The Daily Spin, August 6
Daniel Pemberton | Across the Spider-Verse OST
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse OST
Artist: Daniel Pemberton
Link:
Before anything else, I have to emphasize how worthwhile it is for anyone and everyone to watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. I’m not the hugest fan of simping for corporate properties, especially stuff that slides under the Marvel umbrella, even tangentially, but this movie and its prequel are among the finest animated films of our time.
This review will not contain spoilers for the movie - no need to worry.
Good movie soundtracks will accomplish exactly what they need to - they’ll be present throughout a film to support it, to provide heft when necessary and strike true at the right emotional moments. Great movie soundtracks take that a step further, sticking in your head a little bit after you’ve watched, motifs that clearly illustrate through sound every movement, every moment.
It takes a special composer to create an excellent film score - these are the ones that have lasted long into the public consciousness, the sort of scores that people parody, laugh at, and love with a fervor that other music sees far more regularly. John Williams has done it a bunch through the Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Jurassic Park franchises. Hans Zimmer nailed it with his towering organ displays in Inception and Interstellar, while Howard Shore created a picture-perfect recreation of the Shire in Lord of the Rings through sound alone.
With this score, Daniel Pemberton has, in my opinion, joined that vaunted in-group of people that have established a sound so iconic that it could be nothing less than extraordinary. Though it is at times dissonant and violent, the Spider-Verse soundtracks have consistently nailed every cue, every note, every web movement, every flip, every heartbreaking stretch of endless tension - from the uneasy cues that wrack so many of the villain’s tracks to the leaping joy of Miles’, each and every one of these songs perfectly nails what it is to be a spidersona. There’s almost nothing more you could demand of a score.
Rating: 9.8/10
Best Tracks: Spot Holes 2; Miles Sketchbook; Across the Spider-Verse (Start A Band); Guggenheim Assemble
Worst Tracks: Across the Titles