The Dark Knight

Chaos sits in a darkened corner of Gotham city, rubs its hands together and smiles. It's almost time. In a little while, the forces of insanity and madness will begin a twisted, enraged march through the town, burning it all to the ground as it offers a full challenge to the "Dark Knight" with a limitless grin and a semi-crazy school girl flicker of the eyelids.

The Joker has arrived to town.

James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Village, Collateral, etc.) and Hans Zimmer (Gladiator, Crimson Tide, The Thin Red Line, etc.) once again have seized the essential musical "nector of the gods" and given us mere mortals another taste of bliss with a score that will certainly rival any action-based film for years to come. Here are the standouts...

#1. Why So Serious?- opens the film. This melody gives us a glimpse of the horror that awaits the city of Gotham as a psychotic clown roams the streets with murder and aimless rage on his devilish mind...Read more

Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for The Dark Knight is the best soundtrack CD I've purchased in a while. The music is dark and moody but exciting enough to listen to without succumbing to depression. And at well over an hour long, it also delivers its money's worth, and then some. This is no 45-minute selection of background music, this is a powerhouse score that commands your attention.

Especially good is the electronic-esque theme for the Joker, which dominates the first track, "Why so Serious?" and eerily crops up throughout the rest of the score. Zimmer has said in interviews that he based on the Joker's sound on Kraftwerk, an electronica band from his native Germany. When I first read this I wondered what kind of odd sound this would create, but fortunately there's nothing odd about it whatsoever. It sounds something like Kraftwerk and other European electronica, certainly, but also much like Zimmer's work on Black Hawk Down and is not the least bit...Read more

The score for The Dark Knight is in one word, incredible. Zimmer and Howard have crafted a complete soundscape for this character and the world he exists in. I love the original Batman Begins score to death and the only way that this score surpasses the previous one is that it feels more grounded. The characters and world are already established so the score has something to build off of.

The two-note motif has already become iconic and synonymous with Batman. With this score we get two new themes. The first one is the new motif for The Joker. It's only one note and Hans spent 3 months fine tuning it to become the perfect sound. The first track is pretty much all of The Joker's music. It's harsh, industrial and gritty and I love it. It works so well even if you are more of a traditional score fan and don't like it one cannot deny how well it works with the image.

James Newton Howard was in charge of Harvey Dent. This music had to represent a fallen idol;...Read more