Reviews - Soundtrack
- Expanded Archival Collection
Original Release Date: March 31st, 2009
Number of Discs: 1
Label: La-La Land Records
Music Composed by: Shirley Walker
Limited Edition run of 3000 copies.
Track Listing
1. Main Title: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (Expanded)
(5:01)
2. The Promise (Expanded) (1:25)
3. Ski Mask
Vigilante (Expanded) (4:28)
4. Fancy Footwork (0:40)*
5. Phantasm's Graveyard Murder (3:52)
6. Bad News* / Set
Trap* / May They Rest In Peace* (1:51)
7. First Love
(1:59)
8. City Street Drive* / Sal Velestra* / Good
Samaritan* (2:16)
9. Birth of Batman (Expanded) (6:01)
10. The Joker's Big Entrance* (3:02)
11. The Big Chase
(5:40)
12. Nowhere to Run* (2:01)
13. A Plea For Help
(1:01)
14. A Tall Man / Arturo and his Pal* /
Makes
You Want To Laugh* / What's So Funny?* (4:04)
15. Andrea
Remembers* / True Identity* (3:18)
16. Phantasm and Joker
Fight (6:01)
17. Batman's Destiny (1:46)
18. I Never
Even Told You (4:23) - Performed by Tia Carrere
19. Theme
from Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm (2:06) (Bonus Track)
20. Welcome to the Future!* (1:01) (Bonus Track)
Total
Time 62:05
* - Denotes Previously Unreleased Material
Review (Zach Demeter): Without a doubt one of the most iconic
of the scores in the DC animation genre is Mask of the
Phantasm. I say this being wholly biased, of course, as
I grew up listening to this soundtrack. An odd thing to
listen to when you’re six or seven to be sure, but Batman
was always a childhood favorite of mine and I watched,
listened, and read anything that he was involved in. The
original release of the Mask of the Phantasm score,
while fantastic in its own right, however, was wholly
incomplete. After years of listening to the track and
watching the film I slowly isolated the bits of the
soundtrack that wasn’t included on the original release and
it got to the point where I couldn’t watch the movie without
a cue of music sounding strange to me, simply because I
hadn’t heard it isolated on the soundtrack before.
But La-La Land Records has remedied that situation. Now,
shortly after they released the BTAS: Volume 1 soundtrack, they have
announced and released their latest DC Universe
soundtrack with the release of the Expanded Archival
Collection edition of Mask of the Phantasm. Not
only does it the soundtrack bring forth new pieces of
music that were previously heard only in the film, but
it also brings them unedited without the many sound
effects, voices or fading effects used on them in the
film. The extended soundtrack is evident from the start,
with nearly double the amount of tracks and nearly an
extra half hours worth of music.
Sadly not
everything on this soundtrack is all that new to me—I
had a copy of an extended edition of the soundtrack land
in my lap a few years back and I’d since been listening
to that copy over the original score release, simply
because of the added tracks. There was quality issues
with that, however, which are not present here; in fact,
I daresay this recording sounds a great deal clearer
than even the original soundtrack release, if only
because they came directly from Shirley Walker’s
personal masters of them. Everything on this soundtrack
is crystal clear, clean and crisp and sounds as if it
was just conducted a day prior to the pressing of the
disc.
I really love the added pieces of music on
the soundtrack; even the small little cues in-between
the opening credits and the slow pan-in on the board of
Gotham’s dirtiest criminals is included and the segment
between Bruce and Andrea in the flashback that discusses
piles of lose cash is even included. On top of that an
isolated version of theme is included (after the
obligatory “I Never Even Told You” vocal song, which,
despite how many others feel about it, I actually enjoy
for some reason). But the soundtrack only wraps up when
an unedited version of “Welcome to the Future!” closes
it out. Despite lasting barely over a minute in length,
this is actually probably one of the more entertaining
unreleased tracks on the CD, if only because I never
even imagined that we’d ever hear that segment
unedited—it was pushed to the back of the scenes and a
lot of it (especially the beginning portions) were
completely new to me.
If it isn’t evident by
now, the Mask of the Phantasm: Expanded Archival
Collection soundtrack is well worth the price. On
top of the chance to own the score in its full length is
the notion that you get one of three thousand copies of
it. Three thousand may not seem like a lot and…well, it
isn’t, but the production window for these releases is
likely pretty small and the audience for it is
admittedly limited. Still, the soundtrack is well worth
owning and any fan of the animated Batman will
thoroughly enjoy it. Regardless if you own the previous
edition (which is now out of print anyway), pick this
one up. It comes Highly Recommended.
The CD
The presentation of this release is
remarkably similar to the original one, but hey—the
original packaging was kind of awesome, so no real
reason to change that up. The disc art this time around
is a combination shot of Phantasm and Batman and the
backdrop is a shot of Phantasm behind that shot of
promotional art of Batman punching Joker out. The
booklet is, as usual, one of the greatest bonuses to
these releases. Randall Larson, an author who has
written several books on film music and a contributor
for several websites, provides a fantastic intro to the
soundtrack, which then evolves into discussions about
each individual track on the disc.
The only
downside to this release is, once again, a minor issue I
have with the presentation of the packaging. Usually
it’s a lack of professionalism I have when it comes to
these releases, but everything really looks nice and
tidy this time around, aside for one thing: the back
cover art. There’s nothing terribly wrong with it, per
say, but the image is greatly blown out in contrast,
with Batman’s face being ghastly white and just a very
“left out in the sun” look to it. A little darker image
(like the one included on the original soundtracks rear
cover—which was actually the exact same image anyway)
would’ve been perfect, but, again…very minor nitpick.
Overall the presentation of the soundtrack is
fantastic and only further helps drive home the
greatness that is this score. It has, and always will
be, one of my favorite scores for any film. Even
listening to the opening titles (and now in expanded
form!) gives me goosebumps, which is something that is
rare for a score to do by itself, but Shirley Walker was
almost always able to do that to you no matter what.
Highly Recommended. |
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