The Dark Knight (soundtrack)
| The Dark Knight: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | ||||
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| Soundtrack album by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard | ||||
| Released | CD July 15, 2008 LP August 12, 2008 Special Edition December 9, 2008 |
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| Recorded | April 4, 2008 - April 30, 2008 | |||
| Genre | Film score | |||
| Length | 73:24 | |||
| Label | Reprise, Warner Bros. | |||
| Batman soundtrack chronology | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
Collectors Edition cover
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Empire | |
| Film Music Magazine | B |
| Filmtracks | |
| iTunes | Favorable |
| SoundtrackNet | |
| Tracksounds | |
The Dark Knight: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2008 film of the same name, which is a sequel to Christopher Nolan's 2005 film Batman Begins. The soundtrack was released on July 15, 2008, in three editions: CD, limited edition CD digipak, and digital download. The 2-CD Special Edition was released on December 9, 2008, along with the DVD. A limited edition 180-gram vinyl LP was released on August 12, 2008. The soundtrack was composed by Batman Begins collaborators Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard and recorded in April 2008.
The score won the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Zimmer originally said the main Batman theme was purposely introduced at the end of Batman Begins, and would be fleshed out in the sequel as the character develops. Zimmer and Howard both believed that creating a heroic theme that a viewer could hum would ignore the complexity and darkness of the character. The Batman theme (audible twice early in the film, once towards the end and a final time at the beginning of the end credits) creates what Zimmer described as a "red herring", a kind of musical foreshadowing, which was played by a .
The nine-minute suite for the Joker ("Why So Serious") was based around two notes played by Electric cello, solo violin, guitars and a string section. Zimmer compared its style to the band Kraftwerk, who come from his native Germany, as well as his work with bands like The Damned. Throughout the piece, Zimmer used razor blades on string instruments to achieve the tortured, twisted sound to accompany the character on the screen. When Ledger died, Zimmer stated that he felt like scrapping his original material and composing a new theme, but decided that to do so would compromise the "evil [performance] projects". James Newton Howard composed the "elegant and beautiful" themes for Harvey Dent/Two-Face, to work as an aural contrast.
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