Da 5 Bloods (soundtrack)

Da 5 Bloods is the sixteenth collaboration between Lee and Blanchard, whose inclusion was confirmed in November 2019.^[1] He employed a 90-piece string orchestra to compose the film's score;^[2] regarding the use of duduk, played by flautist Pedro Eustache, Blanchard said that his work had "brought a certain color and tone to the film that was perfect".^[3] Blanchard had to reflect the humor of the soldiers who were suffering from Post-traumatic stress disorder after the Vietnam war where he described the challenge from being a dramatic to comedic composer.^[4] He called the first battle sequence and the helicopter scene as the hardest to score as it took him nearly five days to balance the harmonic and orchestral shifts with the music and analyze the context on how its fits that sequence.^[5]

The film also utilised several source music, out of which six songs are from Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971).^[6] Blanchard deciphered the album as the basis of the score propelling it to have a grandeur and universal theme. He felt that "Gaye's music was going to cover a certain aspect of the emotion of dealing with social injustice in this country" and he wanted the score to accompany the same with a broader experience and emotional connectivity.^[7]

Filmtracks.com wrote "Da 5 Bloods is a score that must have looked fabulous on paper but presents issues as recorded."^[8] RogerEbert.com wrote "Blanchard’s score is bombastic, terrifying and militaristic one minute, achingly beautiful the next."^[9] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter and Peter Debruge of Variety described it as "symphonic" and "emotion-rousing".^[10][11] Fionnuala Halligan of Screen International wrote "Da 5 Bloods uses the talents of Lee’s regular musical collaborator Terence Blanchard to remind us we’re in epic Hollywood territory as the crew traipses through the jungle."^[12] A critic from Soundtrack World summarized "There are some gorgeous pieces on the album, which are definitely worth listening to."^[13]

Kambole Campbell of Empire described it as "a typically rousing score from long-time collaborator Terence Blanchard".^[14] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it as "an evocative score by Terence Blanchard that ups its resonance with soulful cuts from Marvin Gaye’s seminal 1971 album What’s Going On".^[15] Mark Kermode of The Guardian wrote "Terence Blanchard’s rich score is interspersed with bursts of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album What’s Going On, sometimes erupting as a group singalong, elsewhere surfacing as a plaintive solo voice."^[16] Anthony Lane of The New Yorker called it as a "soaring soundtrack".^[17] Brian Trutt of USA Today wrote "the sweetest sounds on the "Bloods" soundtrack come from Terence Blanchard's heroic score".^[18]

Credits adapted from liner notes.^[19]