One of the aspects of this score that goes underpraised is Zimmer's multifaceted approach to his "ascension theme." As evidenced in "We Are All Connected" (or "This Land" or "Under the Stars," as the album's cue titles have changed through the years), Zimmer actually addresses this theme with two secondary supporting ideas. First, there's the stately fanfare for the actual kingdom at 0:58 into "We Are All Connected" that is expressed wistfully here but becomes larger than life at the conclusion of "The Rightful King." More commonly heard is the more serious identity for Mufasa and the obligation of the position, heard at 1:47 into "We Are All Connected" and handling the scenes requiring enhanced gravity in the music. You hear this portion of the theme expanded upon in "I Was Just Trying to Be Brave," including a slight rock percussion rendition at the end. The grandiose statements of this theme with choir are a close cousin to Zimmer's religiously massive portions of
The Prince of Egypt. Simba himself enjoys a playful theme that expresses itself with nearly reggae spirit in "Hyenas in the Pride Land," and while the character grows as necessary into the role of king at the end of the film, Zimmer allows this theme of youth and exuberance to explode with the African vocal ensemble at the opening of the end credits. Another theme of familial relations wafts throughout the score, opening and mingling with other identities in "Remember Who You Are" with pleasantly romantic tones. The score as a whole is a microcosm of a number of Zimmer trademarks of the early 1990's rolled into one work, usually for the better. Even enthusiasts of the composer's power anthem tendencies will hear some of the impressive rhythmic force of the likes of
Backdraft highlight the score's final presentation of the "ascension theme" at the closing of the film. Zimmer and Mancina's contributions to the arrangements of the songs, especially in the lovely interlude sequence late in "Circle of Life," allow him to easily slip references to those ideas into the score without missing a beat. One of the lingering problematic issues with the score's listenability on album is Zimmer's quick shifting between softly majestic performances and outbursts of the African vocal and percussion elements, a detriment that strikes in the final three major cues of the score. Likewise, there are inconsistencies in how Zimmer handles the dispatching of Scar in "The Rightful King" that allows his identity, the remnants of the waltz, and some of the action and suspense techniques to create a disjointed flow to the cue.
The additional problem any reviewer has when trying to analyze the score for
The Lion King, unfortunately, is that no truly satisfying album presentation of the music has ever existed. A 2014 "Legacy Collection" release from Disney finally solved this issue for many listeners, but even that is missing substantial recorded material that teased fans when it leaked over the years prior. Complicating matters is the fact that several versions of the same cues exist depending on whether Zimmer and his crew had replaced the original synthetic rendering of various parts of the orchestra with the performances of the live players. In the film itself, you don't really hear the synthetic versions very often. One exception is "Kings of the Past," which emulates the softly pretty keyboarded techniques of the composer's contemporary romantic comedy works. Conversely, the synthetic version of the brass seems especially pronounced on the original album release. Thus, depending on your preferences, you could maintain three or four presentations of this score and still have to do some significant rearranging to put things into your desired order and sound. In general, Zimmer has a tendency to remix and rearrange his music into album suites, thus forcing fans to seek the bootleg market when trying to find the mixes and cuts that actually made the film. Usually, this habit doesn't present too much of a problem, but with
The Lion King, the vast majority of material recorded for the project, whether it was used in the film or not, was neglected on Disney's original 1994 commercial product. That album contained 30 minutes of songs and 17 minutes of score, a surprisingly backwards ratio compared to other Disney product offerings for their popular musicals of the era. Granted, the arrangement provided for the album would suffice for the majority of the market that wasn't interested in the score to begin with, but significant demand existed for more of Zimmer's work, especially in the more orchestrally-heavy mix that actually made the film. Throughout the 2000's, Disney maintained that releasing additional score wouldn't be profitable enough for them, only including an extra cast song and a John remix for the "Special Edition" album that coincided with the film's DVD blitz in 2003. Generally, Zimmer fans had little to fear about such situations, because the Media Ventures/Remote Control kingdom is notorious for leaking material to the secondary collector's market (anytime you get so many people involved in so many projects, album-quality copies of the recording sessions are bound to walk out of the building). But for a long time,
The Lion King was a curious exception to that norm.
After years of substandard bootlegs, it wasn't until the 2010's when more satisfying recording sessions of
The Lion King began to reliably leak to that collector's market. The bootleg market for the score has always been very active, leading to a wide range of fan-created albums that vary greatly in quality and arrangement. To understand why this discrepancy exists, all you have to do is look at the variety of sources of the original material. The most widely available extra track came in the form of "Hyenas," which was included on international commercial releases of Disney's album. The vintage Hans Zimmer/Mark Mancina collaboration promotional CDs, titled "Follow your Dreams," also included some extra tracks, though two of these were simply the "Circle of Life" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" song arrangements without the cast vocals. These two tracks are very highly recommended to fans of the score, for they expose some of the masterful production work on the underlying instrumental accompaniment to those songs. Supposed "promotional" albums ranging from 55 to 60 minutes in length floated about the market in the early days; regardless of whether or not these albums were indeed Academy Award promos, they did serve as the basis for the bootlegs that would follow. Those bootlegs added cues directly from the recording sessions, including several alternative takes and cues that would be cut from the film (including Zimmer's original "Circle of Life" score track before it was replaced by the song, which still uses a Zimmer theme as its lovely interlude). Unfortunately, the additional material that would bring the bootlegs up to the 80-minute limit of a CD featured terrible mono sound. Several theories exist as to why these cues are so atrocious in quality, but whatever the real reason, all of the bootlegs, regardless of their arrangement, for years offered sound quality that jumps around as wildly as the animals in the film. While better quality recording session leaks, along with the official 2014 album from Disney, ultimately made these bootlegs less important, some listeners will want to continue to investigate them for their mix of the various stems of music recorded from the ensemble. For instance, on those bootlegs, the consecutive tracks "The Once and Future King" and "Plotting" are both crystal clear in quality and, along with the inspirational "Kings of the Past," were necessary additions to the score in that mix. The sound quality of "Pinned Again/Reunion," the film version of "Under the Stars," and "Simba Alive" is poor, but they are also worthy and impressive cues. Zimmer's respectfully pretty choral work in "This is My Home" was another highlight in those interim years.
One of the more intriguing side-stories of all the album releases for
The Lion King is that the music in the film is about 5 to 10% faster than it had been on the albums; this practice isn't unusual, but it's particularly noticeable in this score for some reason, especially for the hardcore fans of the film. For collectors who don't sweat the various of anomalies involving this score, the 2014 Disney album is definitely the way to go. It certainly does not contain all of the interesting alternate takes and mixes as heard on the score's other incarnations, and it cross fades tracks with disastrous results (as in the start of "Remember Who You Are"), but it does present the film versions of the songs and score that were featured on screen. A number of Zimmer's original (perhaps you could call them rejected) ideas are absent, as are the mixes of finalized cues that were popularized on the 1994 album. The composer was reportedly unhappy with the mixes that made up that product, and he insisted that they be tweaked from original stems for the 2014 release so that they better resembled his intent before former Media Ventures partner Jay Rifkin altered them in the 1990's. The result of these efforts for the 2014 product is a score that sounds significantly different from that presented earlier, even on the bootlegs. The voices and woodwinds have taken a more prominent place in the mix, while the synthetic element is almost gone and the percussion is driven further back. Brass tones are more organic, and the various accents seem better enunciated. It wouldn't be surprising if most listeners find this mix to be vastly superior to that on the prior albums, but there will undoubtedly be a few people who prefer Zimmer's electronic touch of the early 1990's. For them, Disney provides a second CD on the 2014 set with numerous demo recordings of the score (including a version of "We Are All Connected" with a phenomenal vocal and woodwind middle sequence), as well as an early concept for John's "Circle of Life" film version. That last track isn't the rejected score cue mentioned earlier in the review, unfortunately. A few additional rejected songs are thrown onto that addendum CD, along with John's three recordings. The 2014 product will be a fantastic addition for collectors already in possession of earlier leaked material, though be aware that you'll still have to make your own arrangements of the score to combine all of this material, as this popular and inspiring score still lacks a definitively satisfying album release. Decades later,
The Lion King remains one of Zimmer's most dynamic and emotional works, consolidating his early career sounds in ways that many fans wish he would have continued developing if the composer had chosen to maintain a solo career absent his eventual, unparalleled hype machine.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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