3 out of 5

Label: The Null Corporation

Produced by: Atticus Ross, Trent Reznor

On the Punk Rock MBA’s youtube channel, the host recently made a comment – not disparagingly, just observing – that a lot of modern hits didn’t seem as hook focused, and moreso appealed based on vibe. His proposal was that this was an extension of how a lot of music is discovered nowadays – through short bursts on social media. While I think you can justify or disagree with this logic / concept in various ways, I do agree that the 2020s era of music has a different feel overall (as does every generation), and it is perhaps a bit more wishy-washy in some ways, as genres are more freely mixed; “hooks” could just be defined by different terms, maybe.

Over on the youtube channel for my own private thoughts that doesn’t exist except in my head, I would’ve reasoned something similar about movie soundtracks / scores. Scores have always been a big business, but as with all things music over the last many years, musical production – including making movie scores – has become a lot more accessible, and studios’ tolerances for soundtracks that very much span beyond the typical orchestral style of yore have been stretched by the proliferation of talents who’ve popped up scoring indie flicks, and the generations of composers following your classic composers who’ve adopted some more modern styles of music-making. From this evolution, when I listen to a lot of modern scores, I often hear a particular lacking of theme. I’m not saying it’s not there, but I don’t often get that identifiable music sting that once seemed to be a requirement – some element that just became tied in to the flick. And it’s always been hard to craft one that lasts beyond the movie, but it’s more that structuring scores around such themes isn’t as common of a practice anymore, and furthermore to the extent that I can’t always say I walk away from a score feeling like it really creates any standalone feelings outside of the movies they accompany.

Whether or not this is “bad” or how one should listen to a soundtrack… all stuff for debate. Specific to Trent Reznor’s and Atticus Ross’ soundtrack for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, this is a really listenable score, thanks very much to the reliable talents of our composers, but that’s almost reflexive: Reznor and Finch have become a known quantity when it comes to film scoring, and not that they’re phoning it in by any means, but this sounds like a Reznor and Ross score: heavy fuzzy basslines, bomping beats, and killer atmospherics; I’d imagine our filmmakers were fans, and they wanted a particular sound, and that’s what they – and we listeners – got. There is no traditional theme; there is nothing here that identifies to me as a “Turtles” sound, which is new; I’d say that even the Bay soundtracks had a bit of something there, even if it was lame nostalgia baiting, that read as a TMNT score. In place of a theme, Reznor and Ross have some recurring concepts, but they are of their own template, and don’t feel specific: the moody beats of the opener; the skate-punk digital pep of “New Form of Life Itself” – probably the closest thing to a theme, as its video-gamey bleep structure is reused a few times – the discordantly gentle atmospherics of “Dipshits On A Roof…” and mostly repeat that cycle for 30 tracks, save a couple of intriguingly delicate piano tunes.

To the duo’s extreme credit, while a lot of this is scored by what I’d call cues – very short snippets, meant to accompany only the scene and nothing more – the score is, as stated, eminently listenable. It swings between those modes at a good pace, and Rez / Ross mix up the beats and add enough extras buzzes and flourish to keep the cycle exciting. So even the cues very much feel like full songs. But the lack of a theme – the lack of a feeling behind the score – ultimately makes it feel pretty disposable. Fairly, I’d say the movie struggles with creating a theme / feeling also, so it’s accurate in that sense, but I would’ve wished such talented composers could maybe have picked up some of the slack there; even as the music heads into the movie’s concluding battle, it all hits at about the same level as the other tracks, head-bobbing, toe-tapping, but not necessarily memorable.

Mutant Mayhem the movie was cool. It’s a good start for a new generation of TMNT, but it needed more definition. Reznor and Ross have established themselves in the score world, and this follows suit in regards to their general sound, though also syncs with that lacking definition.