Nightmare Before Christmas (Special Edition)

iTunes Review

Tim Burton's stop-motion holiday musical mash-up has long since gone from cult favorite to bona fide seasonal classic. Not the least of its charms is Danny Elfman's seductively macabre song-score, a musical romp that's the perfect fusion of his oft-mordant tunesmithing for Oingo Boingo and the Gothic-lite sensibilities of his subsequent film scoring career. Like a Broadway vet, Elfman's songs and orchestral score ably map both the exteriors of Burton's trans-holiday fantasy and the often bittersweet interiors of its characters. He's literally invested himself in much of the work here — that's Elfman singing Jack Skellington's parts — conjuring the dark spirits of "This is Halloween," the bittersweet "Sally's Song" and Phil Harris-channeling spookfest "Oogie Boogie's Song" at one turn and the irrepressible, contrasting holiday spirits of "What's This" and "Making Christmas" the next. Elfman's masterful song-score is supplemented here by a bonus track set featuring five of the soundtrack's key songs performed by contemporary artists, as well as the first official release of four of Elfman's own original, impeccably produced song demos. Marilyn Manson and promising Las Vegas newcomers Panic! At the Disco transform "This Is Halloween" into a brooding industrial show-stopper and ambitious, operatic neo-prog pop, respectively, while Fiona Apple casts "Sally's Song" as compelling ambient-meets-chamber group cabaret. Fall Out Boy's take on "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" is a standard issue punk-pop turn, though She Wants Revenge gives "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" a considerably darker, electronica-suffused edge.