Theodore Shapiro - Trolls World Tour (Original Motion Picture Score) '2020

Tracks list

From the upbeat, jazzy sounds of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA to the jungle-adventure
send-up of TROPIC THUNDER and the sentiment of last year’s hit MARLEY &
ME, composer Theodore Shapiro has consistently delivered memorable music for
some of the funniest movies of the past five years. But in a corollary to the
old acting bromide “dying is easy, comedy is hard,” Shapiro steps
gingerly when adding music to the antics of a Jack Black, Ben Stiller or Owen
Wilson: “If you’re ever making a gesture that gives the audience
permission to laugh, you have to be very judicious with it,” he explains,
“because the worst possible thing you can do is to push the comedy too
hard.”

His careful touch has made him a sought-after collaborator for some of
Hollywood’s leading comedy directors: David Frankel (THE DEVIL WEARS
PRADA, MARLEY & ME), Stiller (TROPIC THUNDER, ZOOLANDER No. 2), John Hamburg (I
LOVE YOU, MAN, ALONG CAME POLLY), Mike Judge (IDIOCRACY) and, most recently,
Harold Ramis (YEAR ONE). Shapiro, 37, is a rarity in modern film music: a
classically trained composer (bachelor’s degree from Brown,
master’s from Juilliard) who, despite commissions for classical works
(including a well-received piano concerto in 1999), decided he’d rather
be working in film. “A lot of the seminal cultural experiences of my life
were in the movie theater,” he says during a writing break at his
comfortable Glendale, Calif., studio. “As a 9-year-old boy, RAIDERS OF THE
LOST ARK had a major impact on my life. I’ve always been very connected
to the medium.”

Shapiro followed the usual route for a fledgling film composer: low-budget,
independent films, often made by friends, one of which, Karyn Kusama’s
GIRLFIGHT, won major awards at the Sundance Film Festival and led to a two-film
collaboration with celebrated playwright (and sometime film director) David
Mamet, on STATE AND MAIN and HEIST. Director Todd Phillips liked
Shapiro’s thriller score for HEIST and hired him for his 2003 comedy OLD
SCHOOL. Its success, in turn, led to Shapiro’s current status as
Hollywood’s go-to composer for edgy comedic fare: STARSKY AND HUTCH,
DODGEBALL, FUN WITH DICK AND JANE and others.

But it’s never simple, Shapiro says. “If the movie works,
it’s because there is something emotionally satisfying — and if
you don’t get that part right (as a composer), then you’re going
to hurt the movie.” For the hit Meryl Streep-Anne Hathaway movie THE DEVIL
WEARS PRADA, for example, “a portion of the score had to do with the
energy and excitement and glamour of the fashion world. But an equally large and
important aspect of the score was about the main character’s
self-actualization and growth.” The Will Ferrell ice-skating comedy BLADES
OF GLORY demanded “an epic sports score,” Shapiro noted, while
TROPIC THUNDER — set in Southeast Asia, where actors making a movie are
caught up in real wartime action — required “the orchestra, a rock
band, ethnic specialists, vocal soloists and taiko drum ensemble. We played it
completely straight,” he points out, which only added to the fun.

And when it came to one of last year’s biggest hits, the dog-centric
Jennifer Aniston-Owen Wilson comedy MARLEY & ME, the balance was even more
delicate because of its much-talked-about finale. “The emotional wallop of
the movie’s last third simply didn’t exist before Teddy composed
the gorgeous, elegiac theme that carries the film to its bittersweet
ending,” says director Frankel. “Teddy’s range as a composer
is astonishing, but even more valuable is his ability to capture perfectly the
emotional rhythms of a film.”

This summer’s Shapiro scores include I LOVE YOU, MAN, which needed just
five minutes of original music, and Year One, the Jack Black caveman movie that
needed much more, but also a more primitive soundscape featuring brass,
percussion and harp. Upcoming is a reunion with director Kusama on JENNIFERS
BODY, a horror-comedy written by Diablo Cody (Juno).Says Shapiro:
“I’m excited to come to work every day. I enjoy the craft of film
composition. I just want to keep challenging myself and having the opportunity
to work on movies that I really love.”

Tracklist:
01. Theodore Shapiro - Behold the Pop String (1:30)
02. Theodore Shapiro - To Queen Poppy (1:25)
03. Theodore Shapiro - The Six Strings (0:42)
04. Theodore Shapiro - Queen Barbs World Tour (1:54)
05. Theodore Shapiro - Aboard the Flowerface Balloon (1:44)
06. Theodore Shapiro - Journeys Begin (1:50)
07. Theodore Shapiro - Symphonyville (1:48)
08. Theodore Shapiro - The Pinky Promise (1:49)
09. Theodore Shapiro - The Woodwind for the Job (0:37)
10. Theodore Shapiro - To Queen Barb (1:41)
11. Theodore Shapiro - Arriving in Lonesome Flats (1:12)
12. Theodore Shapiro - Jailed (0:36)
13. Theodore Shapiro - Hickory to the Rescue (0:51)
14. Theodore Shapiro - Trolls is Trolls (0:37)
15. Theodore Shapiro - Smooth Jazz Chaz (1:41)
16. Theodore Shapiro - A Broken Pinky Promise (2:05)
17. Theodore Shapiro - Coopers Origin Story (0:38)
18. Theodore Shapiro - The Truth of Who We Are (1:02)
19. Theodore Shapiro - Good Queens Listen (2:17)
20. Theodore Shapiro - Hickory Split (1:30)
21. Theodore Shapiro - Barbs Mission Accomplished (1:43)
22. Theodore Shapiro - One Nation Under Rock (1:49)
23. Theodore Shapiro - Your Former Leaders (0:57)
24. Theodore Shapiro - Branch to the Rescue (1:14)
25. Theodore Shapiro - Zombified (0:51)
26. Theodore Shapiro - Poppy Destroys the World (1:03)
27. Theodore Shapiro - Heartbeatbox (3:23)
28. Theodore Shapiro - Done with My Nap and Ready to Party! (0:10)

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