The arrival of Danny Elfman on the film music scene seemed to add a new dimension to the craft, showing the way some to some as yet unexplored avenues. The music was strange, funny yet dark and perfectly complementing the directorial style of Tim Burton with whom he collaborated on a number of film projects. Though not chronologically, this CD charts a decade of his film and TV music between 1980 and 1990 and there is much to savour.
The CD booklet includes a few notes by Elfman himself offering some insights into the composer's aims with the score, and the sort of influences he had in mind. In terms of composers who have influenced him on these works, he mentions Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, George Gershwin and Erik Satie!
A compilation CD is always a good buy if you've discovered a new composer that you like and want to explore more of his work. It allows you to sample some of the best tracks from the composer concerned but, as with this CD, it also gives you some shorts such as the TV work which would not be able to fill a dedicated CD soundtrack. These links take you straight into the page featuring this product on the shopping sites: Amazon.co.uk in the UK, or Amazon.com in the US.
The sequel to this album covers the period from 1990 to 1996 and coming on two CDs has twice as much music. See our overview of Music for a Darkened Theatre Volume 2.
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