Johnny Depp Is Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (Highlights From The Motion Picture Soundtrack) / Nonesuch Audio CD 2007 / 7559-79961-3

UPC 075597996135

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: The Motion Picture Soundtrack is a soundtrack to the film of the same name, released on December 18, 2007.

In a change from the original, Sondheim cut the show's famous opening number, "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", explaining, "Why have a chorus singing about 'attending the tale of Sweeney Todd' when you could just go ahead and attend it?" Sondheim acknowledged that, in adapting a musical to film, the plot has to be kept moving, and was sent MP3 files of his shortened songs by Mike Higham, the film's music producer, for approval. Several other songs were also cut, and Sondheim noted that there were "many changes, additions and deletions... [though]... if you just go along with it, I think you'll have a spectacular time." To create a larger, more cinematic feel, the score was reorchestrated by the stage musical's original orchestrator, Jonathan Tunick, who increased the orchestra from twenty-seven musicians to seventy-eight.

The Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Deluxe Complete Edition soundtrack was released on December 18, 2007. Johnny Depp's singing was described by a New York Times reviewer as "harsh and thin, but amazingly forceful". Another critic adds that, though Depp's voice "does not have much heft or power", "his ear is obviously excellent, because his pitch is dead-on accurate... Beyond his good pitch and phrasing, the expressive colorings of his singing are crucial to the portrayal. Beneath this Sweeney's vacant, sullen exterior is a man consumed with a murderous rage that threatens to burst forth every time he slowly takes a breath and is poised to speak. Yet when he sings, his voice crackles and breaks with sadness."