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The Alice in Wonderland soundtrack. Okay, first things first, this is not Alice in Wonderland Sings the Hits, otherwise known as Almost Alice, the radio-friendly ‘inspired by’ album that is enjoying a simultaneous release to this soundtrack proper. So an emperor penguin baking in his feathers on a Barbadian beach couldn’t be in so comprehensively incorrect a place as anyone who has turned up to this review expecting to hear about Avril Lavigne trotting out her teen pop shtick (Sk8er Gal is actually now 25-years old. Anyone else suddenly feel very decrepit indeed?). This album instead contains the score for the new Tim Burton-directed, Johnny Depp-starring demi-sequel to those really rather zany books by the Electric Earl Grey Acid Test himself, Lewis Carroll.

If the ass of Burton’s black jeans are nestled in the director’s chair then surely that must mean Danny Elfman has been assigned to composing duties, right? After all, those two have teamed up on more occasions than Tweedledum and Tweedledee, in a creative partnership that is now a good way into its third decade. For Elfman to be absent from his command post at the head of the Alice soundtrack orchestra would suggest that this particular cinematic trip to Wonderland is going to represent something of a departure for Burton.

Well, as it happens, Elfman is all present and correct. And Alice in Wonderland looks set to be very much business as usual for Burton. Maybe to the extent that – much like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from a few years back – the union between film-maker and material seems so naturally harmonious as to dull the spikier instincts that gave us Ed Wood or the best bits from Batman Returns. This undercurrent of conservatism seems exacerbated in Alice’s case, courtesy of its designation as Disney event movie monolith – this status having ensured that the run-up to the release of Burton’s flick has not been dominated by excited anticipatory chatter about its potential artistic merits, but rather by state-of-the-filmic-nation discussion regarding reduced theatrical screening windows and the best route to bolstering DVD revenues.

This money cloud raining on the fires of adventure seems to have got to Elfman too, with his Alice in Wonderland score veering too far over into the lane of caution. This is not to suggest that the music he has conjured up for his nth collaboration with Burton is lousy. It is however infused with a sense of doing what is required and nothing more, in the manner of a bored housewife musing on what she might cook for dinner that evening as she allows her husband to mount her for his brief, weekly eruption of gratification. Opener Alice’s Theme manages to simultaneously encapsulate the merits and the shortcomings of the soundtrack as a whole. Its scurrying strings, its flutes, its brass section bedrock feel just perfect for a characteristic Burton opening credits overhead sweep. But why does it feel so perfect? Because it correlates so closely to what Elfman has previously provided for just that kind of sequence.

Tracks like In the Garden are evocative in the sense that as you listen you find yourself imagining the precise shots to which they will correspond, the exact screen rhythms to which they will play in the finished movie. The problem is that this sensation feels more attributable to Elfman diligently adhering to an aging template, as opposed to any overarching sense of musical brilliance. Throughout the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack atmosphere exists in a state of constant tension with predictability. Earlier tracks like Drink Me and Doors primarily inhabit the latter realm, with the sense of wonder card being as overplayed as the line “Hey baby, I’m Tiger Woods” must have been in pick-up joints the world over during the last few years. Better are the delicate strings of The White Queen and the sly mischief of The Dungeon, while The Cheshire Cat also proves neat enough, with its faint air of eldritch spookiness.

Elfman has remarked that he wanted the Alice in Wonderland score to possess a thematic discipline, in order to anchor the weirdness of the movie’s characters and events. In practice the composer is too disciplined by half, and his soundtrack could have benefitted from taking the now-aged but still-sage advice once offered by his erstwhile Batman soundtrack comrade Prince: Let’s Go Crazy. Probably needn’t worry about that purple banana business though.

You can download the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack as mp3s here
Or get it on CD here

Alice In Wonderland Soundtrack (Score) (OST / 2010) – Track List
1. Alice’s Theme – Danny Elfman
2. Little Alice – Danny Elfman
3. Proposal/Down the Hole – Danny Elfman
4. Doors – Danny Elfman
5. Drink Me – Danny Elfman
6. Into the Garden – Danny Elfman
7. Alice Reprise # 1 – Danny Elfman
8. Bandersnatched – Danny Elfman
9. Finding Absolem – Danny Elfman
10. Alice Reprise # 2 – Danny Elfman
11. The Cheshire Cat – Danny Elfman
12. Alice and Bayard’s Journey – Danny Elfman
13. Alice Reprise # 3 – Danny Elfman
14. Alice Escapes – Danny Elfman
15. The White Queen – Danny Elfman
16. Only a Dream – Danny Elfman
17. The Dungeon – Danny Elfman
18. Alice Decides – Danny Elfman
19. Alice Reprise # 4 – Danny Elfman
20. Going to Battle – Danny Elfman
21. The Final Confrontation – Danny Elfman
22. Blood of the Jabberwocky – Danny Elfman
23. Alice Returns – Danny Elfman
24. Alice Reprise # 5 – Danny Elfman

You can download the Almost Alice soundtrack as mp3s here
Or get it on CD here

Almost Alice Soundtrack (Songs) (OST) – Track List
1. Alice – Avril Lavigne
2. The Poison – The All-American Rejects
3. The Technicolor Phase – Owl City
4. Her Name is Alice – Shinedown
5. Painting Flowers – All Time Low
6. Where’s My Angel – Metro Station
7. Strange – Tokio Hotel & Kerli
8. Follow Me Down – 3OH!3 featuring Neon Hitch
9. Very Good Advice – Robert Smith
10. In Transit – Mark Hoppus With Pete Wentz
11. Welcome to Mystery – Plain White T’s
12. Tea Party – Kerli
13. The Lobster Quadrille – Franz Ferdinand
14. Always Running Out of Time – Motion City Soundtrack
15. Fell Down a Hole – Wolfmother
16. White Rabbit – Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

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