‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ Soundtrack Gets Pumpkin Orange Vinyl Release
Composer Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of the main character, Jack Skellington.
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the much-acclaimed The Nightmare Before Christmas is set for release on double-disc pumpkin orange coloured vinyl on 22 November.
Originally released in 1993, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy Halloween-Christmas film directed by Henry Selick, and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Ed Ivory.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is set in Halloween Town: a fantasy world populated by all manner of creatures such as deformed monsters, ghosts, goblins, zombies, mummies, vampires, werewolves and witches. Jack Skellington, a skeleton known as “Pumpkin King”, decides to organise the annual Halloween holiday.
Tiring of the same routine every year, and wanting something new, Jack wanders in the woods, stumbling across seven trees containing doors leading to towns representing various holidays. Accidentally opening a portal to Christmas Town, he’s impressed by the bright and cheery feeling and style of Christmas. He presents his interpretation of Christmas to the Halloween Town residents.
However, they fail to grasp his meaning and compare everything to their ideas of Halloween. Jack is dismayed that no one understands the feeling of Christmas, and obsessively studies the holiday but fails to find any further explanation of it. He ultimately decides that it’s unfair for Christmas Town alone to enjoy the feeling and announces that he and the citizens of Halloween Town will take over Christmas this year – with alarming results.
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The Nightmare Before Christmas originated in a poem written by Burton in 1982 while he was working as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation. With the success of Vincent in the same year, Burton began to consider developing The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short film or 30-minute television special to no avail. Over the years, Burton’s thoughts regularly returned to the project, and in 1990, he made a development deal with Walt Disney Studios. Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco; Disney released the film through Touchstone Pictures because the studio believed the film would be “too dark and scary for kids”.
The film was met with both critical and financial success, grossing over $76 million during its initial run. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, a first for an animated film. The film has since been reissued by Walt Disney Pictures, and was re-released annually in Disney Digital 3-D from 2006 until 2009, making it the first stop-motion animated feature to be entirely converted to 3D.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is out on 22 November and can be bought here.
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