Before I go on too much further, I will say that I don’t dislike Hans Zimmer’s music. I like it a lot. However...
I recently bought the Transformers movie score through iTunes, and I think it’s incredible- I loved the film and I love the music. But there’s a striking resemblance to many other scores that are flying around these days, and I have a feeling it’s down to the Hans Zimmer School of Music, from which we’ve had such graduates as Steve Jablonsky (Transformers), John Powell (The Bourne Trilogy) Harry Gregson-Williams (The Chronicles of Narnia), Klaus Badelt (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl), and numerous others who work or have worked in his studio.
Now, Hans Zimmer writes good music. The Last Samurai is phenomenal, and I must have listened to The Lion King every night for about three years straight when I was younger. But... they do tend to come out very similar, don’t they? There was a bit I noticed in POTC: At World’s End which had EXACTLY, and I mean EXACTLY the same refrain used as a main piece in Samurai. Considering they’re both Zimmer’s work, you might forgive him. But to make such an obvious lift in a major film franchise like that is a little cheap regardless, if you ask me.
I would imagine trying to compose music that sounds different every time is incredibly hard, especially if you have a distinctive style that’s undoubtedly why you were sought in the first place (I’m thinking staccato drums and strong horns for Mr. Zimmer). But I get a little edgy when people compare music to Zimmer’s because I just think how similar a lot of his music is. And while it does evoke a certain feel, to me it starts to lessen the effect of the music if you’re seeing the same themes regurgitated for different sets of images. I wonder if in part why Hans Zimmer took over the Pirates of the Caribbean role was for the attention his name would get. Very few of the original set pieces (specifically ‘He’s a Pirate’) from the first film were continued over in any great measure in films two and three, but if the themes from the first were so instantly recognisable and popular then why would there be a need to change composer? Klaus Badelt was under Zimmer’s ‘supervision’ for producing the Pirates soundtrack and worked on Gladiator, but since Zimmer took over with Pirates… he’s not done anything particularly successful.
I’m not trying to suggest Zimmer ousted him for popularity, really. But there is a lot of him around. Was it necessary for him to compose the music for The Simpsons when Alf Clausen’s done such a great job with the series’ incidental music? To me it just seems a lazy choice for a good name and a good, if rather generic, score.
And we get Zimmer’s protégés, like Jablonsky and Williams, who do very well by themselves but still have striking similarities. Listening to a couple of tracks from both Transformers and Narnia they share such a similar underlying structure that they could easily be on the same album, save for the differing choice of instrument to present the lead melody (violin for Transformers and a flute for Narnia). It’s all very incestuous.
And to an extent anime is no different, although there is a far greater diversity of styles than in Hollywood film scores. For example, if I don’t know the tracks beforehand I can’t always discern which Yuki Kajiura soundtrack I’m listening to (and I have three different series), and it’s easy enough to spot a Yoko Kanno piece despite the variety and infinite depth of her music.
But is that so a bad thing? When you want a certain atmosphere that you know a specific composer can provide with their hands tied behind their back and their eyes shut, obviously you go for it. There seems to be an aversion to taking risks with experimentation in Hollywood music- you want everything about it to sell so you go with what’s safe. Sensible, if a little dull. I just hope they realise how difficult they’re making it for me to vary my playlists.
