Record Label: Varese Sarabande
Genre: Film Score / Electronica
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The latest sci-fi film from Neill Blomkamp is Chappie. While I was a fan of District 9, not sure this movie looks the greatest. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, and Hugh Jackman with a mullet. I’ll give it a look when it comes out on video, since I’ve been rarely going to the movies in theaters these days.

The score is done by Hans Zimmer, with additional music by Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro. Seems like a trend lately in scores, with additional music credits getting proudly displayed on the covers of albums. Usually that kind of stuff is buried in the liner notes. I think that’s good thing though.

In any case, the album is a bit of a change for Zimmer & co. as it’s a very electronica (Daft Punk style) score. This is another South African sci-fi movie so it makes sense to go computerized, electronica. Fans of the classical scores won’t like this one. Brad Fiedel’s scores to Terminator comes to mind when listening to this as well. Not all tracks are digital sounding, but “The Only Way Out Of This” is probably one of the better tracks on the album.

“A Machine that Thinks and Feels” starts out like “Davy Jones” from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. I liked that little theme. Towards the middle of the album, the score gets a bit quiet and becomes background noise but picks up again towards the end. “The Outside is Temporary” is a standout towards the end as well as “We Own The Sky.” The last track is “Illest Gangsta on the Block” and Zimmer has gone full-blown 8-bit Nintendo music and I love it! It would actually be pretty damn cool if the entire score was done like this.

Not everyone will like this score but it’s nice to see Hans Zimmer change things up a bit. Some of his elements that he has used in the past creep back into this but in a subtle way. Give it a shot, you might like it.

Bottom Line: Different score from Hans Zimmer but I like it!
Notable Tracks: The Only Way Out Of This, The Outside is Temporary, We Own The Sky, Illest Gangsta on the Block
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