Track Listing

1. Blood Diamond Titles
2. Crossing The Bridge
3. Village Attack
4. Ruf Kidnaps Dia
5. Archer & Solomon Hike
6. Maddy & Archer
7. Solomon Finds Family
8. Fall Of Freetown
9. Did You Bury It?
10. Archer Sells Diamond
11. Goodbyes
12. Your Son Is Gone
13. Diamond Mine Bombed
14. Solomon's Helping Hand
15. G8 Conference
16. Solomon & Archer Escape
17. I Can Carry You
18. Your Mother Loves You
19. Tought I'd Never Call?
20. London
21. Solomon Vandy
22. Ankala - Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars 4:12
23. Baai - Emmanuel Jal with Abdel Gadir Sallm 4:37
24. When Da Dawgs Come Out To Play (Album Version) - Bai Burea feat. Masta

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10829 in Music
• Released on: 2007-01-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

Amazon.co.uk Review
Like the movie it accompanies, this score feels very much like an "Africanized" regular Hollywood production--but not too much, so as not to throw off timid viewers/listeners. James Newton Howard wrote his cues for a standard large orchestra, augmented here and there with touches such as exotic instruments, the African Children's Choir, and superstar Senegalese musician Youssou N’Dour. N'Dour contributes vocals to the first track, "Blood Diamond Titles," but for a long stretch after that, it's pretty much business as usual: swelling, portentous strings (almost every track); a syrupy romantic theme ("Maddy & Archer"); pounding action cues ("Diamond Mine Bombed," "Solomon & Archer Escape"). Things pick up again with the three songs tucked away at the end of the CD. The Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars and Sudan's Emmanuel Jal and Abdel Gadir Salim, in particular, deliver a shot of genuine energy that's sorely lacking from the rest of the CD. This soundtrack--and the film--would have been livelier had there been more of that music. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Album Description
Blood Diamond was directed by Edward Zwick (The Last Samrurai, Glory), and features an exotic, African-flavored score by James Newton Howard. James Newton Howard recorded the score in Studio 1 (aka "The Hall") with a 60-piece orchestra and 20-person choir, conducted by Pete Anthony. With orchestrations by Jeff Atmajian, Brad Dechter, Jon Kull and Bruce Babcock. Howard featured many soloists in the film score, including world famous duduk player Djivan Gasparyan, vocalist Youssou N'Dour, Kala Ramnath on violin, Maya Beiser on cello, Pedro Eustache on winds, oud player Attab Hadad and The Senegalese Drum Ensemble.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Soundtrack!
I wasn't expecting much when I bought this soundtrack, I figured it was James Newton-Howard so it's not going to be too bad, but after listening to it the first time I was left in a state of shock!

Tracks such as "Archer and Solomon Hike", "Goodbyes", "Solomons Helping Hand" and many more are just fantastic as Howard uses the main theme in various different ways to trigger different emotional responses for the listener. The whole CD is filled with quality tracks and you can tell that a lot of thought has been given to each of the tracks.

For those who are Howard, Hans Zimmer or Thomas Newman fans I'd highly recommend this soundtrack!

(Just to point out, I liked the soundtrack BEFORE I even saw the film and my review is based upon this.)

A Marvellous Musical Soundtrack with Lots of Wonderfully Lyrical Melodies
I don't think too much of the film, but the soundtrack to it is excellent and very well presented on this CD.

Written by James Newton Howard, it contains many sections involving marvellous melodies of an orchestral nature involving percussion, piano and strings and some very stirring more 'forceful' pieces using more 'ethnic' sounding instruments and singing.

If one recalls how many fantastic musical contributions he has made to films such as 'The Fugitive', 'The Village' and 'Batman Begins' (co-written with another superb composer, Hans Zimmer) you know what to expect even if you've not seen the film.

The sound quality of the CD is flawless and notable for including over 60mins of material - it is definitely worth getting hold of if you enjoyed the film soundtrack or music such as that by him or perhaps Zimmer for the film 'Gladiator', for example, which this has some similarities to.