> In addition to Danny Elfman's largely successful career as the lead singer and
> composer for the band originally titled The Magical Knights of Oingo Boingo
> (later shortened to Oingo Boingo, and then briefly before they broke up,
> Boingo), and in addition to his more popular film and television scoring
> career (which includes Batman, Beetlejuice, Darkman, The Simpsons, Big Top Pee
> Wee, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Nightbreed, Tales From The Crypt, Scooged,
> Edward Scissorhands, Dolores Claiborne, To Die For, Mission Possible,
> Sommersby, Dead Presidents, Amazing Stories, and The Flash, <whew>, Elfman
> composed and sung the lead role of Jack Skellington in Tim Burton's The
> Nightmare Before Christmas (the spoken part of the role was performed by an
> actor whose name escaped me).
 
Truly a contemporary Renaissance dude!
 
> I think that perhaps I might overuse run-on sentences.
>
> Rob
 
A complex sentence, yes, but not technically a run-on ;-)Rob and Ed Owens and
anyone else a fan of Danny Elfman, plus anyone interested in literate writing
about film scoring, should check out the March 9 _New Yorker_, pp. 82-86. Their
music critic, Alex Ross, discusses the state of Hollywood composing; after
dismissing James Horner as "a kleptomaniac who recycles not only others' work
 but
also his own," he surveys the scene from Max Steiner to the present, devoting a
whole paragraph to Elfman ("an expert parodist....also capable of richer, darker
sonorities") and singling out for special praise Howard Shore (who shares with
Elfman a pop/rock music background), composer for _The Game_ and _Seven_.
 
Jim Marsden/Bryant College
 
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