We Bought a Zoo (Music from the Motion Picture)
Soundtrack album by Jónsi
Released	December 13, 2011
Studio	Newman Scoring Stage, Twentieth Century Fox Studios
Genre	Film soundtrack
Length	51:12
Label	Columbia
Producer	Jónsi Alex Somers Peter Katis
Jónsi chronology
Go (2010) We Bought a Zoo (2011) Manhattan (2016)

We Bought a Zoo (Music from the Motion Picture) is the soundtrack to the 2011 film of the same name directed by Cameron Crowe. The score for the film is composed by Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, lead singer of the band Sigur Rós, released on December 13, 2011, by Columbia Records to critical acclaim.

Background

In August 2011, it was announced that Icelandic musician Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, the lead singer of the band Sigur Rós, would be composing the music scores for We Bought a Zoo.^[1] Crowe confirmed the same on Twitter when he was promoting his documentary film Pearl Jam Twenty. Crowe shared a long history with the band as the they licensed their first pieces of music for use in a film, allowing the former to use selected songs: "Svefn-g-englar", "Agaetis Byrjun" and the live version of "The Nothing Song" in Vanilla Sky (2001). He admitted playing the band's music constantly which inspired it to become the "DNA of his own film".^[2]

Crowe selected a mix of tracks on his playlist, which includes three songs from Jónsi's studio album Go (2010). He said that the album to him "was so intoxicating and positive while still being complex" like "bringing joy and positivity with equal measures of truth and depth with the music".^[3] When the album was played on set, Matt Damon and the associates responded to the music immediately, which intended Crowe thinking that "he would be the right musical voice, if he scores for the film". During the same time, Jónsi mailed Crowe after watching Almost Famous (2000) on television, agreeing to be a part of the film.^[4]

In a November 2011 interview to Uproxx, Crowe recalled that he thought on asking his associates to have Neil Young or Eddie Vedder (both artists were featured on Crowe's playlist mix given to Damon) to score for the film, but ultimately felt Jónsi was the right choice.^[4] He described the choice as "only natural", since "Jónsi has been a part of the making of We Bought A Zoo from the very beginning".^[1][2]

Composition

Three days after Jónsi mailing Crowe, he arrived to Los Angeles for a one-week scoring session, and wrote all the main themes on his laptop. He composed the film's theme as the first for the film, which was a "magical, child-like composition" and played largely on a glockenspiel that created "a sense of awe and wonder". His primary scoring session was happened at the Newman Scoring Stage in Fox Studios, where the director, composer and other music personnel had separate offices, so that all the people who were working on the film were only in this house, he called it as "a really concentrated energy".^[4]

Crowe opined that "The question was could he write stuff based on this movie and based on these characters as opposed to the huge canvas that he'd always written on in the past. It became apparent very quickly that he was up to the task." He further asked him to think of "a cinematic score" while writing, to which Jónsi disagreed and Crowe said "that, he shuts his eyes and gets lost in the musical world". For Jónsi, he felt writing to someone else's vision was the hardest part as "You can be egocentric when writing your own music. But when writing for film, “You have to think in terms of how the movie flows, this scene, etc. I learned a lot from it."^[4]

Release

The album's track list and cover art was officially revealed on November 2, 2011, in which the soundtrack was set for a December 13 by Columbia Records.^[5] On November 15, the first track from the album "Gathering Stones" was released by Jónsi through music streaming platforms.^[6][7] Rolling Stone previewed the soundtrack to stream exclusively ahead of its release in iTunes on December 5, which was followed by a CD release on December 13.^[8]

Critical response

Aggregator Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned We Bought a Zoo (Music from the Motion Picture) a score of 67 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[9]

Reviewing for Pitchfork, Ian Cohen assigned a score of 7/10 and wrote "it's all lovely and certainly more immediately engaging and compact than Jónsi's mostly-instrumental Riceboy Sleeps multimedia project from 2009. But it also has something going for it more important than gorgeous ambience: the Jónsi seal of quality [...] offering the bold and evolving gestures of Jónsi's past decade in a relatively safe and compact design allows the possibility that a moviegoer might come out of the theater curious enough to parlay $10 into a meaningful relationship with Jónsi's music."^[10] A writer from Uncut commented: "It's certainly easy to believe that these sublime pieces could have inspired such a profound reaction [from director Cameron Crowe]"^[11] Marcus Gilmer of The A. V. Club wrote "with Sigur Rós’ hiatus over and the success of Go, this collection stands as a fine next step in Jónsi’s evolving career."^[12] Andy Gill of The Independent wrote that Jónsi "devised a musical backdrop that subtly evokes the innocence, warmth and zoophiliac empathy of the film's message".^[13]

Nianyi Hong of PopMatters wrote "We Bought a Zoo is good enough to quench our thirst for either a new Jónsi or Sigur Rós album. It certainly helps that it does stands out on its own. If anything, We Bought a Zoo makes us take Jónsi’s solo career seriously, not just as an offshoot of Sigur Rós, but as a legitimate project."^[14] Matthew Cole of Slant Magazine wrote "If there’s a hard-to-shop-for Sigur Rós fan in your life, say a little blessing to the spirit of corporate synergy."^[15] NME called the soundtrack "as dreamy and atmospheric as you might expect".^[16] Alex Young of Consequence commented "There’s a stereotype of rock musicians becoming boring and predictable later in their careers, because they’ve run out of issues to bitch about. Jónsi certainly hasn’t reached the tipping point of tedium yet, but maybe it’s doing projects like We Bought a Zoo that is fighting that process we all hope is not inevitable."^[17] Mike Diver of BBC wrote "It’s fair to think that, just maybe, this adulation might lead to ego on the artist’s part hindering his ability to deliver an effective end product, but such thoughts are soon enough dashed by familiar motifs which reassure the listener that Jónsi is on form."^[18]

A review from Mojo commented that the album "can perfectly capture the film's conflicted moods of sadness and euphoria, but just as easily turn cloying and sickly".^[19] Laura Studarus of Under the Radar commented "The highs and lows of Sigur Rós and Jónsi sandpapered to a Prozac-worthy sheen, We Bought a Zoo is a sweet stopgap, but no substitute for a proper follow up."^[20] Jon O'Brien of AllMusic wrote "Despite the several contributions from Go, We Bought a Zoo is more in keeping with his band's experimental symphonies than his own electronica-inspired excursions, suggesting Jonsi should have no trouble slotting back into the Sigur Rós fold for their proposed comeback, but it's still a wonderfully imaginative score which deserves some recognition come awards season."^[21]

Accolades

The song "Gathering Stories" was on the shortlist of 39 songs that are eligible to be nominated for Best Original Song category at the 84th Academy Awards,^[22] which ultimately failed to enter the final nominations.^[23][24] It received a Satellite Award for Best Original Song, which was lost to "Lay Your Head Down" for Albert Nobbs (2011).^[25] Jónsi, however won the BMI Award for Film Music.^[26]

Track listing

Additional music

In addition to Jónsi's score, the complete soundtrack of the film included a variety of artists, which were not in the album.^[27] The track list, according to IndieWire:^[28]

References