With Halloween and Christmas around the corner, now is the perfect time for another soundtrack release to Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Nightmare Revisited features new versions of the classic Danny Elfman songs performed by some of rock’s most popular artists.
“DeVotchKa Overture” opens the soundtrack with a haunting instrumental cover by Denver indie-rock band, DeVotchKa.
“Opening” Legendary film composer Danny Elfman continues the haunting journey.
“This Is Halloween” Marilyn Manson, a long time fan of Nightmare, offers a chilling cover of this Elfman classic [DOWNLOAD].
“Jack’s Lament” The All-American Rejects present a surprisingly evil acoustic cover. However, it is not as haunting as it could have been if a hard rock band performed it — but I guess it is good enough for them.
“Doctor Finkelstein/In The Forest” Amiina, an Icelandic musical quartet, offers this solid effort. They are clearly a very talented strings group with excellent production.
“What’s This?” Flyleaf, the other hard rock band with the female vocalist, rocks hard on this tune. Although, this has a very catchy drum beat, it does not compare to the original soundtrack version.
“Town Meeting Song” The Polyphonic Spree, the Dallas vocal group with the cult-like wardrobe, offers this nearly nine minute epic. This song makes this movie perfect for a Broadway production…start the auditions.
“Jack and Sally Montage” The Vitamin String Quartet flawlessly performs this montage.
“Jack’s Obsession” Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous sings as high as he possibly can, where it sounds sort of ridiculous in several areas. However, the simple acoustic arrangement of the song is pleasant.
“Kidnap The Sandy Claws” Nu-metal pioneers, Korn, rock this tune out in their usual form. From the opening note, the listener can tell that they are hearing Jonathan Davis and Korn. After all, we did state that Korn are rock pioneers [DOWNLOAD].
“Making Christmas” Rise Against offers a blended concoction of emo and punk rock on their cover. The song becomes interesting at the 2 minute mark when the guitars take over [DOWNLOAD].
“Nabbed” The Yoshida Brothers are a cool Japanese band that you may remember from the early Nintendo Wii commercials a couple years ago. This song offers an eastern feel that is enjoyable and refreshing.
“Oogie Boogie’s Song” Rodrigo y Gabriela are amazing classical guitarists that always offer a fresh interpretation of classic songs [Check out their version of Metallica’s “Orion”]. “Oogie Boogie’s Song” is no different — in fact I am dancing the samba this moment as I type [DOWNLOAD].
“Sally’s Song” Amy Lee, the other female hard rock vocalist [Evanescence], sings this ballad using her passion-goth-rock filled voice.
“Christmas Eve Montage” RJD2, an electronica artist, offers a fusion of 70’s style Beastie Boys beat stomping techno on his cover.
“Poor Jack” The Plain White T’s perform this cover in a manner that is almost as annoying as “Hey There Delilah.”
“To The Rescue” Datarock contributes their Norwegian brand of instrumental dance rock to the soundtrack.
“Finale/Reprise” The Shiny Toy Guns fuse obnoxious drum loops and Beach Boys harmonies on their offering.
“Closing” The composer, Danny Elfman, ends the story. Too bad Vincent Price is no longer with us — his narration would have been perfect.
“End Title” The Album Leaf, solo project of Jimmy LaValle, closes Nightmare Revisited.
This soundtrack revision does offer some fresh takes. We recommend downloading the killer tracks by Korn, Marilyn Manson, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Rise Against. However, everything else is pretty much filler.
Rent Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas at
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