Personal quote For too long, Christopher Young was regarded as the horror composer of the Hollywood business. While he wrote some terrific scores for the genre (Hellraiser, Hellbound and countless others) he was too long overlooked for his other capabilities. To pore emotion into films (Murder in the First and The Shipping News), for his obvious action scoring (Hard Rain and The Core), for his jazzy personality (Rounders, The Big Kahuna) or for his thriller assignments which mixed beauty with edgy on nerve orchestrations (Copycat, The Gift). Basically the last couple of years have shown what Christopher Young really can do. He is so much more then the next horror composer in spe and as usual people had to really find out too late. I mean, Murder in the First was scored for 6 to 7 years until other big scores and opportunities came along. But now, we finally see him at the helm of some projects he wouldn't have scored 10 to 15 years ago, and that can only be entitled as the common sense finally prevailed. Biography Christopher Young was born in Redbanks, New Jersey. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the North Texas State University. His first feature film score was The Power, this in the year 1980. Christopher Young soon became the horror composer to look for, but Hellraiser paid more attention then those low budget movies and his career was on the move. He also scored sequels, with Hellbound: Hellraiser II and The Fly II, scores that exceeded the prime film results. But as Young began to grow so did his style, in a rather usual way. He started to score several better names and The Dark Half, Species, Copycat, Hard Rain, Murder in the First, Entrapment, The Gift and Wonder Boys were at least noticed through the mainstream public. Was this because of the movie or star, through the score or both remains a question but at least he became a well respected composer in Hollywood. Especially Murder in the First was dramatically and emotionally one of the strongest of its time and miles away from the sound we associate with Young's other works. He maintains to stay a rather busy artist and he scored all in 2001 horror The Glass House, action Swordfish as drama The Shipping News, for which he received his ever first Golden Globe nominee. The Core is 2003's big action score while additional work for Spider-Man 2 was lost only in the film. The Grudge takes Young back to the horror genre once more. Comedy (Beauty Shop) and supernatural thriller (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) are more new recent entries new entries! With The Grudge 2, Ghost Rider and Spider-Man 3 Young is set to become the most promising composer for the next year.
A lot of people
have said to me that it's my best score, their favorite score. Of all of my work, it's
certainly one, humorously speaking, that I could give to my parents and not need to make
excuses before they hear it! I had this whole discussion
with Curtis, and he was saying, "You know, Chris, the fans are going to be really
upset if they're not able to locate which scene this cue is accompanying." I said
"Curtis, I love you and everything, but I think you're wrong. I don't think the fans
could give a hootenanny squidaddle about whether or not they can work out if this
particular cue is for this particular scene". I love doing that sound mass
stuff, that bashing racket. I used to call it sonic vomit. Where everyone drops their
pants and the orchestra just lets it all hang out. Even though the film was about
an attack by Martians, I don't think they wanted music that sounded like it came from
Mars. I've always thought a director
that moves from composer to composer every time shows an unfortunate lack of consistency
and coherency in his own work. I think you would have to shove a grenade up Steven
Spielberg's ass to have him say he wouldn't use John Williams. One of the reasons why
Spielberg's works are consistent is because the composer he uses is the same. You play through the
scene, and if you've got a melody, you just play that melody out. You don't worry about
interrupting it to acknowledge something that's happening on the screen... I'm not really
"scoring" the scene; I'm just addressing the atmosphere or the emotion of the
moment. What he was interested in was
sustained, non-melodic ambiences and clusters, a sort of black musical
fog. He
was not looking for melody.
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