The Postman: Music From The Motion Picture (1997 Film) [SOUNDTRACK]

James Newton Howard

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 23, 1997)
• Original Release Date: December 23, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002NJO
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #58,253 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Film Music: A 'The Postman' Symphony!., November 13, 2001

By	Pablo Iglesias Alvarez "Glossu" (Mexico City, D.F. Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

James Newton Howard has composed an incredible piece for this movie. The present CD includes 7 long tracks, quite rare for film-score CD's which usually are broken up in many shorter time tracks. The result is that we get a kind of symphonic arrangement, a device with which the musical content fits perfectly as it has a highly developmental character.

Newton Howard develops beautifully his themes that range from the sublime to the heroic, from tenderness to strong action. I should also note the effective and richly varied instrumentation that blends and supports the constant change of moods and pace.

Independent of the film quality (which I am not addressing here), the original score stands on its own as a magnificent achievement.

Note: This Soundtrack contains 2 main features: a 50 minutes orchestral score by James Newton Howard and 8 Additional Tracks with vocal songs from various composers. My review refers exclusively to the Orchestral Score.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Costner Sings!, August 15, 2000

By	Mr. "alan5973" (USA) - See all my reviews

Being a fan of the film I bought this CD soon after, not mainly for James Newton Howards score, which by the way is breathtakingly brilliant and very powerful, but to listen to Kevin Costner sing the duet, You Didn't Have To Be So Nice, with Amy Grant. He never ceases to amaze me. Sadly, at the time of the films release, Kevin was criticized for being a control freak (acting, directing.....singing) and so I think, had that not been the case, this song might've found its way onto an easy listening radio station. The other vocal songs are nice but this is the best one, so buy it for this song as well as the score and sit back and listen to Mr. Costner flex his vocal chords. Enjoy!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Post-Nuke Music!, August 27, 2001

By	Jason N. Mical (Bellevue, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're reading this, then you probably fall into one of two categories of people: those who liked The Postman and its music, or those who are fans of James Newton Howard and are looking to buy a great soundtrack you might have missed. Fortunately, neither group will be disappointed by this CD. As typical of Howard's movie scores, The Postman offers some varied pieces with the main three themes interwoven throughout. Fortunately, those themes aren't repeated ad nauseum, and the music is varied enough that you can play it for days and not annoy your roommates or family an unusual quality for a movie score. The quiet, subtle layers of the main titles (played as the post-apocalyptic world is introduced) lead into the variations in Shelter in the Storm, and the first echoes of the postman's theme. The villain's theme occurs in, of course, General Bethlehem, and then again in the combination track The Belly of the Beast. The love theme and the postman's theme build in Abby Comes Calling and culminate - with the others - in The Restored United States and The Postman. The rest of the "songs" on this disc are basically throwaways, unless you really have an urge to hear some silly country-rockabilly tunes that played minor roles at best in the film. Fans of Howard will no doubt be impressed by the range of this wonderful composer, and fans of the film can listen to some truly excellent music on the early morning commute. A note: some of the music seems to be mixed poorly, and the entire CD is quieter than most others. To really hear the nuances of some of the tracks, you have to turn your stereo WAY up and then turn it down again as the song gets louder. It's annoying, and it does detract from the overall enjoyment of the disc (in the film, the differences between volumes were no where near as great). Still, I would recommend the first seven songs on the CD to anyone interested in good orchestral music.