I was curious as to how much music the show has, since I had never payed
that much attention to it and instead opted to mearly listen and not keep
track. So this afternoon I watched an ep and skimmed through large portions of
several more. I figure that The Deadly Pyramid has a good fifteen minutes or
more worth of music in its 20 minutes, but maybe I'm off and there's only about
10. What they played sounded like mostly clips of longer themes, so there may
be a considerable deal of music even if one just limits to a single episode.
As I rewound the tape I checked and skimmed other second season eps and
heard many of the same themes, but every so often I would notice that a longer
portion of a theme was played, and I caught a few themes that I didn't hear in
TDP. From that brief check through Cavern of Horrors, Razor's Edge, SWAT Kats
Unlpugged, Cry Turmoil, The Origin of Doctor Viper, and Volcanus Erupts, I
figure I heard what would amount to another ten minutes or so of music not
heard in TDP. But keep in mind that since I wasn't writing anything down, only
glancing at the tape counter, my estimates may be *way* off.
I then went through a few of the first season eps that I remember as having
more music in some of their best scenes not heard in those other episodes.
Night of the Dark Kat, Metal Urgency, and The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice all
appeared to have several more minutes of music that seemed more commom in the
first season, perhaps exclusive? At that point I stopped (I had spent about
two and half hours watching/listening).
I don't know too much about how animated series are put together musically,
but from this brief check it seems as if the musicians create a large amount of
music early on in the production for each season without that much of the
scripts in mind since some themes worked fine in many instances - As good as
the music is, much of it is quite generic, and the selections were frequently
picked and chosen as several second sound bites to set a tone. Since themes
were so frequently faded out or into one another, and other portions were heard
in other episodes, then I'd say that the total length of any single selection
may be at least a couple minutes, and that's assuming that there's only one
version of it (There may be a few in the same sense that the opening and
credits theme differ in length but sound very similar.) My check was so rushed
and disorganized that I haven't come up with any solid figures, but I'd venture
to guess that SWAT Kats has at least 30 minutes of total music, and perhaps
much more, more than a hour or so. Maybe my figures are overly optimistic, I
am making some assumptions about the music I didn't hear, but even if I'm
wrong, just what I heard in those episodes is more than enough to make a
sufficiently lengthed worth while soundtrack. Given what I've heard in movie
soundtracks that run over an hour for a 90 minute film, it makes sense that
there'd be as much.
If, sometime before this afternoon when I really went through and paid
attention to it, I had been asked how to describe SWAT Kats music, I probably
would have said mostly Queen and Metal like with occasional bits of more
standard soft themes and adventurous BGM, but now I realize that those are just
the most prominent type of music, not the majority. Listen to the sort of
tragic music played in Chaos in Crystal when a Kat is turned to crystal and
shattered before his friend, or the softer selections heard when Jake is moping
and depressed in Razor's edge, and don't forget what's heard when Jake and
Chance meet the old lady to give her a tow at the the end of NotD. Themes
such as those take up a much larger portion of the total music than I had
previously imagined. There's also the sort of creepy music heard at the
beginning of TPART and for other Pastmaster appearances and in the scenes where
Jake and Chance fight the (soon to be headless) MetalliKats in MU. I hadn't
really accounted for the amount of simple music heard when the Kats were just
hanging out either, and the adventure themes (Which TDP is *full*of*.) are
lengthy too. After all is said and done, I'm left wondering if the
Queen and Metal music isn't really just a small, but especially prominent part
of the whole soundtrack. And when trying to listen to the music, it was also
kind of frustrating hearing the themes in pieces, and sometimes only very
briefly. A complete CD soundtrack is now more important to me than ever before,
and considering the quality of the music, I think H-B could really make a lot
of money with one.
One of these days I gotta go through the eps and make an official
tabulation, ...one of these days.
|\ __ /| Kevin L. Knoles klknole_at_rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu |\ __ /|
| | | |
\ / Check out SWAT Kats on the Web: \ /
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Received on Fri May 10 1996 - 21:58:44 PDT