Batman's been blessed. Not just by writers who have made him so meticulous that fans are convinced that he can win any fight (and I mean any fight) as long as he has time to prepare, but by composers who understood his world and were capable of making music that fit in and captured the essence of Batman perfectly.
As much as I enjoy the theme to the 60's TV show, it's not really what I'm talking about. Like the show itself, it was great for what it was, but it's not Batman.
It really started in 1989 with Tim Burton's Batman. Danny Elfman was hired to compose the score and he got it perfectly. Much like John Williams' score perfectly captured Superman, Elfman got Batman's music down pretty much perfectly. It was both dark and brooding while having more upbeat and heroic elements, much like Batman himself. Elfman topped himself with the score to the film's sequel, Batman Returns. The score of that film is one of it's highlights. While the villains were nothing like their comic counterparts, Elfman's music complemented these new takes on the iconic characters.
When Fox decided to follow up the success of the Batman films with a cartoon, they even used Elfman's Batman theme and elements of his score. They augmented it with compositions by the late Shirley Walker. She treated the score to the groundbreaking series as if she were composing for a film. Her themes and leitmotifs capture the characters and elements perfectly. She took the ball that Elfman had and ran with it, taking Batman's score to new heights.
When Burton left the franchise and Joel Schumacher took the reins, Elfman left and a new score was made. This is the weakest of the bunch. It's bland, generic and doesn't really fit. The later films were more lighthearted and campy so there's no dissonance as far as mood goes, but it doesn't capture Batman the way the other scores did.
After the disaster that was Batman and Robin, Warner Brothers decided to reboot the series and start from scratch. Enter Christopher Nolan who went to great lengths to capture the characters while putting it into a more realistic Gotham. Hired to write the score for these new films were two Oscar winning film composers, James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. When I first saw Batman Begins, the soundtrack seemed like one of the weaker elements. It wasn't bad per se. It just didn't pop. Also a factor was the fact that I had been spoiled by Elfman and Walker. It had it's strong points, that violin piece they play after Bruce is pulled out of the hole shows you how much it messed him up. A similar piece is played after the Waynes are shot. It works very well.
I downloaded the soundtrack to the film's sequel, The Dark Knight, and have listened to it several times. It's amazing. Listening to it several times and then watching the film again, you see how much the music augmented what you saw on screen. There's not a weak track in the bunch. It takes the same elements of the Batman Begins score and takes it up a notch. It doesn't capture Batman perfectly the way Elfman's score does, but it is a great fit for this take on the character. The more I watch it, the more I start to think that Elfman's score wouldn't work on this take. Zimmer and Howard did something different and in the end it payed off in it's own way.
With the soundtracks to all of these incarnations of Batman available for purchase, your iTunes library will improve drastically. Even if you're not a fan of instrumental music, once you hear the tracks, you'll see that they don't even need words.
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