The Social Network
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. 2010.
You’ll like it… if you’re willing to experiment.
Avoid it… if you have suicidal tendencies.
A wave of anger covered the social networks and specialized forums just after it was announced that The Social Network was the winner of the Golden Globe for Best Original Music. Facing Alice in Wonderland (Danny Elfman), The King’s Speech (Alexander Desplat), 127 Hours (A.R. Rahman) and Inception (Hans Zimmer) in the same category, it can not be denied that it was, at least, an unexpected victory.
David Fincher’s movie about the inception of Facebook has had, since the beginning, the favour of the critics and has been a favourite in all the lotteries for every prize. This unanimity among the cinematographic critics is only comparable to the unanimity of the musical critics considering its soundtrack as the worst of the year, in terms that range from simply unbearable to intolerable noise, aside ridiculous, insubstantial or hideous.
Written by Trent Reznor, leader of the industrial metal band Nine Inch Nails, and composer Atticus Ross (The book of Eli, A. Hughes, 2010), the music for The Social Network is basically a disonant synthesized atmosphere and electric guitars distorted to the point of unrecognition. A broken piano offers the minimum melodic elements and a controversial (to say the least) version of a fragment of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt (‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’) is the only memorable theme. It’s not even possible to argue about musical originality, since this kind of sound is easily connected to the ambient experiments of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp.
So, is it that bad? Yes, but only if what you expect a soundtrack to be is a symphonic work with thematic development. By chance, Reznor’s first work for a movie has coincided in time with another début: Daft Punk’s Tron. Although both cases are unconventional, the French duo step on safety ground: epic leit-motivs, mix of electronics and orchestra, Zimmer-stylish grandilocuence; on the other hand, Reznor takes risks, betting on electronic minimalism, depressive and discordant, pensive and grey. And this is a field most soundtrack lovers simply don’t want to set foot in.
The Social Network might have been a work James Newton Howard would have done in autopilot. James Horner would have been able to justify the use of bagpipes (and his well-known, multiple-time-self-plagiarized ‘danger theme’, of course), and any clone of Hans Zimmer could have cloned the Inception soundtrack. But, in that cases, we would be talking about comfortable music, easy listening, a thousand times listened to in similar contexts. And, if social networks are a new 21st century phenomena, it is not out of place that the music that tells their genesis is, at least, different.
Tracklist:
1. Hand Covers Bruise (4:18)
2. In Motion (4:56)
3. A Familiar Taste (3:35)
4. It Catches Up With You (1:39)
5. Intriguing Possibilities (4:24)
6. Painted Sun in Abstract (3:29)
7. 3:14 Every Night (4:03)
8. Pieces Form the Whole (4:16)
9. Carbon Prevails (3:53)
10. Eventually We Find Our Way (4:17)
11. Penetration (1:14)
12. In the Hall of the Mountain King – composed by Edvard Grieg (2:21)
13. On We March (4:14)
14. Magnetic (2:10)
15. Almost Home (3:33)
16. Hand Covers Bruise (Reprise) (1:52)
17. Complication with Optimistic Outcome (3:19)
18. The Gentle Hum of Anxiety (3:53)
19. Soft Trees Break the Fall (4:44)
