan of, and so I thought I’d start writing blog posts on these composers. In honor of the recently released Monsters University, I’ve decided to write this one on Randy Newman.
Randy Newman is, of course, a musical artist in addition to a composer. He plays piano and sings, most notably the hit songs Short People and Political Science. He’s been around for a while, writing and performing songs since the 1960’s. His first movie soundtrack was for a film called Cold Turkey starring Dick Van Dyke, released in 1974. He composed soundtracks here and there for the next twenty years, but as far as I’m concerned, his best work started in 1995 with the release of Pixar’s first feature length film, Toy Story.
Toy Story’s success was a result of many contributing factors which all came together in just the right way, and Newman’s score was definitely one of them. Who can forget the familiar tune and lyrics of You’ve got a Friend in Me? His use of brass and strings is superb, and his themes for this movie sounded almost heroic.
Since Toy Story, he’s composed soundtracks for six more pixar movies: A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Cars, Toy Story 3, and Monsters University. If you listen to these scores consecutively, you will definitely hear similarities between them. When I went to see Monsters University recently, I heard elements of Toy Story and A Bug’s Life in the music. Besides just composing the background music for each of these movies, he also writes the songs with lyrics that they have in them, and sometimes provides his own vocals.
Some of the unique characteristics I’ve noticed about his music include, as mentioned earlier, a heavy reliance on strings and brass, which occasionally trade off themes to provide variation and nuance. He does use woodwinds sometimes, notably the saxophone in his jazz themes, and the occasional flute for very light heart-warming tones. His use of percussion is rather scarce, but that only serves to emphasize the percussion he does use, cymbals and bass drums, etc. His timing is perfect, and since most of the movies he composes for have comedic elements, the timing of certain musical cues makes them a lot funnier. He knows when to be heavy and when to be light, and he’s great at bringing up the intensity for action scenes. He also has a way of creating a beat that you can really tap your feet to, a sort of “groove” that keeps up the pace of the scene and makes it fun. Later, I’ll attempt to give some examples of these qualities.
I should note that he has composed some other good soundtracks outside the realm of Pixar. These include Awakenings, James and the Giant Peach, Pleasantville, Meet the Parents, and Seabiscuit. These too have a characteristic sound and feel to them that is very recognizable as Newman’s work. Now, for some composers, I can choose a single score which I think best represents the greatness of their work, but that’s a pretty tough call for Randy Newman. Toy Story is, I think, the most classic of his works to date, and A Bug’s Life has always been a favorite of mine. I also enjoy Monsters Inc. because of it’s jazzy tracks.
Now, allow me to share with you a few of my favorite tracks of his. Click the link to listen to it on Youtube.
I urge you to listen to these tracks and notice the similarities in his composition style. The chord progressions sound so similar sometimes, you don’t even know what movie it’s from, only that Randy Newman composed it. Well, that’s all I have for you today. Hat’s off to Randy Newman.
