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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Days of Thunder (Hans Zimmer)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you desire a cross between Hans Zimmer's later bad-ass
attitude and electric guitar-dominated style of Drop Zone and the
easy-going romantic sensibilities of Green Card.
Avoid it... if the composer's somewhat dated, early hard rock material leaves you as cold as Days of Thunder does for those not interested in moody hunks and ridiculous cars.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Days of Thunder: (Hans Zimmer) Capitalizing on the
runaway success of Top Gun several years earlier, director Tony
Scott and producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer placed actor Tom
Cruise in race cars rather than jets and enjoyed a solid but lesser
degree of the same attraction from mainstream audiences. Similar
character confrontations based on generic stereotypes plague both films,
the depth of the narrative shallow enough to avoid interfering with the
main features: hunks and machines. Cruise plays an upstart racer seeking
to break into NASCAR and, in so doing, makes expected enemies and
unexpected friends. A surprisingly deep cast floats the picture despite
its obvious flaws in the screenplay, though such issues were typically
ignored by the throngs of auto racing enthusiasts who loved Days of
Thunder because of its only marginally masked connections to real
life racers and events in the sport. The project was an opening volley
in the eventually fruitful collaboration between the director and
producers and rising composer Hans Zimmer; in subsequent years, it
became customary for Zimmer and then his assistant, Harry
Gregson-Williams, to write the music for Scott's movies. The balance
between score and songs in Days of Thunder was more favorable
towards the score than had been in Top Gun, with upwards of an
hour of original material written to intermingle with the predictable
pop songs that eventually comprised the commercial album release for the
1990 venture (Zimmer co-wrote one of them, "The Last Note of Freedom,"
with Billy Idol). Collectors of the composer's music long maintained an
interest in hearing an official score-only offering on album for Days
of Thunder, though the composer always stated that if he had his
way, such an album for the score would never happen. Zimmer, who
sometimes finds himself arguing against album releases of his own music,
is particularly harsh on his output for this film. In 1998, he stated,
"I've done some truly bad scores and Days of Thunder is one of
them," and when pressed about why there was no album for that score, he
reprised those sentiments by saying, "...because there wasn't any good
music in it."
Regardless of the composer's poor opinion of many of his early scores, Zimmer's fans continue to appreciate the hard rock tone that he explored in Days of Thunder, even if his ideas for the movie would mature into better incarnations in other projects, including the similarly themed Ron Howard racing film of 2013, Rush. Although the composer was just starting to dabble in orchestral recordings at the time, Days of Thunder, like many of his other notable works in the early 1990's, is completely synthetic. Stylistically, in retrospect, Days of Thunder sounds like a direct cross between the bad-ass attitude and electric guitar-dominated style of Drop Zone and the easy-going romantic sensibilities of Green Card. It offers nothing spectacular for a veteran Zimmer collector when looking back at it, but the composer really is too hard on himself in regards to the effectiveness of the score. While it was, for a long time, difficult to recommend due to its rare album release, there's nothing inherently wrong with either Zimmer's approach to the topic or the quality of his result. Albeit generic compared to its successors, Days of Thunder is a functional and occasionally entertaining score. A satisfying theme with rock ballad-like progressions (and a few surprising allusions to Zimmer's Driving Miss Daisy) anchors the score, heard on Jeff Beck's wailing electric guitar solos in some of the score's victorious moments such as the end of "Car Building," the beginning of "The Crash," or the end of "Victory Lane." The ripping explosions of hyperactivity in the slapping percussion and rambling keyboard rhythms established by Zimmer in the first half of the score typically refer to fragments of this theme, two of which meander off to form sub-motifs to address different emotional needs of the story. Of arguably more interest is the softer, new age keyboarding of a wet ambience that Zimmer uses to address the relationships in the film. Perhaps more dated in its tone, these portions either foreshadow progressions to later be heard in Green Card ("Drafting") or The Lion King ("Dawn" and "End Titles"). Most of the application of Zimmer's faux woodwinds (mostly his typical pan flute effect, which in this case is seemingly mixed very far back into the soundscape) and faux piano are pretty standard to his sound of the 1980's, though at least he manages to largely avoid repeating elements straight from Rain Man. The only really interesting technique that Zimmer applies specifically to Days of Thunder is an altering of pitch within notes in the keyboarding to simulate the sound of passing cars, a neat effect though somewhat challenging on album. The guitars, of course, are able to emulate this slurring effect as well. The action music in the score is a relative weak point, not really establishing an effectively increasing pace or congealing into truly glorious power-anthem performance until the end of the score, where it really is guilty pleasure bait. Some listeners may find these moments fleeting on album, meriting only about five minutes of cohesive anthemic bravado to merge with another ten minutes or so of the pretty character material to form a memorable suite. Overall, Days of Thunder is not as bad a score as Zimmer claims, but its success for the listener is either tied to an affection for the film or for the composer's early hard rock mannerisms, this work spearheading his period of power anthem glory. For more than two decades, no retail score album existed for Days of Thunder. Pieces of it floated about the market for years on bootlegs masquerading as promos (and even in Zimmer's concert arrangements), but the usual "First Born Records" bootleg label for many early Media Ventures recordings contained 47 minutes of the score in perfect sound quality outside of some studio noise during a transition in "End Titles." Long circulating on the secondary market, this album is missing some music, including Mark Mancina's much sought reported contribution to the final scenes, but it was sufficient for most listeners. In 2013, La-La Land Records finally pressed a limited CD of Days of Thunder to conveniently coincide with the debut of Rush. This album fills its expanded running time in mostly the bonus tracks, featuring alternate mixes that aren't particularly noteworthy by themselves, and the song, "The Last Note of Freedom," both with and without the vocals. There is still no Mancina material to be heard or even mentioned in the album's notes, raising questions about the veracity of reports indicating his involvement. Sound quality on the 2013 product is not appreciably improved, and those familiar with the prior bootleg will need to adjust to a different arrangement of the cues into longer suites. La-La Land re-issued the same 2013 offering for another limited run in 2020. On any album, the lovely and melodic pre-race music near the end of the film is the main attraction outside of context. Expect some redundancy in the whole listening experience, but the highlights will make Days of Thunder worth the investment for devoted Zimmer enthusiasts. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1996 First Born Bootleg:
Total Time: 79:24
(46:51 from Days of Thunder) 2013/2020 La-La Land Albums: Total Time: 71:00
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the original 1996 bootleg includes no extra information about the score or film.
The 2013 and 2020 La-La Land albums' inserts contain notation about both.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Days of Thunder are Copyright © 1996, 2013, 2020, First Born Records (Bootleg), La-La Land Records, La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/19/10 and last updated 4/13/21. |
