Soundtrack Review!

[TheSkeletonMan939]

 

I was pretty excited to hear that Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu was getting an official soundtrack, courtesy of Varese Sarabande.

 

As you’ve probably heard from watching the show, Jay Vincent and Michael Kramer are amazing composers, able to bring out the emotion of a scene from the TV onto your iPod. Dan Hageman, a writer for the show, makes a similar comment in the CD booklet: “I was taught… that the score makes up 50 percent of the audience’s emotional experience. After working with Jay and Kramer, I think it’s more like 60 percent.” Based on what I’ve heard from the duo, I believe him.

 

The Music

Tracklist:

 

 

1. Ninjago Overture (1:37)

2. Attack Of The Skeleton Army (3:52)

3. Training Course (2:22)

4. Discovering Spinjitzu/Dragon Ride (2:47)

5. Slither Pit (3:05)

6. The Mailman/Jay's Parents (1:41)

7. Pythor P. Chumsworth (2:55)

8. Weapons Take Flight (2:39)

9. Catching The Samurai (3:06)

10. Sensei Lives On/Battling The Guardian (2:40)

11. Falcon Chase (3:01)

12. Zane's True Potential (4:04)

13. Roomies Eith Garmadon (1:09)

14. A Family Divided (4;04)

15. Revealing The Green Ninja (3:15)

16. Race To Ouroboros (3:18)

17. Summoning The Great Devourer (3:36)

18. Taking the Bait (2:27)

19. Go Ninja Go (3:17)

 

 

 

The sounds are clear, and even the most subtle of instruments can be heard well. So in terms of audio quality, this sounds wonderful.

 

The music is just as impressive; the CD encompasses a dynamic range of melodies with different emotions behind them. “Falcon Chase” has a sense of mystery and adventure behind it; “Taking the Bait” gives off an atmosphere of urgency and impending doom; “Zane’s True Potential” is an extremely emotional piece, as it lets you re-visit Zane’s horrible revelation that he is but an android, and his startling memories of his deceased father. All of the tracks absorb the listener into the world of Ninjago – there’s no doubt about that. This is top-quality music all around, and probably better than what you’ll hear in a lot of today’s high-budget films. Whereas most composers today scramble to force their music to sound exactly like everybody else's, Kramer and Vincent thankfully do their own thing.

 

(An interesting note: several years ago, I ripped the audio from my own DVD so that I could make my own version of "Falcon Chase". I was surprised at how similar my own rip was to the soundtrack's version of the theme.)

 

The CD Itself

 

There are 56 minutes of music on this CD. That might seem like a lot at first, but let me tell you a story: Red Book standards demand that all CDs be manufactured to hold no more than 80 minutes – an hour and 20 minutes – worth of music. A lot of people have moved on from burning their music to CDs because it holds so little data compared to the gigabytes of stuff that your tiny iPod holds. So you would probably think that a record label would want to take full advantage of those 80 minutes.

 

So let me remind you that there are 56 minutes of music on this CD. Wait, what? That’s not even a full hour! Are you telling me that there are 36 episodes of this series and no one was competent enough to find a good 80 minutes of music?

 

Actually, you can scratch what I said about those 36 episodes, because apparently only 15 exist – at least according to the people who chose the tracks for this CD. Seriously, look at the track list. They’re all from the first 15 episodes! They’re airing Season 3 and they only bothered to include less than an hour from season one?

 

You could argue that this may be the first volume in a potential series of CDs, with Volume 2 encompassing the second season, and so on. But considering that, as things currently stand, this is the only Ninjago CD out there, I think this is a valid complaint. It's simply too short - and I'll explain why near the end.

 

Another oddity is that most of these tracks and far, far, far, far more are available on Jay Vincent’s YouTube channel. Now granted, they aren’t lossless, so you’re still better off buying the CD anyway. But I have to appreciate Vincent’s generosity in sharing so much of his music when it’s now available for purchase. I’m rarely able to get the music from my favorite TV shows because there is no soundtrack release (I’m looking at you, Justice League Unlimited) so it’s always a lucky treat when a soundtrack release like this happens, or when someone like Vincent shares his work for free when he could easily just keep it to himself.

 

Noticeably absent is the theme song of the show: The Weekend Whip. I know The Fold are the folks behind that track, rather than the composers, but it’s still queer how it isn’t present on the CD – not even as a hidden track. Weird.

 

The Other Bits

 

The CD comes in a jewel case, of course. The cover art is nothing exciting – it’s just a hastily put-together assortment of promotional images we’ve all seen before. Why a Golden Weapon is front and center is beyond me, though.

 

There’s a booklet inside too. It has some insightful quotes from people who work on the show, and a nice long list of credits. The back has an entrancing image of Wu entering the portal to the underworld( or wherever Garmadon was banished to).

 

Final Thoughts

 

I feel like the best composers leave you wanting a little bit more. The end credits to Michael Giacchino’s The Incredibles and Danny Elfman’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure are my favorite examples of this. After the exciting and bombastic musical finale, a brief if not enticing motif plays before the track fades into silence. This is brilliant because you want to hear more, but the soundtrack is over. So what do you do? Why, start listening over from the very beginning, of course! Experience the musical journey again!

 

The soundtrack to Ninjago leaves you wanting more too. The last track ends and you realize that the soundtrack is over all too soon. But I tried re-listening to the soundtrack right after it ended, and it was all too fresh in my mind to really enjoy it the same why I had before. 56 minutes simply is not enough music to create a fully enjoyable listening experience.

 

The lack of music from seasons 2 and 3 is all too noticeable; even more so when you realize there was 25 minutes they could have added to this CD.

 

So all in all the music is great, but not the CD, if that makes any sense to you. It's great for casual listening, when you're in the car or need some music in the background while you work. If we were rating this I’d give it a 3/5. It's not bad, but there was a lot of potential that I feel was missed by limiting themselves to the first season, as well as not taking full advantage of the CD's storage capacity.

 

So: agree? Disagree? Did I influence your decision to buy? Let me know! I've never done a review like this before, so let me know I how did.

[Aanchir]

I actually prefer albums that are an hour or less in length to longer ones, just because I like to listen to a different album every night before bed. Between a half hour and an hour of music is enough to help me clear my head, drown out background noise from people who haven't gotten to bed yet, and get to sleep. Over an hour of music just feels like it's keeping me up longer, since every time I expect it to end it just keeps going.

 

It's also a nice, digestible length for walks or car trips — enough that I can immerse myself in a particular universe or listening experience and don't have to worry about what to listen to next, but not so much that I get bored of the album before the end and start wanting to listen to something different.

 

There's a reason that with the Ninjago music I downloaded before this album came out, I preferred to break things up by season. I have a playlist of all my Ninjago music for those times that I want to listen to it on shuffle, but more often than not I prefer to enjoy it in a more digestible length that I can listen to from start to finish in one listening session.

 

The fact that it only covers the first fifteen episodes (the pilot and season one) actually doesn't bother me either, because it makes me confident that one day we might get an album of season two and three music (provided this album is successful enough, of course). Also, I worry that if the creators of this soundtrack had to fit music from throughout the entire series into one album, we'd miss out on some very distinctive and memorable tracks from even the first fifteen episodes.

 

Even though most of this music is available on Jay Vincent's YouTube channel or Michael Kramer's Soundcloud, I can't complain about the selection. I love having an opportunity to support the creators of the things I enjoy. It's the same reason pirating things has never appealed to me as an alternative to buying them, because I don't want to feel responsible for future things like them not being made available. It's also the same reason I prefer to watch my favorite shows on TV when given the chance, even if watching them online is more convenient in terms of time and not having to put up with commercials. Also, a lot of the songs that are shared where the soundtrack and those two online sources happen to overlap are among the most memorable tracks from the seasons in question. I can definitely see why some people might skip this album if they're on a tight budget, though.

 

The absence of The Fold's Ninjago music doesn't really confuse or frustrate me too much. I love their promotional songs, but they often have a very different feel from the rest of the soundtrack, and I feel like having it play in sequence with things like the Ninjago overture might feel a bit jarring. Besides that, their songs are already available for purchase on iTunes, so I'm already able to own their music and support them as artists without it being included here.

 

Very good review. As you can see I disagreed about a lot of things, but that can all be chalked up to my own personal preferences and listening habits, not to your observations being wrong or silly. I used my younger brother's copy of this soundtrack to add it to my iTunes library, but I feel very tempted to get my own copy just so I can say I have it. Even though I like listening to my music digitally, there's something special about owning a hard copy, especially when it includes colorful liner notes and a stylish case. Hope there are more soundtracks like this still to come!