Like Danny Elfman, Mothersbaugh started his musical career as the lead singer of an offbeat band. Mothersbaugh, Jerry Casale, and Bob Lewis founded Devo in the 1970s; the New Wave rock band/performance art group hit it big with "Whip It" and earned a mention in the groundbreaking graphic novel Watchmen. As a composer, Motherbaugh was written scores for the Rugrats TV series and films such as Thirteen, Ramona and Beezus, Safe, and Hotel Transylvania. He wrote the scores for director Wes Anderson's earlier films, including Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (Anderson has since used Alexandre Desplat for his scores for Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, though Mothersbaugh did write a percussion march for Moonrise Kingdom.) In 2011, Mothersbaugh scored Pixar's short film Toy Story: Hawaiian Vacation and some of the studio's Mater's Tall Tales shorts. He has also scored the films of comedic genius writer/directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, The LEGO Movie, and 22 Jump Street. From the opening logos of 21 Jump Street, Mothersbaugh assaults the audience with a deliberately overblown, blood-pumping, macho power anthem; the action scenes in this brilliantly, almost painfully hilarious film use this Remote Control-inspired theme with its extremely basic chord progression to excellent effect. His score for The LEGO Movie riffs on other well-worn musical tropes, from heavenly choirs to Morricone Western vocalizations, before resolving in a tender, emotionally serious finale. Mothersbaugh's music may not have the distinction or originality of Elfman's (an admittedly high bar), but it can still be quite entertaining.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
The Lego Movie
The Lego Ninjago Movie
Thor: Ragnarok
21 Jump Street
22 Jump Street
