Black Hawk Down Amazon.com After the success of Gladiator, it wasn't unusual to see director Ridley Scott turn to Hans Zimmer again for the score to Black Hawk Down, his fierce adaptation of Mark Bowden's account of the tragic 1993 American military intervention in Somalia. What was more surprising was the schedule Scott imposed on the German-born composer: 15 days to write, arrange, and record the film's nearly two hours of music. The results of Zimmer's miraculous two-week musical campaign not only belie those constraints; they instantly take their place alongside The Thin Red Line as some of the most compelling music he's produced. The gambit here is simple--portray the combatants as two warring tribes, with their native musics locked in a tense dance for domination. Yet the results are geometrically more complex and artistically rewarding, with thrash guitar and speed metal/hip-hop/martial rhythms encroaching on, then fusing with, the timeless indigenous music of North Africa to become something wholly other. Senegalese vocalist Baaba Maal contributes greatly, as do Algerian worldbeat artist Rachid Tara and the duet of Denez Prigent and Zimmer's Gladiator collaborator Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance). Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros' warm rendition of Thomas More's "Minstrel Boy" also underscores the military's brotherhood. But the real star here is Zimmer, who again takes his quest for "music he's never heard" to yet another rewarding plateau. --Jerry McCulley More info, listen to samples O Brother, Where Art Thou? Amazon.com The best soundtracks are like movies for the ears, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? joins the likes of Saturday Night Fever and The Harder They Come as cinematic pinnacles of song. The music from the Coen brothers' Depression-era film taps into the source from which the purest strains of country, blues, bluegrass, folk, and gospel music flow. Producer T Bone Burnett enlists the voices of Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, and kindred spirits for performances of traditional material, in arrangements that are either a cappella or feature bare-bones accompaniment. Highlights range from the aching purity of Krauss's "Down to the River to Pray" to the plainspoken faith of the Whites' "Keep on the Sunny Side" to Stanley's chillingly plaintive "O Death." The album's spiritual centerpiece finds Krauss, Welch, and Harris harmonizing on "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby," a gospel lullaby that sounds like a chorus of Appalachian angels. --Don McLeese More info, Listen to Samples Diva (Original Soundtrack) More info Listen to a sample! Listen to a 30 second sample! Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris Amazon.com At the time of this show's 1968 Greenwich Village debut, French singer-songwriter Jacques Brel's body of theatrically insightful ballads was already an obscure but deeply influential treasure trove for many American musicians. The revue's success would go on to influence artists as diverse as Leonard Cohen, Bowie (who covered "Amsterdam" shortly thereafter), and Sinatra, and it may even be responsible for one-hit wonder Terry Jacks's revival of "Seasons in the Sun". More important, the pioneering musical-without-a-book helped introduce Brel's oft-brooding, ever evocative art to a wider American audience--and arguably had an evolutionary influence on Broadway itself. This complete reissue of the 1968 boxed set cast album offers up a rich cross-section of Brel's songs about life, death, and love--and typically sharp-eyed observations about the human follies that season them--deftly performed by a cast that includes Elly Stone, Alice Whitfield, Shawn Elliott, and, crucially, rock pioneer, Brel associate, and co-producer Mort Shuman. This new edition fleshes out the set with the sessions' only unreleased song, a sprightly take on the deliciously cynical "The Middle Class." --Jerry McCulley More info, listen to more samples The Lion King - Broadway Cast Amazon.com An Oscar win might suggest a score that would need a miracle to be bettered--but this colorful stage adaptation of Disney's The Lion King does so with flair. Composers Mark Mancina and Lebo M worked closely together to fuse the movie's many disparate elements. Where there was a veritable army exercising creative influences for the animated tale, this brings it all under the wings of a like-minded few. This is genuinely apparent as one track flows into the next. The African rhythms--both vocal and in instrumentation--come across as authentic and original all at once. No doubt this is largely through Mancina's passion for peculiar instruments and the possibilities suggested from nightly live performances. "Grasslands Chant" is a good place to hear this. The hit favorites are here of course, but both "Circle of Life" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" are pleasingly unrecognizable with chorus and shifting beats. Better still is the likelihood they will now be eclipsed by some of the new numbers. Mancina's own "He Lives in You" being a strong contender. With a sound mix as crisp as you'd hope to find, this is rousing stuff. --Paul Tonks More info, listen to samples