Customer Reviews

Black Hawk Down

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is composer Hans Zimmer's fifth collaboration with director Ridley Scott. The chaos of war and the bond of soldiers caught up in war is the subject of the music. I purchased it today and after listening to it cover to cover I came to the conclusion that no one's ever done a score like Black Hawk Down. Hans Zimmer has proved himself, in my opinion, to be a great composer who infuses modern sensibilities to his creative mix of energetic, nightmarish, sad, emotional, and inpiring music. One of the best scores I've ever heard. This music has made me want to see the film. I've also recently purchased the novel Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden but haven't come around to read it yet.

The soundtrack's great mix of innovative music includes:

1. Hunger

2. Barra Barra (Performed by Rachid Taha)

3. Vale of Plenty

4. Chant

5. Still

6. Mogadishu Blues

7. Synchrotone

8. Bakara

9. Of the Earth

10. Ashes to Ashes

11. Gortoz A Ran - J'attends (Performed by Denez Prigent & Lisa
Gerrard

12. Tribal War

13. Leave No Man Behind

14. Minstrel Boy (Performed by Joe Strummer and The Mescaleroes)

15. Still Reprise

I highly reccomend this soundtrack album to anyone . It is a great addition to any album collection, and is worth the purchase price. I have also now become a fan Hans Zimmer's scores, and have added the Gladiator soundtrack to my collection, being one of Hans Zimmer's compostions. Distributed by Decca Records and UMG Soundtracks.

I defy anyone to listen to Rcahid Taha's "Barra Barra" and not immediately be transported back to the streets of the capital of Somalia as you saw it in the movie.

The whole soundtrack is great background music as it's like those old soundtracks where they actually put the "music" on the albums rather than "songs."

This sountrack by Hans Zimmer is terrific. I don't believe you can watch the film and not leave the theater without the music in your head. Ethnic, violent, hanunting and tragic all at the same time it continues to bring to life the tragedy of the film with each listen. A powerful ride and well worth the purchase!

The thing that made me buy this cd was the movie.AfterI bought the movie and wached it the music inspired me to get the cd and its great.

I've been a fan of Hans Zimmer since day one; in fact, his score for Crimson Tide back when I was a small youngin' was the first soundtrack I ever purchased.

His score for Black Hawk Down is, yes, ecclectic. Yet, I find myself dismissing much of the album, in fact, ALL of the album -- despite it being fresh, original, and exciting -- because track 11, "Gortoz a Ran", performed by Danez Prigent and Lisa Gerrard, is one of THE most haunting pieces of music I have ever heard...

I'm a music lover and have a wide variety of tastes. Hell, I'm a film music fantatic (or at least at one point). That being said, few pieces of music, individually, evoke so much emotion out of me. I'm a very analytical person. One rendition of "Gortoz" and I'm near in tears. It just brings out whatever grief or sorrow I have in myself, unlike any other piece of music. It makes me grieve on a small, personal scale, and for Humanity as a whole, and the suffering and injustices we endure. And yet, the lyrics are anonymous. It doesn't matter. It's pure tone, pure mood... It is a Religious piece of music. It can put one immediately into a state of compassionate meditation. It melts the heart.

The saddest thing is the track stands out as being so spectacular -- above the rest, really -- and the rest of the album is still of the utmost quality. It's Zimmer experimenting and creating a clever and intriguing musical landscape, with a longing, mournful theme, and as other reviewers have stated, several other stylings. All in all, it's very, very good, one of Zimmer's best, in fact (right behind his best effort, The Thin Red Line, another war effort)....

And yet, I always come back to "Gortoz"..........

When I first watched the movie, I noticed the music immediately and it captured my interest throughout the entire film. It was a mix of rock, synthesizers, classical, and traditional African music that formed a style unlike any I'd heard before. Haunting dirges described a famine stricken land, Islamic themes seemed to echo out from centuries past, and intense traditional music at a fast beat backed with rock guitars would heighten tension in fight scenes. In most movies, the soundtrack is a sickly background presence, but in Black Hawk Down, it's up front, making all the action larger than life.

I find that this unique music does well on its own or under any circumstance. It just is wonderfully powerful music that gets the heart going.

The last musical score that impressed me was Dr. Zhivago. Zimmer's score on this one leaves haunting strains which keep coming back-more from Thomas Moore's(Strummer really does great)piece done at the end of the movie.

The soundtrack to "Black Hawk Down" (a good movie in it's own right) offers up a change from the usual soundtrack, although fans of Hans Zimmer may find nothing new.

The booklet for the CD describes that the intention in the soundtrack was to combine "traditional" and "modern" instruments. The traditional instruments represented the Somalis, while the modern instruments represented the Americans. What you get is perhaps best heard in "Barra Barra" - which I can only describe as Arab rock. The track "Tribal War" reminds me of a time in music when composers looked to ancient tribal drums to add a flavor of primitive culture in their music. There are also some stringed instrument sections mixed in with Middle East vocals. It's all very "Gladiator"-like, but with a contemporary touch. That makes the soundtrack unique in it's own right.

I also have to compliment the rendition of "Minstral Boy." I love it, and it's probably my favorite version of it next to John McDermott's rendition.

Above and beyond being an outstanding film score (made even moreso when the constraints under which it was created areconsidered; reminiscent of the conditions under which Ennio Morricone used to work when scoring Sergio Leone's brilliant Spaghetti Westerns in the '60's), this terrific conglomeration of cultural musical gumbo makes a perfect introduction to "World Music" for people who wouldn't normally give the genre a shot.

There is a suitable combination of conventional music composed and recorded in "song" format to match the atmospheric pieces which are obviously created exclusively to score the film; the talent used is widely varying (World Music mainstay and collaborator with the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Michael Brook places his signature "infinite guitar" on display to great effect, and the vocals of Baaba Maal, Lisa Gerrard, and Denez Prigent are truly awe-inspiring; the weight of generations of starvation and clan warfare are achingly apparent).

But for me the soundtrack revolves around two compositions near the beginning and conclusion of the CD. "Barra Barra" is possibly the contemporary pop song statement that sums up the soundtrack's soul and the conflict as protrayed in the film and book "Black Hawk Down"; instrumentally the traditional percussion and oud-like instruments favored in the North African desert accompany a very menacing vocal provided by Rachid Taha, coupled with robotic and distorted electric guitars over a techno/hip-hop beat. It will be instantly recognizable from the movie scene and will no doubt bring images of using a high-powered and highly modified M-16 to hunt wild boar from the deck of a Black Hawk helicopter on "another taxpayer-sponsored DELTA safari".

The second song that never ceases to bring tears to this Celtic-blooded listener's eyes is the late Joe Strummer's reading of "Minstrel Boy" as performed in an abbreviated version (the version that appears on the Mescaleros' album "Global A Go-Go" is almost 18 minutes long!) for this soundtrack. In the film this song is played as the cargo bay closes on the transport plane that will bring the bodies of the American soldiers home and the credits run. Sean Connery was also singing this song as he met his end in "The Man Who Would Be King", as well). It's lovingly arranged and Strummer's delivery is suitably anguished. It's not really a song lamenting the fallen in war inasmuch as it is a song about a choice to fight and die in freedom rather than living in slavery, so the lyrics don't necessarily fit the mood of the film (from the US side, anyway), but the mood of the song, somber with its military march rhythym and pipes/strings accompaniment are definitely suitable.

There are other selections I enjoy..."Mogadishu Blues" (which isn't really a "blues" at all, not in the traditional understanding of the term in Wesrtern music, anyway), "Vale Of Plenty", and "Still" being among them. "Leave No Man Behind" perfectly underscores the severity of the conditions as the battle entered its second day, the odds against those pinned down, and also the steady determination to bring them back. The ambition of the album "to play music no one's heard before", as stated in Hans Zimmer's liner notes, is remarkably similar to the inspiration that drove Robert Plant and Jimmy Page to set off in the musical direction they took with Led Zeppelin over 30 years ago; to play good, hard rock and roll, but to flavor it with musical stylings all over the world. Listening to the "Unledded" reunion concert from a number of years back is not unlike listening to this soundtrack CD; I can't help but think that Page & Plant would be fans of this score and that if Led Zeppelin were formed thirty years later than than were, they would be major contributors on this work, as well.

I got this album last year and it was the first Hans Zimmer score I had ever gotten, ever since then I have been furiously buying more Hans Zimmer cds. He is one of, if not the, best film composers. The first track starts off with chilling vocals by Babba Maal. It then fades away into a small part by strings which is soon taken over by some radical african stringed instrument. After this it's stunning, hard fight music which comes out and tells how incredible this music is. From there on out it has everything any movie score buff would want. Heroic in "Leave no man behing", rough action in "Chant" restfully beautiful in Gortoz A Ran-J'Attends, relentless techno in "Synchrotone" and HZ even managed to fit some spanish guitar into it all in "Mogadishu Blues".
Electric guitars do play a big part in this, but for all you John Williams/James Horner fans do not let this scare you off! Hans Zimmer weaves it in perfectly.
So if you like movie scores as much as I do I suggest that you BUY THIS ALBUM!!!!!