Soundtrack Review: Made in Boise (2019)

I recently had the opportunity to listen to the soundtrack for Made in Boise, a 2019 film which recently saw its soundtrack released digitally by Note for Note Music. The soundtrack, which you can check out here, is the first feature soundtrack composed by Melisa McGregor.

Made In Boise is the Emmy nominated documentary about four women who find purpose carrying babies for strangers in the conservative heartland of Boise, Idaho – the unregulated and unofficial `surrogacy capital’ of the United States – and encounter unexpected complexities along the way.

Based in Los Angeles, Melisa McGregor is a Canadian-born Composer, Violinist and Producer, a Sundance Lab Composer Fellow and Member of Labyrinth Theater Company (NYC). Melisa has worked as a composer’s assistant to Danny Elfman on many diverse film scores, from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) to Universals’s The Grinch (2018).

The music for Made in Boise is a type I haven’t heard in a really long time. After being wrapped up in sci-fi music, video game scores, and all kinds of fast paced music for more films than I can count, it was so refreshing to hear something that was slower and reminded me of a simpler way of life. Because that’s what I hear listening to Made in Boise: music that speaks to a world that is quieter, calmer, where all that matters is you and the baby that is growing inside the different surrogate mothers featured in the story.

One thing that caught me by surprise though is how short some of the tracks are. I know soundtracks can have individual tracks as long or short as the story requires, but some of these are the shortest I’ve ever seen. For instance, #7 ‘Shannon Before’ is only thirty-eight seconds long. That’s not an incredibly long amount of time for a musical piece, just as I’m getting into it, it’s over. If I have one gripe with the music, it’s that some of the pieces feel too short to satisfy me, but perhaps there was a good reason some of the pieces are so short.

All in all, the music for Made in Boise is quiet and pleasing, the perfect backdrop for the story of surrogacy and the struggles that can come with bringing new life into the world. This soundtrack is a nice calm counterpoint for all the more “action-filled” soundtracks I’ve been listening to as of late, and it’s a nice reminder that not all soundtracks have to be “noisy” to be good.

Track List:

1. Main Titles (1:00)
2. Farm Live (1:04)
3. Shannon (1:01)
4. Playground (1:00)
5. Surrogacy Support (1:01)
6. Ernesto (1:02)
7. Shannon Before (:38)
8. Nicole to Hospital (1:21)
9. Afterglow (1:16)
10. Idaho (1:45)
11. Losing Finley (1:30)
12. Whassap (:38)
13. Chelsea’s Birth (1:35)
14. Ernesto’s Goodbye (1:06)
15. Cindy Struggles (1:17)
16. Sammy’s Birth (1:03)
17. Afterglow — Reprise (1:17)
18. Skin to Skin (:35)
19. Chelsea Running (1:32)
20. Epilogue (1:35)
21. On Your Way Now — Sharon Van Etten (2:53)
22. Wild Guitars (Bonus track) (3:10)