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ANNE BRYANT
(Updated February 2008)
Then there's the famous title song of the US series , a
very hummable piece of music that was used for all four
seasons. The melody is so well known to Transformers in
fact, that it still pops up every now and then
fragmentary in newer shows.
Listen to
the first season version.
This version is rather interesting. It is the original
season 1 opening, but without the lyrics!
Listen
I had the very lucky chance to receive a couple of kind e-mails
from Ms. Bryant in which she explained some of the
reasons why the theme sounds like it is and why her
company was asked to write the main themes to all of the
Marvel series. I'm very grateful for it, because it's the
first time I heard a lot of this info and it's just very
great to receive an e-mail from such a composer!
The theme was written by Anne Bryant , who in the
seventies worked for Spence Michlin's music ad agency
Michlin & Company. She was the head writer and music
director. Ford Kinder , another talented writer was her
assistent. From 1983 to 1990 they both had a music
production company called Kinder & Bryant with Ford
handling most of the business, but writing too. Anne
wrote most of the music and arrangement. They both wrote
themes and jingles.
Around 1983 Spence Michlin wrote the lyrics to G.I.Joe
and the ad campaign , as well as the lyrics to The great
space coaster. This
site has a small interview with
Michlin. After this came the Transformers theme.
The reason why Kinder & Bryant were asked to provide
themes for all the Sunbow and Marvel shows was because
they were primary music suppliers for HASBRO'S ad agency
GRIFFIN/BACAL. They became primary suppliers largely
because of the Transformers success, and also, because of
numerous toy themes that followed.
One of the things that always attracted me to the
Transformers melody was the non traditional way it was
written. Ms Bryant explained that even for her it was a
little different than usual. It was written in a minor
key and had some very odd metered bars in the bridge (especially
in the second season end titles). According to her, for a
trained composer a-symmetrical music is more interesting
to write and that's why it sounds so "hookey".
What I found a very funny fact is that the melody was
written to accompany the lyrics. However, the part that
goes "Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil
forces of the decepticons" was originally meant to
be spoken by the announcer, but she misread it somehow
and looked at it as a lyric and sang it. Luckily it even
worked better that way. I do wonder how creatively this
would have worked out with Robotix or G.I.Joe.
What not many people know is that the end titles of the
second season came out on a record. TRANSFORMERS BANDE
ORIGINALE DU FEUILLETON TV (1986)
This single came out in France only where most cartoons
had their themes released on record (see all of those here). The A-side
has a new French song about the Transformers "Transformers
Pour un monde meillour" (Transformers for a better
world) . This was written by Cyril Assous.
The B-side has the end titles by Anne Bryant stretched
out to about 3 minutes. They do this by mixing it with a
new intro, which fits rather well. After that the new
intro and original theme music gets repeated for three
times.
Listen to a piece of it here.
It probably was meant as filler , but it's the ONLY
official release of original cartoon music on record. The
A-side later was also released on a French cartoon theme
song cd.(The second Transformers single below, click here for a large scan
of the front and here of the back)
And for completeness sake;
The theme was also used in some Transformers computer
games. I don't know that much about these things (but
thanks to OriginalAutobot , the ottoegil , Op_Prime and
Sol Fury of the 2005 boards) I know
that it was on one or two of the earlier Commodore games.
You can hear the scene change music in the Nintendo game
everytime you play a new level. Also the new TF game,
Tatakai, on PS2 has a remix of the movie theme as the
introduction theme, and the title screen is a remix of
that theme as well. The scene change theme is also
present and correct, though remixed.
The main themes, taken straight from tv, from
Transformers season 1 and 2, as well as two versions of
the instrumental version used for the 1984 commercials
can be found on the brand new Japanese Transformers Music
box set. Look for more info here.
Listen to
the Transformers theme commercial style. A great
variation on the original theme and a very
nostalgic listen.
This version
is a version made for toy commercials and is in the same
style as the Season 1 main theme.
Except for Transformers , she also wrote the main themes
to G.I.Joe , Robotix , My little pony (& friends) ,
Visionairies , Inhumanoids , Bigfoot & the Muscle
machines and many more. She is also known for writing and
arranging for artists like Roberta Flack, Peabo Bryson,
Richie Havens, The Pointer Sisters, Judy Garland, Gerry
Mulligan and Stan Getz.
She also wrote the theme for Jem , which is her second
favourite to Transformers. As for all the other songs in
that series; Barry Harman wrote the lyrics and she and
Ford Kinder provided the music. Each one doing about half
of the songs, Anne most of the Jem songs, Ford most of
the Pizzazz songs. Long time friend Britta Phillips sang
the Jem songs , look for her site here. More info
on Jem in the Robert J Walsh section above.
Listen to
the Vocal Jem theme here
I asked if there was ever a chance of doing an album of
all of those cartoon themest. She in fact toyed with the
idea and was thinking , if it ever gets a release , of
doing the themes as extended dance versions and track-only
karaoke mixes , so that we can all hurl along with the
music.
A while ago , two cd's came out under the project name
Gloryvision "Songs for cats" and "Songs
for dogs" which she made together with Ellen
Bernfield. Who also provided the voice of Pizzazz in Jem.
Look for those two records here.
At this moment she's writing lots of commercial jingles
and is the music director of a fast-growing New York ad
agency called THE JOEY COMPANY. Check out the agency here and more
info on more past projects here.
At the end of August she made her first secret appearance
at a Transformers convention, Transforce in the UK.
Although as an attendee, not as a guest (yet). An
interview will be featured on an upcoming special edition
DVD of Transformers The Movie.
Andrew
Wildman , Anne Bryant , Simon Furman at Transforce 2004
(Picture taken by John Keene )
In 2006 she created a software
product called MasterClick that calculates and
converts beats, timings, and film and video frames from
BPM, film Click and Videoclick tempos. Although it is
created for professional use , other people might find it
interesting too. It seems like a handy tool to me, why
didn't it exist before? I think you should check it out!
More
info here.
At the end of 2006 a claim was made.
During the years she did not get
the full share of royalties for the use of her music in
commercials, games and new tv shows. Read the
official press statement here. She lets
the fans know it's purely about the royalties she has a
right for , it's not about disadvantaging fans of the
music in any way. Let's wish her a lot of luck in this
case!
Seibertron.com had a cool
interview online which you can view here. It has a
lot of interesting information
Just in time for the presidential
elections of 2008 a brand new project came up. The
following video is about the 2008 election. Most
democrats are torn up between the two candidats Clinton
and Obama. This video/slide show is trying to get the
message out that hopefully they will run together as
president and vice president. Check it out here;
http://web.mac.com/annebryantmusic/Anne_Bryant_Music/Podcast/Entries/2008/2/7_Dems_podcast.html
In March 2008 Anne themed up with
Ellen Bernfeld (the voice of Pizzazz in Jem) for another
republican video. Check it out on Youtube here. You can
also see the other Gloryvision videos.
More cool new releases...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Q0desL5rc&feature=user
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrQOWhNnRlk
Again a lot of thanks to Ms.
Bryant for sending me these interesting facts and
anecdotes!!!
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