Available on: Walt Disney 2xCD

If you’re a child of the ’80s and a techno fetishist to boot, the thought of Tron’s light cycles and disc battles really get those tears of nostalgia flowing. For those unacquainted, Tron was a cult Disney film released in 1982,  bathed in a blue neon glow of early digital graphics, and as such the first motion picture blockbuster to explore themes of virtual reality within computer games. Whilst critics of the era were somewhat nonplussed by Tron’s robotic inhumanity and focus on visual awe over narrative, for a generation of children soon to be fascinated by the vocoder voices of the Transformers, the tumbling four colour grids of Marble Madness and the chip-tune polyphony of the Commodore 64, it was a genesis moment, a creative zenith of visual futurism and arcade aesthetics. In an era where we take touch screen phones and motion control console games for granted, it now seems even more prophetic as it once did in the summer of ‘82.

And as for messrs Bangalter and Homem-Christo, the quality of their back catalogue is largely indisputable, bar the tragic snooze fest that was Human After All. Few producers have managed to make the giant steps from acid house ravers (watch this ancient video now!) to mainstream cultural icons in the way they have. From the Franco-Japanese manga opus that is Interstellar 5555 to the  Michel Gondry video for ‘Around The World’ and their directorial debut Electroma, “les Dafts” have always utilised film and other visual media to great effect in their work. “Daft Tron” on paper seems pregnant with promise, two cult classics in a Disney-sponsored big budget clusterfunk. Thus it’s a bit of a shame that this soundtrack doesn’t quite deliver the exhilarating charge that was expected, and I’m not entirely convinced you can place all the blame on the composers either.

Not that the music is fatally flawed or a poor listen – rather, it’s just not as Daft as it ought to be. As Jonny Trunk, veteran soundtrack collector, suggested in his preview commentary for Fact, “maybe Daft Punk wanted to play it more in their own style and were restricted by the Disney machine. Or maybe they really wanted to try their hand at proper classical scoring, in which case their attempt is decidedly average.” There are moments where it all falls into place – the pounding acid of ‘Derezzed’, the wonderful Mark E styled slow motion electro-disco of ‘End of Line’, or ‘Solar Sailor’, which pairs romantic strings over subtle synth arpeggios reminiscent of Vangelis. The trouble is that the classical pieces, which dominate the 22-strong tracklist, are functional but boring, mechanical adagios which undoubtedly evoke the grid landscape of Tron brilliantly in the film, but lack the fizzling inspiration necessary to command repeat listens at home. It’s like listening to the ‘Imperial March’ from Star Wars on repeat, with an occasional italo-disco interruption, or as my friend worded it in the pub last night, “Barber with a hint of bitcrusher”.

Hollywood and pop music can make for an unpredictable partnership. Two recent attempts that got it right were Pharrell William’s wonderfully childlike beats for Despicable Me, or Johnny Greenwood’s brooding score for There Will Be Blood – both successes because the artist was able to create them freely within the context of the brief. With Disney, we’re talking about a studio that is synonymous with ‘Hakuna Matata’, ‘Under The Sea’ and ‘The Bear Necessities’, and thus sneaking a distorted 303 and a pounding kick drum into the closing credits of a kid’s film could be viewed as a subversive triumph of sorts. Certainly ‘Tron Legacy (End Titles)’ is the finest thing on offer here, and if the film is as epic as the trailers suggest, will definitely have spines tingling and tear ducts flowing in front of the big screen. It’s just a pity there aren’t as many daft beats and punk basslines as there are robo-glissandos and clockwork fugues, because this deserved to be a winner.

Mr. Beatnick