“La La Land – Original Motion Picture Score” (30 tracks; 52 min.) opens with the quiet and very short “Mia Gets Home”, only then to dive into “Bathroom Mirror / You're Coming Right?”, with a jazzier feel to it, and in fact it isn’t long before it’s clear that this score is another outing into jazz, although I’d say that where “Whiplash” was more leaning towards modern jazz, “La La Land” is leaning more towards ‘classic’ jazz as heard in the latter days of the big band era. Check out “Herman’s Habit”, as well as “Summer Montage/Madeline”, “It Pays”, “Surprise”, “Boise”, and “Cincinnati”, all of which are outstanding jazz-swingers. Love it. But there is a lot more than just outright jazz. “Classic Rope-A-Dope” is classic jazz-lounge. “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme” is piano-fronted (Sebastian is a club/bar pianist, after all). “Bogart & Bergman” is a flute-and-violin fronted romantic interlude. “Planetarium” is an all-orchestra beauty of a track. “City Of Stars/May Finally Come True” is the one track on here that features both Gosling and Stone on vocals. The album closes appropriately with a reprise of “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme”, this time xylophone-fronted. As you can tell from the number of tracks (30) and the score’s running time (52 min.), a lot of these tracks are short, very short (10 of them less than a minute, another 12 less than 2 min.), but somehow it all hangs together quite well. Please note that several of the tracks on here are also included in the Original Soundtrack release (including “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme”, “Herman’s Habit”, “City of Stars”, “Summer Montage/Madeline”, “Planetarium”, and “Epilogue”.
1 | Mia Gets Home |
2 | Bathroom Mirror / You're Coming Right? |
3 | Classic Rope-A-Dope |
4 | Mia & Sebastian's Theme |
5 | Stroll Up The Hill |
6 | There The Whole Time / Twirl |
7 | Bogart & Bergman |
8 | Mia Hates Jazz |
9 | Herman's Habit |
10 | Rialto At Ten |
11 | Rialto |
12 | Mia & Sebastian's Theme (Late For The Date) |
13 | Planetarium |
14 | Holy Hell |
15 | Summer Montage / Madeline |
16 | It Pays |
17 | Chicken On A Stick |
18 | City Of Stars / May Finally Come True |
19 | Chinatown |
20 | Surprise |
21 | Boise |
22 | Missed The Play |
23 | It's Over / Engagement Party |
24 | The House In Front Of The Library |
25 | You Love Jazz Now |
26 | Cincinnati |
27 | Epilogue |
28 | The End |
29 | Credits |
30 | Mia & Sebastian's Theme (Celesta) |