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Must Listen: Rolling Stone Previews Jónsi's 'We Bought a Zoo' Score

by Alex Billington
December 7, 2011
Source: Rolling Stone

Ever since we first learned that Sigur Ros front-man Jónsi was going to be scoring Cameron Crowe's new film We Bought a Zoo, I've been impatiently waiting to hear how it turns out. When I finally saw the film at its sneak preview (review) it was part of what made me so emotional watching the movie. I feel it might be my favorite score of the year and now that I've finally had the chance to listen to it on its own today, I can say that it likely is. Rolling Stone has posted an exclusive preview of the entire soundtrack for We Bought a Zoo, which you can listen to before it's released next week. I am in love with this score, it's exceptional!

To listen, you can stream through the Flash player via Rolling Stone's site. And here's one of Jónsi's tracks sampled below. I'm a huge fan of Sigur Ros and I think it works so perfectly for the film, both in its ups and downs (you'll hear them throughout the soundtrack). If you want to pre-order this entire thing in full (which I've already done), you can get it on iTunes or Amazon (via Jonsi.com). Listen to "Gathering Stories":

The score was composed by Jónsi, who worked on this with Crowe in Los Angeles and at his home in Iceland for four months this summer. "Early on it was obvious that [Sigur Rós'] music would have a profound effect on the making of We Bought a Zoo," says Crowe. "We gave all the actors and crew members a copy of Sigur Rós' transcendent documentary, Heima." And he adds that "the actors listened to the music during their takes; it quickly became part of the film's DNA," which is why they knew they had to choose Jónsi and use his music for this. Even though this is a "family film", it's still a wonderful film and this score brings such a tremendous amount of emotion and warmth to it. It certainly deserves some serious awards consideration.

"Jónsi arrived from Iceland with a toy sampler keyboard and a headful of ideas," recalls Crowe. "Within a week, [he] had composed a series of themes that would reflect everything we'd hoped for. In his music were all the highs and lows and passionate in-betweens of the film itself. The instinct that made the movie come full circle." So give it a listen and let us know what you think of it as well. It's one of my favorites of 2011.

Filed under Awards, Feat, Hype, Movie News

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