Best Pirates of the Caribbean Soundtrack

I know it's another seemingly pointless thread, but it's always interesting to hear what other people have to say about these soundtracks.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
Ever the swashbuckling soundtrack, once it hits that little amazing theme, that's the term isn't it , your blood starts pumping and your adrenaline flows, and it makes you want to be a pirate. The action and adventure of the movie is conveyed through the soundtrack. The soundtrack is simply amazing, and when put together with the sword fights, you have one unstoppable movie. Though it seems as if the theme is used on almost every track.
Rating: 4.5/5

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
When I bought this soundtrack, I was expecting a more swashbuckling soundtrack in esque of the first one. I could just feel the tension rising during the Isla Cruces fight, when Norrington is chasing Jack up the stairs of the belltower, but then it when into another climatic rise. It took me a while to finally like to listen to this track, but now that I do I realize that it is an extremely darker theme than the first one. The movie in whole is darker with Sparrow being chased over the Earth by Jones. But that is like Empire Strikes Back, practically with a main character being killed. My favorite tracks on this soundtrack are 'The Kraken', especially the part near the end where Jones's motif comes in; 'Davy Jones', just a saddening piece of music and 'Hello Beastie', the music is pretty moving, going together with the visuals of Jack being eaten.
Rating: 4/5

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
The new theme that was introduced in this soundtrack is the best thing in this music saga since the first soundtrack. This soundtrack is a bit different in the fact that it has some Asiatic music, a vocal track and a jig. But it still makes for an awesome soundtrack. Especially 'I Don't Think Now is the Best Time' around 7 minutes, that probably one of the best parts of the song and the soundtrack. But another highlight of this soundtrack is 'Drink Up Me Hearties Yo-Ho', when the music shifts from the old 'He's A Pirate' theme from COTB to the new theme in AWE, I've always liked that part. And I bought this before seeing At World's End so you know I had a lot of faith in the soundtrack, and I wasn't disappointed. This soundtrack definitely has more variety than the first one, but the first one has a more action-filled score.
Rating: 4.5/5

Whew, lot's of writing. Now, onto which is my favorite, it either between Curse of the Black Pearl or At World's End, and the winner is, drumroll.....Curse of the Black Pearl. This is probably because it was the first time I had been exposed to this type of music and I liked, and still listen to this soundtrack and it still has the same blood-pumping, adrenaline-flowing style of music as I had experienced in it the first time I had listened it.

And you....

 

I like the one that's not pretentious, boring, extremely reused and derivative, and with fingernails-on-the-chalkboard sound production values. Three guesses.

 

Do you think Cerrabore hates one (or more) of these scores?

Buy yeah, to me the clear winner is At World's End. I can't stand the first one, I actually cringe when I hear it (I also upset quite a few people in the high school band when I told them how much I loathe it and why -- I can be a real ass if I really want to). Apart from the Davy Jones theme, I find the second score boring. But, I have to admit that the third score is quite good. The music for Jack when he is in Davy Jones' Locker is just odd and doesn't even work that well on screen, but it's without a doubt far better than the previous two. It also doesn't hurt that a good portion sounds like a real orchestra.

 

I gotta go with At World's End. As memorable as the first one is, it's too simplistic, repetative, and sometimes a complete rip of Zimmer's other stuff. Dead Man's Chest has a few good themes (the Kraken music and Davey Jones' music), but that's it. At World's End I think, which it still blends in the original themes, adds two very strong new themes: the love theme and Hoist the Colors, which strengthen the soundtrack so much. It's by far my favorite.

 

World's End by far. This score was surprisingly enjoyable in parts and Zimmer even went against his own prediction that woodwinds were on the out in action scores. World's End was much better orchestrated that the other two, with much more counterpoint than one would expect from a Zimmer score. As for the other two, I do not like Dead Man's Chest, and I simply cannot stand Curse of the Black Pearl, due to the poor orchestration and the fact that the score was about 85% sampled. Granted, their music budget was tiny and they only used about a 25 piece orchestra, but the fact that they wanted a bigger sound and had to rely on samples to get there causes the whole quality of the sound to diminish. Not to mention that all of the themes consist of most of the instruments banging away at full volume while the rest provide harmonization. Purely juvenile orchestration.

 

At World's End is the only one of these scores I legitimately liked. It's sweeping and piratey and fun and has a great new theme. It's still Zimmer's usual fare, but he does it really well here. And it actually made me enjoy a rendition of "He's A Pirate" during the wedding/action scene at the end.

Dead Man's Chest has a couple enjoyable spots, but overall it's just loud, aimless noise. I do enjoy the expansion of the fiddle theme from the first score, though. Very entertaining.

As for Curse of the Black Pearl, it's a pile of audible horse-****. It isn't swashbuckling, it's just the same music that Zimmer and Bruckheimer conjured up for movies about submarines, buddy cops, Roman gladiators, and George Clooney looking for nukes. I'm sorry, but the exact same music for those films is not universally appropriate for all those kinds of movies (especially not a movie about pirates).

 

I have to respectfully disagree with the negativaty towards poor old Curse. Other than Gladiator, I haven't seen a Zimmer-scored film (and even then, I can't really recall the music) so for me, the score certainly wasn't familiar and same-old. There are some great moments in the score, even if overall it doesn't continually shine. "The Medallion Calls" is half of what makes Jack's introduction so damn iconic; the swordfight music is swashbuckling; "Barbossa Is Hungry" has some nice moments; "Skull and Crossbones" has that great build-up into the swordfight that really lets Jack's hero moment shine. Finally, "He's a Pirate" is plain awesome.

Dead Man's Chest has some great additions, too, though the second half of the score is a bit weak -- except for rehashes of Curse themes in "Wheel of Fortune". Having said that, At World's End is the clear favourite; every track is a win.

 

Black Pearl is a very simple score but I still find myself going back to it. It gets the heart pounding every time, the themes are rather simple but a score doesnt have to be complex to be fun. Lets remember every composer is not John Williams.


I havent listened to the other scores enough to offer a grade but Im tired of all the criticism that COTBP gets. COTBP is a really fun score and how often can we say that.

 

The beef that most people, myself included, have with COTBP isn't that is too simple (that is an aspect however), but that most of the music is just recycled from other MV scores, regardless of how well it works with the picture. I think what nails the coffin shut for me is that it's insanely popular and people are spouting how great a job Zimmer and crew did when barely any of the music is original.

Granted, they had very little time to turn in a score, but that's not an excuse to recycle music the way they did. Look what James Newton Howard did with King Kong when brought in at the last minute.

 

It may be recycled but it turned out to be immensely popular, and isnt most music recycled when you really think about it

 

So I can grab some music off my friend's hard drive and throw it on a CD, and suddenly I'm the next great film composer? Thank God composition doesn't take hard work or talent or skill or dedication! Actually, (true story) I'm going to college this fall to study composition, but I'll have to drop out right away. It would be an awful waste of time and money. Now, if I could simply get in touch with somebody from Media Ventures, I'd be able to make a living editing music from The Rock effortlessly.

 

Hey Cerrabore, what school are you studying at?

 

1. At World's End

2. The Curse of the Black Pearl

3. Dead Man's Chest


Although DMC comes last, I just LOVE the Davy Jones theme and The Kraken theme. Or cue or whatever, you get the point.

 

Going for a bachelor's at the Hartt School.

 

while I'm certainly no film music snob or anything, I rank CotBP lowest. I've recently allowed iTunes to play it again, since we now have all three, and I'm quickly skipping most of the tracks again.

Originally I hated DMC because it sure sounded like CotBP in a different arrangement, but I've found a little more "depth" since then. Its greatest strength is that the first 3 tracks can very easily be listened to on their own and are good enough that the other tracks are almost irrelevant for my liking the score.

DMC's strength is AWE's weakness. I still can't find an individual track that I love, except Hoist the Colors, but for a different reason. It's not like I'd put that on my mp3-player. Not the Right Time comes close, but it's too long, creating uninteresting stretches. So, AWE is a nice complete listen, but impossible to pick a track out of.

That's why I don't know if I like DMC or AWE better. CotBP ranks last.

 

I hate the first one. I really think the second one is interesting, especially with the Kraken and Davy Jones themes. AWE didn't interest me too much.

 

Dead Man's Chest produced pretty much the only credible piece of music in the series: Jack Sparrow's theme. Not because it is an outstanding composition, though I do somewhat enjoy it, but because it has just an ounce of fun and humor, something most of the series' music is sorely missing.

I haven't heard it, but isn't there a comical waltz that plays during the bar fight? That's probably decent music too.

 

the bar fight has that old traditional (I think) thing. Two Hornpipes.

the funny waltz is the cage swinging. Dinner Is Served.