The Dark Knight - Dark Publications

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Album Description
Soundtrack album for the 2008 Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Music composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. The Dark Knight is an American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Batman. The film is a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins, which rebooted the Batman film series after an eight-year hiatus. Actor Heath Ledger stars as The Joker.The CD contains 14 tracks of powerful punches of Batman's adventures of good vs evil.

Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

A soundtrack that delivers July 16, 2008
25 out of 26 found this review helpful

Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for The Dark Knight is the best soundtrack CD I've purchased in a while. The music is dark and moody but exciting enough to listen to without succumbing to depression. And at well over an hour long, it also delivers its money's worth, and then some. This is no 45-minute selection of background music, this is a powerhouse score that commands your attention.

Especially good is the electronic-esque theme for the Joker, which dominates the first track, "Why so Serious?" and eerily crops up throughout the rest of the score. Zimmer has said in interviews that he based on the Joker's sound on Kraftwerk, an electronica band from his native Germany. When I first read this I wondered what kind of odd sound this would create, but fortunately there's nothing odd about it whatsoever. It sounds something like Kraftwerk and other European electronica, certainly, but also much like Zimmer's work on Black Hawk Down and is not the least bit off-putting. It perfectly mirrors the Joker--jarring, alternately quiet and loud but always moving, and captivating.

The rest of the score expands on themes from the soundtrack of Batman Begins and introduces a lot more new stuff, from the aforementioned theme for the Joker to somber but moving string sections alternating with heavy percussion and brass, especially in the final track, "A Dark Knight." Like I said, the score is very dark but compulsively listenable. I'm going to have this in my CD player for days.

Highly recommended.

5 out of 5 stars

Zimmer and Newton Howard bring their "A game". July 22, 2008
19 out of 20 found this review helpful

Chaos sits in a darkened corner of Gotham city, rubs its hands together and smiles. It's almost time. In a little while, the forces of insanity and madness will begin a twisted, enraged march through the town, burning it all to the ground as it offers a full challenge to the "Dark Knight" with a limitless grin and a semi-crazy school girl flicker of the eyelids.

The Joker has arrived to town.

James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Village, Collateral, etc.) and Hans Zimmer (Gladiator, Crimson Tide, The Thin Red Line, etc.) once again have seized the essential musical "nector of the gods" and given us mere mortals another taste of bliss with a score that will certainly rival any action-based film for years to come. Here are the standouts...

#1. Why So Serious?- opens the film. This melody gives us a glimpse of the horror that awaits the city of Gotham as a psychotic clown roams the streets with murder and aimless rage on his devilish mind.

#2. I'm Not a Hero - spells the anguish and darkness that both Batman and his enemies seem to share. A powerful montage of moods which range from a surreal set of ominous strings until being finally eclipsed by by an epic, almost chanting rhythm where we feel the defiance within Batman's soul.

#3. Harvey Two-Face - a Newton Howard piece which illuminates the heroic side of the cities vigilant district attorney, Harvey Dent.

#4. Aggressive Expansion - Zimmer roars out at us with this one. A powerful tune which combines sparse threads of the Batman theme with an otherworldly sense of anticipation.

#5. Always a Catch - Opens with the Joker's delirious theme; closes with a quaint melody.

#6. Blood on My Hands - another Harvey Dent theme. A haunting piece of strings give us the mood for just what Dent represents to the city and his importance to the people as a symbol of justice.

#7. A Little Push - lacking a definitive structure, this song acts as a filler being only 2:42 long.

#8. Like a Dog Chasing Cars - Truly one of the standout pieces to this score, this song attacks the listener with a quick-patterned rise that culminates in menacing dance into the world of both Batman and the Joker. A beautiful tune which shares both the definition of who Joker and Batman truly are, until finally giving way into a melody which stands alone as Batman's, essentially leaving his similarities to the Joker behind.

#9. I am the Batman - short but powerful filler track.

#10. And I Thought My Jokes Were Bad - only 2:30 long, still provides the listener with a concise ride into the realm of Gotham.

#11. Agent of Chaos - Another multi-layered piece which pays initial homage to the Joker's random madness until giving way to the tragic outcome surrounding Harvey Dent.

#12. Introduce a Little Anarchy - if ever there was a Zimmer Batman theme within the film, this would be it.

#13. Watch the World Burn - Captures the horror of what the Joker is capable of doing. Truly one of the gems of the score, if not the most powerful track on the album.

#14. A Dark Knight - at 16:15, acts as the final piece for the film, joining together many of the main themes from the film.

soundtrack grade: A
audibility aside from the film: A
rank among top film scores: top 100
rank among top action scores: top 50

5 out of 5 stars

Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard Return With A Superb And More Grounded Score July 17, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

The score for The Dark Knight is in one word, incredible. Zimmer and Howard have crafted a complete soundscape for this character and the world he exists in. I love the original Batman Begins score to death and the only way that this score surpasses the previous one is that it feels more grounded. The characters and world are already established so the score has something to build off of.

The two-note motif has already become iconic and synonymous with Batman. With this score we get two new themes. The first one is the new motif for The Joker. It's only one note and Hans spent 3 months fine tuning it to become the perfect sound. The first track is pretty much all of The Joker's music. It's harsh, industrial and gritty and I love it. It works so well even if you are more of a traditional score fan and don't like it one cannot deny how well it works with the image.

James Newton Howard was in charge of Harvey Dent. This music had to represent a fallen idol; someone who was good but became corrupted. So tragic is a word that can be used to describe it. It's very emotional. It stands apart from the intense action music in the score and is really wonderful. The emotional arc of it takes you from light to dark, it's great scoring.

Fans of Hans Zimmer and/or James Newton Howard will be extremely pleased with this score (I very much am). Hans' structure and style is heard well throughout. The score pulses with intensity very much like the original. There is really NO downtime on this entire album. The music carries you every step of the way, the listen on its own is a journey in itself. Now and then you will hear the 1-note Joker theme pop up and it indeed can get your hairs standing on end. It absorbs you and assaults you while leaving you wanting more. Hans and James both share one thing in common in that they score everything for real, meaning they aren't treating this movie as a work of fiction. They are carefully crafting an emotional story arc and building an atmosphere for it to exist in. There is no grandiose and heroic theme. Everything stands on its own and is so much powerful for doing so. The Dark Knight will be one of if not the best score of the year and will be hard to beat in terms of scope and emotional complexity.

2 out of 5 stars

Remote Control Pictures 2000, Take 26 July 19, 2008
14 out of 33 found this review helpful

I have been a Batman fan ever since I can remember, and Christopher Nolan's resurrection of the character has been nothing but breathtaking, both artistically and cinematically. Unfortunately, he chose Hans Zimmer to produce music (I avoid the term "writing" quite intentionally) for his movies.
Despite my less than flattering feelings towards him, I always try to be objective and not crush Zimmer for the sake of crushing him - but when his comments are so diametrically opposed to reality, I have no problem using harsher words, and this is the case with Dark Knight.

Let me start with a comment Hans Zimmer made in a most recent interview about not writing a theme for Batman alias Bruce Wayne, in which he said people seem to expect them (Zimmer and Howard) to come to their senses and write a "happy jolly" theme like Danny Elfman's, which they would never do. According to them, Bruce Wayne is faceless, has no identity, and doesn't deserve to be described musically - and yet, Zimmer talks about his iconic motif for the Batman figure. These two ideas don't mix together.
If you follow the idea of a faceless Batman logically and consequently through the end, then don't apply any musical material at all to the man, and not brag about your genius while doing the opposite.
If Zimmer was really such an "outlaw", breaking rules and all, then he would compromise the opportunity to showcase an iconic motif in favour of his artistic integrity instead of compromising his artistic integrity in favour of "see, I can write something iconic!"
It's very sanctimonious.

So, for better or worse - more for worse - his two note motif for Batman returns in Dark Knight, along with a new theme for the character, showcased for instance in "Like A Dog Chasing Cars", collecting pieces and rhythms from earlier Zimmer projects and mushing them together with the Remote Control sound that was fresh ten years ago.
Again, showing how little logic has gone into this, if Batman hadn't earned an own theme in Batman Begins, and now he did, why do both themes appear in Dark Knight?
For the Joker, Zimmer came up with the infamous "one note", consisting of a long, shrieking, siren- like portamento or glissando in the strings.
The idea behind this is that Nolan and Zimmer created the Joker as a "constant of chaos", something that has no development, who is very one-dimensional. Fine, reflecting this characteristic by having a simple and short musical signature is appropriate.
But having the right idea and expressing it musically with enough quality is a completely different thing. Nowhere is the rule written that a one-dimensional, twisted character like the Joker needs music that is un-original and un-listenable.
Stretching this one note by useless electronic noise over nine minutes and calling it a "suite" is so surreal, almost offensive to the listener.
It also appears that the Joker "theme" glides between the two notes of the Batman motif; and why exactly is that "genius", as I've heard from people? When John Williams takes the epitomy of evil, the Imperial March, and is able to transform it into parts of the sweet and touching theme for a small kid, that is genius. Because it requires deeper understanding of music. Zimmer's "stroke of genius" is merely a nice touch.

Hans Zimmer, that becomes as obvious as never before after reading the comment about Elfman's theme, has no intuition whatsoever as a film composer. Elfman's theme isn't "happy jolly" just because it dares to apply heroic major- moded music to a heroic character. On the contrary, Elfman knew he had to portray the dual nature of the Bruce Wayne figure, and seeing that this duality is as present in Nolan's film as never before, it would have also been Zimmer's duty to make this duality clear. As it is, he performed the magical trick to neglect BOTH aspects of the character, and just scored what he always scores: cliched, overbearing, drama.
And musically, Dark Knight is as dire as every Zimmer score. Did Nolan, like Bruckheimer, also ask Zimmer to not use woodwinds, alias "girly man instruments"?
His ideas may be easily recognisable, but they say nothing, zero, about any given character. And he's painting with such ridiculously broad and inflexible block strokes that he takes forever to make a point about those characters; I suspect that's why his suites usually ramble on for way over five minutes without any greater impact - no wonder when the basic material has no characteristic substance to begin with.

Watching the film, it seems like the score lives in a world of its own, neglecting the deeper needs of the film for the most part. Zimmer and Howard got completely lost in their ideas, and didn't notice how the picture slipped out of their fingers.

Every discussion about Zimmer's Batman scores mentions at least once how inappropriate Danny Elfman's original sound would be for these films. Putting aside for a second that this is an insult to Elfman's capability of being inventive, it gives the impression that the choice is between operatic, gothic, romantic orchestra and Remote Control's monotone "hammer it home" approach, as if there weren't many many many shades in between. The choice is simply between an over- and almost abused sound and more tasteful and subtle music.

And if there's one thing these films deserve, it's subtlety.

1 out of 5 stars

Moods not music August 3, 2008
10 out of 25 found this review helpful

I have to disagree with all of the 5-star reviews out there. This is not a fantastic score. It cannot stand on its own outside of the movie.

It sets the mood, it sets the pace, but there is hardly anything listenable in it by itself. Tones, beats, but hardly anything palletable without the onscreen action.

I loved the movie. I loved the sound of the movie, but this score will fade after the basic theme of Batman is played. It's boring and shapeless.
One star.

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