The Superhero Theme Project: A Picture of Cyborg

To put it in current Marvel terminology, the Superhero Theme Project has moved into Phase Two. Not only have I appropriated several more orchestral works and assigned them to various characters to function as their theme music, I added graphic tags that display the characters as album art. With this latter innovation, the Little One’s obsession with the playlist has reached an all-time high. She now carefully holds my phone as the playlist shuffles through the tracks, and sometimes asks to carry it around after our commute has stopped. This has made her a bit of a rock star at school drop-off.  One day, we came into her class with Superman blaring through my phone and all her friends crowded around her to see. As I put away her backpack, I overheard them saying “thass cool!” Every day since, we have had a welcome committee wanting to see what superhero is up that day, and she is proud to show them.

While the graphics have allowed me to introduce heroes that she may not have seen in books or TV yet, it’s also reignited her own search for heroes without themes. She recently discovered Cyborg, and became very excited about hearing his theme song. I did not grow up with this character, but he has risen to prominence in the DC Universe in recent years and looks to be a major player in the upcoming slate of movies.

With virtually no personal reference for Cyborg’s motivations, I decided to plunder Daft Punk’s hybridized soundtrack to TRON: Legacy. I was ambivalent about this soundtrack the year it came out, but the passing time has treated it well. Certainly, it boasted a memorable theme or two.  I felt a little strange putting Daft Punk alongside the likes of John Adams and Mussorgsky, but my prejudice against electronically augmented orchestrations have softened a bit since the project’s inception. Besides, it kind of made sense with Cyborg, a character that epitomizes the struggle between man and machine.

No sooner did I settle on to revisiting the TRON: Legacy soundtrack than the Little One asked about Cyborg’s theme, this time during bath. I suggested we put it on, and I played the whole album as we were getting ready for bedtime. The opening track immediately grabbed her attention.



She heard the spoken word section drift in from the living room and asked if Cyborg was talking.  With my fingers crossed behind my back, I said that it was.  With her mouth open in awe, she listened intently.  When the theme kicked in, she smiled and said "that makes me happy." Can’t argue with that.

Although this track definitely has the TRON theme I was looking for, I did not use it. It was too short and, although I rather liked the idea of Jeff Bridges' grizzled ramblings as voice of Cyborg, we had been entirely instrumental so far. I did not want to go so far as to introduce text into the playlist. I ended up using the track titled Flynn Lives.



This track starts a bit quieter than I had envisioned, but it features a clear statement of the theme and a very strong ending.  Of course, “Cyborg” doesn’t talk in this one, so I had an apprehension that she would have clung to that opening track. This was unfounded. She immediately asked for Cyborg during the commute the next day and listened from the back of the car, staring at the graphic with a big grin.  At its conclusion, she triumphantly exclaimed "Cyborg!"

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Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories" Breaks the Spell

Although in many ways, I am still on the fence about the new Daft Punk album, I have to admit I that I am enjoying the controversy that it seems to have stirred up. On the one side, the critics would have people believe that it is the most important album of 2013, but here on the street level it seems that praise for Random Access Memories is very rarely given without some reservation. At worst, a lot of Daft Punk fans, both old and new, simply don’t care for it.

Listening to it, I think this is understandable. Since 1997, Daft Punk has become associated with well-crafted, adventurous house and dance music, a style of “robot rock” reinforced by their mechanized stage presence. Despite releasing relatively little material in the past decade, Daft Punk have garnered a devoted following that hotly anticipated the release of Random Access Memories. As an intentional tribute to late 70s disco and early 80 synth-pop, however, the album is a challenge to Daft Punk’s well-established identity.

Well, we were warned. All of the early press indicated that any fan expecting well-defined electronica would most likely be disappointed, and its true.  The cybernetic pulse of One More Time and Digital Love is largely absent.  In fact, despite the persistence of vocoders and autotune to “robotize” vocals, there is significantly less mechanization present on Random Access Memories than expected. Overall, the album would sound much more at home in a roller rink circa 1978 than thumping at a late 90s rave.



But Daft Punk, in my opinion, have always been innovators. They pushed the boundaries of house music so far that they came to define it. With artists like deadmau5 and Ratatat now occupying the space that has opened up in that arena since their last proper house style release it is logical for Daft Punk to take steps to vacate.  For them to take such a dramatic turn towards nostalgia, however, begs the question: where does the innovation truly lie on Random Access Memories? How does retreading these waters deepen them?

While I do think that the album is enjoyable (not to mention pristinely produced), the tracks that overtly point to that era are not necessarily any better than the music actually of that era. I get the sense that if I really wanted to indulge in that kind of nostalgia, I would do just as well to listen to the artists that originally innovated the style. Daft Punk’s reinterpretations are not offensive, by any means, but not earth-shatteringly great.

What I do like about the album, however, is the proliferation of live instruments, and I think that this is the area in which Random Access Memories pushes Daft Punk into a new field. There are several tracks that feature their classic techno sounds, but also showcase live instruments attacking these textures with an improvisational fervor.



Here, the instinct of human hands plays off the drive of technological automation.  By its end, this tribute to the synth innovator responsible for Donna Summer's I Feel Love becomes an epic drum solo propelled the song's bass sequence.  I think its electrifying and epic - worth the price of admission!  This is the area that I would have liked to see Daft Punk step into with the Tron: Legacy soundtrack in their rearview mirror.

Additionally, with technology becoming more user-friendly and seemingly human in our everyday lives, the metaphor that Daft Punk was previously trying to sustain about themselves as "robots-making-music" could still be intact and, perhaps, even more profound as a "2.0 upgrade." Random Access Memories, however, just makes them seem like really, really talented producers dressed as robots. Spell broken.

Where Have All The Theme Songs Gone? Daft Punk and "TRON: Legacy"

Although I am not a huge fan of soundtracks, every now and then I will pick one up.  I appreciate that TV and movie scores are one of the last arenas in which instrumental music still has the public’s ear, and some compelling scores exist.  For me, scores are most interesting when they work on their own as standalone compositions or when they evoke a particularly distinctive atmosphere that brings the movie back for the listener.  The best ones do both, but I feel like I rarely hear either in most contemporary scores, so there are not many that I get into these days.

Soundtracks did play a significant role in my musical concept, though, particularly John Williams’ work in the late 70s and early 80s.  I have a youthful memory of listening to the original Star Wars soundtrack on my parent’s LP, trying to match the pictures on the inside sleeve with the music.  Furthermore, it was impossible to be a public school band student during that time and not play some of Williams’ work.  I think his work stands on its own quite well, and still helps to keep the sound of the orchestra fresh to contemporary ears.

The thematic style that Williams and other composers used during this era has seemed to fall out of favor in recent times, a tendency reflected in other soundtrack genres.  In the early 90s Angelo Badalamenti’s soundtrack to Twin Peaks was hugely successful in merging atmosphere with melody.  Listening to this soundtrack out of context in everyday life brings back the uneasy surreality that the show created, making you want to peek around corners and talk in poorly executed backwards-masked accents.  Seriously.  I did it all the time.

Now run the clock forward a decade to the "theme" from one cerebral, metaphysical drama to another:

Meh.  Granted, the “theme sound” from “LOST” became iconic in itself, and as a piece of soundscaping it is interesting.  It doesn’t, however, make for particularly engaging listening on its own unless you have a really short attention span.  Now, I certainly don't pretend to say that I could do any better, but considering but how much thought and imagination was invested in the show itself, it seems a little lackadaisical.

Alas, these days, a movie or TV “soundtrack” is usually a compilation of songs that may or may not even be in the originating work.  This works well for the Showtime’s “Weeds,” but that show's producers are quite meticulous about how songs are chosen and placed.  Most of the time, this format doesn't do anything for me.  So, when I heard that Daft Punk was doing the soundtrack for “TRON Legacy,” I thought I might get a theme song out of them, but that was as much as I had hoped. Fitting Daft Punk’s cerebral house-style of electronica seemed to be too perfect a match to actually see light of day. 

But...I have to hand it to them, Disney does have a history of cleverly using of popular music stars, particularly with their 90s animated features.  Elton John is still banking on the “Lion King,” and Phil Collins extended his career by a few more years with “Tarzan.”  These stars lent credibility to Disney’s films by the virtue of their top 40 identities.  With Daft Punk, however, it was a significantly more compelling choice.  Their identity points to a rugged cyberpunk intellectualism that coincides beautifully with the existing TRON universe.  It was no stretch to see that if Daft Punk was given free reign, they would do something that would, at the very least, be appropriate and possibly interesting.

Fortunately it was true, and the resulting “TRON Legacy” soundtrack is actually quite clever and enjoyable on many levels.  Wendy Carlos’ soundtrack to the original TRON blended the orchestral with the synthetic, and Daft Punk’s foray into similar styles is even more seamless than its predecessor.  It is equal parts James Horner and Jean-Michel Jarre, carefully balancing the digital and orchestral with the nostalgic and innovative.

This is the closing credits track.  It encapsulates the idea of soundtrack pretty well in its entirety, particularly when it opens to the orchestral part towards the end.

The soundtrack excels admirably at conveying the bombastic grandeur of a TRON film.  In addition to its overall atmospheric strength, it also has compelling melodies, as well – perhaps to its detriment.  When taken out of the context of the movie, the main TRON theme begins to feel a bit overused.  In other words, Daft Punk is not quite poised to dethrone Williams as the king of clever thematic score composition (although some clever arranging might produce a usable concert medley).  The "TRON Legacy" score may not quite stand on its own as a "work," but I think that the movie would not succeed as well as it does without it. As someone pointed out, although the movie itself is pretty good, as an extended Daft Punk video, it’s quite amazing.

Plus, that theme IS pretty memorable.  And it sounds good in traffic.  Go figure.