I was originally going to post BOMB's Hate Fed Love today, but I found that it is available digitally, despite having looked for it thoroughly. I may still do a post about it eventually, but for now it's on to plan b.
If you don't know about The Nightmare Before Christmas, it's really worth your time to check it out. The stop-motion animation is fantastic, the songs are great and the characters very memorable. That said, credit must be given to Tim Burton for crafting the story and not allowing Disney to exploit the hell out of it with straight to video sequels, although they tried by doing two special edition versions of the soundtrack. The first version, which is a deluxe reissue, is pretty great as it features the original soundtrack, four of Danny Elfman's original demos (six if you bought it at Best Buy) and some covers by an oddball cast of characters featuring Fiona Apple (great cover of Sally's Song!) and Marilyn Manson. Yeah, seriously, Manson on a Disney sponsored release.
The second release was named Nightmare Revisited and, as far as I'm concerned, can be ignored. It features the entire album covered by today's hottest artists! (Insert announcer voice over those three words) Not all the bands are awful but I find tribute albums ridiculous, especially if the artists are there for their popularity and not their love of the source material. So let's just act like it didn't happen.
The only thing that would have made the deluxe reissue of the soundtrack better would have been if Danny Elfman's complete demo tape had been included with it. I don't believe the complete recording is circulating, at least not widely, but I came upon a copy MANY years ago (1994? 1995?) when a friend who worked for Disney provided me with a tape. At the time I wasn't so interested in the demos as they aren't terribly different from the finished versions, but time has taught me how wrong I was, especially after finding that almost everything on the demo tape is Danny Elfman all by himself! That's including vocals, of which I believe Sally's Song is the only piece he doesn't sing on! Elfman is a brilliant guy and these songs are great, so it really bothers me that they wouldn't release these wonderful recordings in a complete fashion, so I'm posting them for your enjoyment!
Before giving you the link and track listing, I want to take a moment and talk about the quality of the files included here. These are transferred from a consumer grade TDK cassette, of which the left channel is almost not present. This isn't due to deterioration, the tape has always been like that, and it is a major frustration. I tried boosting the volume of the left channel but got TONS of hiss from doing so, which is why I decided to post these as mono recordings using the right channel only. The tracks being mono is why the file size is so small, so if you're thinking this is a low quality encode, I want you to know these are V0 encoded MP3s, but only one channel. If it were in stereo it would be around sixty megs. It's worth noting that I kept the original, raw stereo files and if anyone thinks they might be able to make it sound better, I am more than happy to send you a copy of the raw tracks, but that left channel is awful. In fact, during Making Christmas, it's practically not there! So, if anyone wants to take on the challenge of remastering the tape, drop me a line!
Danny Elfman - The Nightmare Before Christmas Demos
01 This Is Halloween
02 Jack's Lament
03 What's This?
04 Town Meeting Song
05 Jack's Obsession
06 Kidnap The Sandy Claws
07 Making Christmas
08 Sally's Song
09 Oogie Boogie's Song
10 Poor Jack
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