Spider-Man’s Japanese soundtrack CD is all Giacchino and no Mrs. GREEN APPLE

Japan’s domestic CD of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day soundtrack goes on sale this week, and it is a score album in the strictest sense: 26 cues by Michael Giacchino, about 77 minutes of orchestra, and nothing else. Audiences who saw the film in Japan also heard Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Brand New”, the song the band wrote as the film’s Japanese theme. It is not on the disc.

That split says something about how Marvel sells one film in two musical languages. In most markets, Spider-Man: Brand New Day sounds like Giacchino, who has now scored all four of Tom Holland’s solo outings, from Homecoming through Far From Home and No Way Home to this one, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. In Japan it also sounds like one of the country’s biggest pop bands. The Japanese CD, a domestic pressing from Sony, picks the orchestra.

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The orchestra is a London one. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, conducted by Cliff Masterson and orchestrated by Jeff Kryka, with Caroline Dale on solo cello and Richard Watkins on solo French horn, while electric guitar, bass and a drum kit sit alongside the strings. As Germany’s Serienjunkies noted, the main theme Giacchino wrote for Homecoming remains the thread through all four albums. The closing cue, “Suite New Day”, which Sony Classical released ahead of the album, runs a little over six minutes, and its official upload on Sony’s soundtrack channel on YouTube has passed 1.6 million views.

Giacchino is known for punning cue titles, and this album pushes the habit hard: “Ned Man Walking”, “Better Off Ned”, “Kiss of the Spider-Man”, “Settling Old Scorpions”, “Always Hulking About”, “Say Hero to My Little Friend”. The Japanese edition prints them as katakana transliterations, so “Ned Man Walking” becomes ネッド・マン・ウォーキング, a string of sounds rather than a joke. Even the closing cue’s pun on “Sweet” goes flat, because スイート is the same word Japanese already uses for both.

For anyone who has already streamed the score, the disc adds no music. It holds the same 26 tracks, in the same order, as the digital album, and the store listings mention no bonus cues or extended versions. Fans who want both halves of the Japanese release, the score and the Mrs. GREEN APPLE song, still need two purchases.

Sony Classical released the album digitally on July 31, the day the film opened simultaneously in the US and Japan, and announced an international CD for September 18. Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Brand New” went out as a digital single on July 13. The Japanese CD, catalogue number SICP-31882, is released on October 16 at 3,300 yen including tax.

The next format is vinyl: Mutant has announced an LP edition of the score but has not yet set a date.

Tags: Marvel, Michael Giacchino, Soundtrack, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, film score, Mrs. GREEN APPLE

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