Buy it... if you own several scores from later in Hans Zimmer's career and seek his first, highly successful and enjoyable large-scale merging of an orchestra and choir with his electronics.

Avoid it... if no variant on the extremely masculine tones and simplistic themes consistent to Zimmer's style (from any era in his career) will fit with your preference for subtlety and delicacy.

Zimmer

Backdraft: (Hans Zimmer) The forces of good and evil were hard at work against each other in Backdraft, but not in the ways you'd expect. Ron Howard's character story of firefighters in Chicago's Chinatown had one of cinema's most spectacular assets in its favor: the best portrayal of flames ever produced. In fact, even many years later, no film has treated the personality of a fire with such menacing dignity as Backdraft. So brilliant is its realistic qualities on screen that audiences were willing, for the most part, to forgive an absolutely terrible script by Gregory Widen. The slow and predictable narrative of Backdraft couldn't be salvaged by even an expert cast led by a few outstanding conversational duels between Donald Sutherland and Robert DeNiro. The reconciliatory side-stories of the brothers played by Kurt Russell and William Baldwin are so wretched that you sit waiting for the next cut to the maniacal Sutherland or, in his honor, another arson to feature the mesmerizing special effects. While Howard had established a strong collaboration with composer James Horner at the time, he had been impressed by Hans Zimmer's Black Rain, and although he didn't want that score's sound for Backdraft, he hired Zimmer anyway to provide a hard edge to the film's masculine tones. Zimmer had already been recognized with an Academy Award nomination by 1991, but Backdraft's score was a significant wake-up call to film score collectors. Its thrilling role in the film and on a powerful album helped launch Zimmer into the top tier of composers where he would remain for decades. In interviews, Zimmer has stated that he's proud of the somewhat unorthodox method of writing and recording soft music for scenes of fiery destruction, and although that technique is used a few times, don't be fooled into thinking that Backdraft is anything less than Zimmer's bombast at its best. His bass-heavy, percussive score is loud enough to be heard over any of the stunning sound effects mixed throughout the film.

Prominent composers of the era (such as Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner) had already experimented with a combination of orchestral players, choir, and electronics in their film scores, but never with the resounding power that Zimmer introduced with Backdraft (and would later elaborate upon in Beyond Rangoon and Crimson Tide, among others). Between the perpetual snare drum rhythms, the light female chorus, and Zimmer's robust and simplistic themes, the Backdraft score is exactly what Zimmer and Howard wanted it to be: an ode to firemen. The two worked very closely on a cue-by-cue basis for the score, with Zimmer in attendance on the set during the filming of live-blaze action. For Zimmer, the opportunity to work with 95 orchestral players, a chorus, and his library of synthesized samples led to the difficult task of combining all three without drowning any one of them out. Many film score collectors credit orchestrator and conductor (and composer in her own career) Shirley Walker for coordinating the score's consistently intelligent balance between the organic and synthetic. The same people often state that Walker also played a bigger role in the success of Danny Elfman's Batman, and in regards to the situations that accompanied both inexperienced composers into large-scale orchestral situations, as well as the strong results that followed, there might be merit to such claims of credit. Zimmer's detractors, who followed in the days of Media Ventures' height, were quick to jump on that bandwagon, though nearly any Zimmer listener will surely admit that there's a fresh ambience to Backdraft that is missing from the scores that Zimmer only co-writes or produces later in his career. In short, the music for Backdraft is an extremely successful match for the film, and Zimmer remains proud of the achievement. His favorite cue accompanies the funeral procession at the end of the film, and it is an emotionally charged and elegant piece with bold brass, percussion, and choir that indeed together create one of the best single cues in his career.

Many different aspects of Backdraft would foreshadow Zimmer's subsequent scores. Interestingly, some of the more melodic moments of Backdraft would be further explored Lion King, especially in the combination of strings and light choir during the latter half of "You Go, We Go." Two themes exist in the score: the propulsive fanfare for the firefighting concept (also used famously as the theme for the TV cooking show "Iron Chef"), and a more lyrical subtheme for the two brothers. Later in the score, the latter theme would be used as an interlude to the score's title theme, essentially blending them into one construct. A singular cue of intense thematic statement for the death of the brothers' father in "Fighting 17th" exhibits a level of raw emotion rarely touched upon by Zimmer in the following years. The heavy, electronically-driven portions of the score are more interesting than the stock, synthesized orchestra hits that would come later in Zimmer's library of samples. While never resorting to a harsh electric guitar, Zimmer uses brazen and grinding electronics during scenes glorifying the fires. The balance in tone here seems to be more accomplished than in most of his subsequent works, perhaps a stroke of beginner's luck or owing, perhaps, to an editor's mixing talents. He also utilized an array of sound effects early in the score, including the tingling electric touch of a burning circuit. Several of the cues in the first half of Backdraft rely on that kind of ambience to carry what is otherwise mundane material. Underachieving is "The Arsonist's Waltz," with a rhythm that barely qualifies as a waltz and a tone that neither takes advantage of the explosiveness of the crime or the mystery of its perpetrator in the story. When the film's tensions inevitably rise, though, the creativity does return. The clanging of an ax is imitated by chimes, inserted at certain points to help maintain action rhythms. The same chimes, among other metallic strikes, would underline several heroic deeds late in the film.

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For the militaristic aspect of the film, Zimmer emphasizes the most important instrument of them all: the snare drum. Fans will have a hard time remembering a score so dominated by one percussive instrument, but the snare is a perfect representation of the firetruck and the hailing of emergencies throughout the film. It, along with various medium-range drums (real or on the drum pad, it doesn't really matter), create the ambience of a giant pinball machine, adding excitement while also lending a sense of urgency, duty, and battle that the story relies upon. The Milan album contains mixes of many cues that are different from those in the film, including the pivotal and beautiful "Show Me Your Firetruck" that is, despite the title, the funeral procession music from the end of the film. The "Ron Howard Passions and Achievements" retrospective compilation from 1997 contains the superior film mix of that cue, with even bolder percussion and choir presented in an extended suite format that is really a lovely 6-minute overview of the score (and possible substitute for the original album). Some creative mixing has been done on that compilation cue, leading to an awkward volume change in the last sequence of the suite (at about 4:00), but fans are treated to an even more varied percussive role that clearly defines the intent that Zimmer had when preparing the music for the film. The original Milan album has mislabeled tracks, weaker sound quality, and presents the cues out of film order. A dull mix causes the often droning bass elements to overwhelm some of the trickier and more interesting high range percussion. Aside from the merely average Bruce Hornsby songs at the start and end of the product, about 30 minutes of Zimmer's score is provided in the composer's standard, lengthy suite format. From "Burn It All" (a cue used in several trailers for other films at the time) onward, the album is an action-packed, nonstop thriller of a listening experience. In a bittersweet sense, Backdraft is a trip back to the days when Zimmer was a refreshing deviation from the standard Hollywood sound, and despite his rash of originality problems in the decades to follow, this score remains a sentimental favorite. ****

Bias Check:

For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.98 (in 51 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.23 (in 217,689 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.