Zimmer's own experience in the rock genre affords him the vocabulary, connections, and talents to mingle well with big name solo artists. The raspy-voiced Adams, whose younger-sounding and defiant style of singing lent him well to the spirit of the stallion, was a suitable match for this occasion. The choice of Adams as the pop artist for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, however, while deemed by multiple critics to be an obnoxious source of irritation within the film, is not alone the reason why the music for the film strikes all the wrong notes. In these animated pictures with pop music, the success of both the music and the film depends upon the balance of the weight of one over the other. In films such as The Lion King and Tarzan, for instance, the needs of the film dictated the structure and instrumentation of the songs. When choosing the vocal inflections, the background acoustics, and the introductory and ending structures of the songs, the film's storyboard was the center of attention in that creative process. The best comparison for this film is Tarzan, for which Phil Collins had to speak for the characters through his own voice. In that score, Collins and Zimmer associate Mark Mancina created songs that fit the context of each scene, and they later rearranged those songs to fit the needs of the album release. For Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, it's easy to get the impression that the exact opposite happened. In other words, the Adams songs sound as though they were written as fully intact album-arranged presentations, and then the film was brought in to supplement them. Thus, the needs of the songs outweighed the needs of the film, and that causes the film score listener to wonder if the album wasn't produced before the animation process even commenced. The songs, for the most part, are decent, typical entries for Adams, with no smash hits, and only one driving guitar in "Get Off My Back" that breaks the combined attitude of the other songs.

On the whole, the songs are streamlined and predictable, a delight most certainly for Adams' fangirls and likely a bore for everyone else. The over-commercialization effect of Adams' songs is a major contribution to the tedious nature of the overall musical package for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, but Zimmer's contribution is unfortunately flawed as well. Zimmer did have a hand in the creation and sound of some of the songs (and it should be noted that beginning with "This is Where I Belong" on the album, the songs do follow a more normalized musical format), though any hint of the enthusiasm or epic size that was evident in The Lion King or The Prince of Egypt is completely missing here. Perhaps the most confusing part of the score for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is how a predominantly Western-themed film ended up with faux-Gladiator music that has been mixed with such a heavy dose of Media Ventures testosterone that it sounds synthetic rather than orchestrally dynamic. For instance, the recording of "The Long Road Back" is so "popified" that it sounds like a clone of the highly rhythmic battle hymns in Toys. In this cue, Zimmer inserts about a minute of fiddle performances, but aside from some rather somber accompaniment from Gavin Greenaway's orchestra, this is the only distinctly fresh and authentic-sounding orchestral instrumentation to appear in the whole project. If you're going to a film to watch horses (animated or otherwise) gallop across a grand view of the Western American Rockies, then why does the music sound like it was pulled from The Peacemaker? Zimmer's attempt to produce a Western score is so dependant upon his heavy mixing techniques, led by an overwhelming bass region, that even with small tidbits of rhythm stereotypical to the genre thrown in once in a while (as well as a nod or two to Zimmer favorite Ennio Morricone), the package is a failure. There are several sequences in the score that are very enjoyable in usual Zimmer fashion, yes, but they don't fit with the songs and they certainly don't fit with the genre.

The album was obviously viewed by the label as a potential commercial juggernaut at the record stores. And for Adams fans, it remains as something of a solo album for ample enjoyment. But for the same reasons of conflicting interests and inappropriate song structure, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was never going to capture the same kind of rush of popularity from film score fans and parents of children that The Lion King or Tarzan attracted. It's a major disappointment for those hoping for Zimmer to break out of his rut of providing historically inaccurate music (which had been so painful in Pearl Harbor the previous year). It didn't help that the production had elevated expectations by rousingly using Jerry Goldsmith's themes from Rudy in its early trailers. The only connection between Goldsmith and Zimmer's work here is Zimmer's adoption of Goldsmith's electronic swishing sound from the early 1990's (famous in The Shadow) as means of replacing the cymbals during transitional or accented notes. Overall, nearly everything about Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is saturated with the commercialization of Adams' contribution, his voice attached to 11 of the 15 tracks of the album, and too many of those songs are disassociated from the film to be affective with Zimmer's contribution. Die hard Zimmer fans will find cues of merit in the 20 minutes of score for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron presented on the album, including the opening titles ("Homeland"), even though they sound like the bastard child of the themes from The Rock and Toys. Such enthusiasts often trade a 40 to 50-minute bootleg of score-only material from the film, containing additional music and film versions of these cues. But there's nothing new enough here to gain the interest of general film music collectors. All you have to do is take a look at the supposedly sexy picture of Adams in the insert to immediately understand why people who listen to classic Western film music consider items like Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron to be a waste of time.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download