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What Is The Last Score You Listened To? (older scores)


Ollie

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The Hobbit the Battle of the Five Armies by Howard Shore



But boy is this score loud, and I mean LOUD and I love the fact that it's SO BLOODY LOUD. All subtlety goes out the window.

You'd think that. But listen to bits like The Caravan. The score has its moments of sublime elegance, too.

Yes it is bold and relentless in its latter half but Goldsmith always find these small moment of lyrical elegance throughout the score. I think his faux-Near East stylings are wonderfully done and he embraces the hokey origins of the Mummy in the horror film genre with deliciously melodramatic monster music. This score and 13th Warrior from the same year form a nice pair and to me some of the best material from the last leg of his career. Subtle they generally ain't but boy are they simply entertaining action packed fun.

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:music: Far from the Madding Crows by Craig Armstrong

Karol

This one ended up in my review pile. Had no idea it was Armstrong until your post :P

It's not a bad thing to end up on your pile. :)

Karol

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The Hobbit the Battle of the Five Armies by Howard Shore

But boy is this score loud, and I mean LOUD and I love the fact that it's SO BLOODY LOUD. All subtlety goes out the window.

You'd think that. But listen to bits like The Caravan. The score has its moments of sublime elegance, too.

Yes it is bold and relentless in its latter half but Goldsmith always find these small moment of lyrical elegance throughout the score. I think his faux-Near East stylings are wonderfully done and he embraces the hokey origins of the Mummy in the horror film genre with deliciously melodramatic monster music. This score and 13th Warrior from the same year form a nice pair and to me some of the best material from the last leg of his career. Subtle they generally ain't but boy are they simply entertaining action packed fun.

Definitely. The 13th Warrior is the bit more refined cousin of The Mummy, but they work well off one another. For sheer fun I'll always pick The Mummy though.

Extremely sad that 5 years after penning these the man was no more. :(

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Not sure why so many people think The 13th Warrior is better than The Mummy. I always found the latter to have bolder and more memorable themes, more edgy and suspenseful tracks, and more flourishing romance.

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I find The 13th Warrior to be more memorable simply because for a number of years, it was the only CD that lived in my stereo and was my most frequently listened to soundtrack. I burned it into my brain.

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27487.jpg

MALEFICENT - JNH

I've tried to enjoy it and this score fails to grab me. I don't understand it gets so many excellent reviews. 5 stars, 10 out of 10 everywhere I look. I'd give it a 3.5 stars, and that's on a good day.

Normally JNH in this mode is a surefire way to win my heart, but he doesn't, I must clearly be in the minority. I'll probably make a suite out of the best cues and be done with it.

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The OST is kind of a weird representation of the score. The leaked complete score has better highlights.

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For instance, the very first cue should be on this album. It would give an idea what exactly is the principal theme. And I'd move this suite to the end. It's a nice track but a bit misleading.

Karol

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The suite is my least favorite track on the album. And it makes a poor introduction to the score.

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21486.jpg

So who got this before it was considered a bootleg and Perseverance had to stop selling it?

This was a rare blind buy and boy am I glad I didn't hesitate because it's simply a superb score !

I even saw the film to hear the score in context but it's atrocious. Good music for a terrible film. Elmer did a Jerry. :lol:

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:music: Far from the Madding Crows by Craig Armstrong

Karol

This one ended up in my review pile. Had no idea it was Armstrong until your post :P

It's not a bad thing to end up on your pile. :)

Karol

Indeed, writing it up now. Pleasantly surprised by its lyricism. Armstrong always seems to get projects with a lot of source music though. Can't be easy to work like that. He's good at incorporating his work with others.

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Not sure why so many people think The 13th Warrior is better than The Mummy. I always found the latter to have bolder and more memorable themes, more edgy and suspenseful tracks, and more flourishing romance.

Me neither. I didn't even like 13th Warrior all that much in the beginning, though I've warmed up to it a lot. But Mummy remains my clear favourite, for variety and fun, and for being one of Goldsmith's most rhythmically exciting scores.

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Nice main theme. Very BLACK BEAUTY:

Also a lot of The Village by JNH, specifically the violin work.

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Just because there's a solo violin doesn't make it sounds anything like The Village :P

Listen to the opening of the Gravel Road. I am not implying the score is a direct copy but temp track love is shining through on the first track. Nice if you don't hear it but search your heart and you know what I say to be true.

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There's definitely temp-track love there for The Village. That opening ostinato followed by the arpeggios are very much in the JNH fashion.

The theme itself is closer to Black Beauty as pub said. Not bad.

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Just listened to a bit of Craig Armstrong's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. God, this is dull and generic. Could transplant it to THE IMITATION GAME, W.E, or any other recent worthy, middlebrow, historical drama and you'd never notice.

 

To clear my ears, I'm now listening to the one and only FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. :music:

 

 

 

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Just listened to a bit of Craig Armstrong's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. God, this is dull and generic. Could transplant it to THE IMITATION GAME, W.E, or any other recent worthy, middlebrow, historical drama and you'd never notice.

To clear my ears, I'm now listening to the one and only FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.

And you honestly waited for Craig Armstrong to wrestle with RRB? As it is, i'm happy he even came up with a hummable theme.

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Just listened to a bit of Craig Armstrong's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. God, this is dull and generic. Could transplant it to THE IMITATION GAME, W.E, or any other recent worthy, middlebrow, historical drama and you'd never notice.

To clear my ears, I'm now listening to the one and only FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.

And you honestly waited for Craig Armstrong to wrestle with RRB? As it is, i'm happy he even came up with a hummable theme.

It was just an excuse to plug the original score. Be grateful I'm not taking it to Interpilgrim levels.

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13th Warrior by Jerry Goldsmith: If I remember nothing else from watching this inconsequential film it is the score. It has stayed me ever since and it is a heck of an entertaining albeit familiar sounding package. Stylings if not direct lifts from Jerrald's past works can clearly be heard in this one, a dash of The Wind and the Lion for the exoticism, a little bit of Edge (the low growling Gwendol motif is a second cousin to the pitch bending bear/danger motif from that film)) and several of his action scores (including e.g. the relentless rhythmical aspects of the First Knight). And yet it now feels like the very model of how to score such a brawny and gritty tale of heroic adventure and fierce action with flair and direct emotionality and pulse pounding energy. The Mummy from the same year is a bit warmer and colorful has more sheer fun and does contain some similarities but 13th Warrior is none the less a terrific piece of writing from the master of action music.

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Does anyone know if this is Shore's own arrangement (I feel like some of the bass movement is characteristic of him), or whose it is if not, and who is singing? It's such a lovely tune and really no other renditions have this same level of beauty.

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It was just an excuse to plug the original score. Be grateful I'm not taking it to Interpilgrim levels.

 

I just skimmed through it:

 

 

Though it might be labelled as easily digestible fluff by the musically more seasoned here, it's also unexpectedly melodic (with Armstrong i usually expect formless block chords and flogged-to-death piano runs). Sometimes it breaks into a kind of elevator-James-Horner-broad-string-romanticism that seems unbecoming, but whenever Armstrong sticks to pastoral moods - accomplished through a typical Vaughan-Williams tinged combination of string orchestra and harps it's actually quite successful as (light) english romantic music. There are a lot of nice period songs and instrumentals that make a good listening combination with the score.

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The Cowboys :music:

A nice score. The concert arrangement (found on many compilation albums) contains all of the necessary highlights though.

That concert suite is fantastic ! Is there another one besides the Prague Philharmonic recording?

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The Cowboys :music:

A nice score. The concert arrangement (found on many compilation albums) contains all of the necessary highlights though.

That concert suite is fantastic ! Is there another one besides the Prague Philharmonic recording?

There's a fantastic rendition of it on the Boston Pops "By Request" album

Journey 2 the Mysterious Island :music:

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The Cowboys :music:

A nice score. The concert arrangement (found on many compilation albums) contains all of the necessary highlights though.

That concert suite is fantastic ! Is there another one besides the Prague Philharmonic recording?

There's a fantastic rendition of it on the Boston Pops "By Request" album

Journey 2 the Mysterious Island :music:

Yes! That is what I consider to be the definitive performance of the suite. An excellent piece. :)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 by John Powell: Still as joyous and energizing listen as always. Powell really exceeded my expectations with this one and I think succeeded improving upon the previous score.

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