Perfect Storm Soundtrack CD

Original score composed by James Horner.
Producers: James Horner, Simon Rhodes, John Mellencamp, Michael Wanchic.
Personnel: Andy York (vocals, guitar); John Mellencamp (vocals); Mike Wanchic (guitar, background vocals); Miriam Sturm (violin, keyboards); Dane Clark (drums, percussion).
Audio Mixers: John Mellencamp; Mike Wanchic; Paul Mahern; Simon Rhodes.
Recording information: Belmont Mall Studios, Bloomington, IN (05/20/2000-05/22/2000); Todd-AO Scoring Stage, Studio City, CA (05/20/2000-05/22/2000).
Editor: Chris Landen.
James Horner composes and conducts the music for Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm, another film about a star-crossed ship. Horner's sweeping, portentous score mirrors the true story of the crew of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat caught in a deadly Northeaster in 1991. Despite somewhat overblown tendencies on some pieces, the album is a dramatic and emotional piece of film music for an equally gripping movie. Indeed, the score for The Perfect Storm may prove to be as popular as Horner's Titanic music. The album also includes John Mellencamp's theme for the film, "Yours Forever." ~ Heather Phares
If composer James Horner's highest profile follow-up to his Oscar-winning music for TITANIC proves anything, it's that Horner is now the pre-eminent purveyor of scores for big budget films about ships in peril. The music itself is in Horner's usual accomplished but derivative vein, an eclectic mix of classical influences--echoes of Copland, Prokofiev, Mahler, and Rachmaninov--and film composers from Hollywood's Golden Age, in particular Ernest Gold.
The most interesting new wrinkle here is the occasional addition of rock instrumentation, which gives certain selections a vaguely world-beat feel (apparently in lieu of more specific New England sea shanties). John Cougar, however, seems an odd choice to sing the obligatory closing-title ballad; the song itself is pitched at the low end of his vocal register, and he sounds as vaguely uncomfortable with it as Bob Dylan did with his brief turn on "We Are the World."