Track Listing

1. The Time of Your Life
2. The Flik Machine
3. Seed to Tree
4. Red Alert
5. Hopper and His Gang
6. Flik Leaves
7. Circus Bugs
8. The City
9. Robin Hood
10. Return to Colony
11. Flik�s Return
12. Loser
13. Dot�s Rescue
14. Atta
15. Don�t Come Back
16. Grasshoppers� Return
17. The Bird Flies
18. Ants Fight Back
19. Victory
20. A Bug�s Life Suite

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12922 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-16
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

From Amazon.com
One of the truly great ironies of modern American pop culture is the evolution of Randy Newman, social critic and songwriter superb, into one of the 1990s' preeminent scorers of animated films. As in Toy Story, Newman's music for A Bug's Life forms much of the crucial human dimension of the computer-generated visuals, replete with an upbeat, if ever-so-slyly fatalistic "theme" song, "The Time of Your Life." Newman's mastery of the orchestra sparkles here as he playfully romps from '40s-tinged big-band swing through Stalling-esque parodies and tomfoolery to mock-heroics worthy of Korngold and Waxman (or Randy's uncles--Alfred, Lionel, and Emil--for that matter). The brain trust at Pixar may have made impressive strides in forging their digital illusions of life, but they still seem eons away from replicating the musical synapses of Randy Newman's brain. If Walt's impending, much-rumored big thaw actually works out, will Newman be next in line for the Disney deep freeze? --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

It's not about food. It's about keeping those ants IN LINE!
A Bug’s Life Soundtrack

The tagline for this 1998 CGI insect flick – Pixar’s equally impressive follow-up to ‘Toy Story’ – is ‘an epic of miniature proportions!’ This is also true of the score; the delightfully strange epic quality of the story (it’s about ANTS, for Pete’s sake!!!) is well reflected in Newman’s music, which is a quirky blend of cartoonish slapstick dissonance and melodic Western-like gushing, plus a whole lot more in-between the two.

It’s a pacy soundtrack, that tends to flick (or is that ‘Flik’?) between comic and sensitive nuances by the second. If you can keep up, there’s much to enjoy. Music accompanying the sections of narrative relating to the ant colony contains a likeably varied array of thematic material, a major feature of the more general ‘ant’ underscoring being a pentatonic five-note scale, which I hesitate to say, creates key signatures that sound astonishingly ant-like (!), giving the distinct impression of uncomplicated yet somehow dutiful characters. Again to Newman’s credit, the soundtrack always feels like the outdoors. You can almost breathe the lazy spring air wafting through the dandelions of Ant Island as you listen, I kid you not.

Tracks on the CD relating to the main supporting characters of Francis, Slim, Tuck & Roll and the other pitiful clownish failures make for a welcome contrast with their upbeat circus-themed stylistics, while the Kevin Spacey-and-his-jerkish-grasshopper-buddies motif is fun with an appropriate measure of menace. My favourite theme, however, is a pacy and aggressive action melody which occurs three or four times in the movie (heard first in the track ‘Red Alert’), which is just fantastic, because it apparently signifies nothing more than instances in which ‘every character onscreen runs around in a panic in all directions!’ Top stuff.

It's a must for all you Disney fans of the hit pixel movie
This is one of the best soundtrack cd's around although disney never created the traditional songs throughout the movie. Its a testament to the lavish score that accompanies the brilliantly animated film. My particular favourites, where the Randy Newamn end title track The time of your life and the opening siganture tune. thers the obviouse annoying short insegnifigant tracks lasting a few minutes that you don't tend to notice but there are some suprises .All that i can say other than that is buy it