Artist: Daft Punk
Label: Walt Disney Records
Release: 2011
Length: 58:36
Rating: 2.5/5
First things first: “Tron: Legacy Reconfigured” is a remixed soundtrack for Disney’s film Tron: Legacy. So this isn’t your typical Daft Punk release, since most of the stuff on the record is orchestrally flavored. Most of it aren’t even proper songs, either, because the individual pieces are too short to be called full-fledged tracks. That makes it all the harder to look at the music as a standalone thing, since it’s meant to be felt while watching the movie.
Most tracks run no longer than three minutes, which is exactly why it’s hard to get a complete impression of the music. By remixing pieces from all kinds of composers, Daft Punk wanted to create the music of the future, the music of a cyberpunk world, one that would also hold on to the epic feel the film deserves. Most of the movie takes place in a virtual world with no sunlight, where the tension still keeps building, and the music mirrors that world accordingly. A cold, dark ambient mix of strings, synth sounds and bass does a great job of building atmosphere. But when we take a closer look, we realize it’s not all sunshine and roses. Or black, whatever you prefer.
“Tron: Legacy Reconfigured” is supposed to be the duo Daft Punk’s attempt at fusing classical and electronic music while still staying subordinate to the film. Sadly, it never gets past the attempt: the resulting mix feels crudely put together, the work is devoid of imagination, and it would be easy to find plenty of music better suited to the film itself, even though it wasn’t originally made for Tron: Legacy. The music definitely has some promising moments, especially “Overture”, but it never gets past promise. It’s a foundation that de Homem-Christo and Bangalter should have built on toward a finished work, but as it stands, the finished work is sadly just the seed of what would have made the film truly better.
A two-hundred-million project that offers little beyond fantastic side effects has thus earned itself a very average “second” soundtrack, one that’s a shame to push out as a standalone album. The music certainly doesn’t fire up the listener’s imagination enough to be perceived as an entity in its own right. During a film that clouds our minds with super-shiny effects and 3D technology, attention isn’t on the story and the music, because if it were, we’d soon figure out that neither is worth it. That’s the biggest problem with the music: it has no story to follow, and it doesn’t create one itself either, being more or less just a pile of arrangements with no rhyme or reason. As mentioned, there are parts of the soundtrack that nicely evoke the cyberpunk vibe and the dark world of Tron: Legacy, but there are too few of these individual tracks.
Only the biggest fans of the Tron franchise and Daft Punk will likely pick up the “reconfigured” Tron: Legacy soundtrack. Both camps will probably walk away disappointed. The former because they’re fans purely for the story side (and the first Tron film), the latter because this simply isn’t a Daft Punk record. Of course, it was obvious it had to be released, since it’s a megalomaniacal Disney project after all. What’s sad is that the project in no way lives up to its value, and that with everything geared toward the new 3D boom in movie theaters, the music, to put it plainly, is a nonentity, and its only job is to properly rattle the audience’s seats with its bass.
Lineup
Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
Thomas Bangalter
Production
Daft Punk
Tracklist
1. “Derezzed”
2. “Fall”
3. “The Grid”
4. “Adagio for Tron”
5. “The Son of Flynn”
6. “C.L.U.”
7. “The Son of Flynn”
8. “End of Line”
9. “Rinzler”
10. “ENCOM, Part II”
11. “End of Line”
12. “Arena”
13. “Derezzed”
14. “Solar Sailer”
15. “Tron Legacy (End Titles)”
