DVDizzy Forum

Animated Movies notes Brit rocker Robbie Williams will perform the end title track "Beyond the Sea" (taken from his 2001 release, "Swing When You're Winning") of Pixar's new animated underwater adventure. Additional music for the May 20 soundtrack is scored by Grammy-winner and Oscar-nominated composer Thomas Newman, whose credits include American Beauty and the title theme to the HBO series Six Feet Under. The soundtrack is now up for preorder on Amazon for full $18.99 retail, but I'll letLuke put a link in here so the site can get some cash if any of us buy it from them.

Upon reading this news, I downloaded his version of Beyond the Sea and it's good, but I'd much rather have the Bobby Darin version over the credits. And the song is tied to a romance anyway, so what tie does it hold to Finding Nemo? Not to mention that this is the first time a Pixar movie will not be scored by Randy Newman (Thomas Newman is related to him, I think, but it's still not him.) I'm sure Thomas will do a great job, but it's kind of a tradition to have Randy do the score and I'm sort of semi-disappointed it's being broken with Finding Nemo. Ah well, I guess it's no worse than the camera panning up instead of down after the opening scroll in Episode II.

I don't think Thomas Newman is related to Randy Newman, but rather Alfred Newman, the man behind the famous 20th Century Fox music.

While I love Randy's scores, Thomas has done some great music for Road to Perdition, Shawshank Redemption, and Little Women. I think it should be a nice change for Pixar, as while all four of Randy's scores have been great, change is good.

Thomas is related to both Alfred and Randy. In fact, he's related to a bunch of Newman composers -

Son of composer Alfred Newman; nephew of Lionel Newman and Emil Newman; cousin of Randy Newman; brother of composer David Newman (I), Maria Newman; cousin of composer Joey Newman.

I got that from the IMDb. You can see Thomas' page here. What I find interesting is that he composed the main theme for Boston Public - one of the funkiest and ill-fitting theme songs for a show I've ever heard. I don't mean to rip on Tommy, and I love BP - I just can't get over that title theme sometimes.