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


Ollie

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I'm starting to hear another motif besides the Main Theme and the love theme in The Shadow.

 

The Ghost and the Darkness

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1 hour ago, Incanus said:

The Wind and the Lion is just a fantastic combination of ethnic and epic from good old Jerrald. I especially love how he alludes to the native music of the North African locale and translates it into an orchestral setting.

 

'The Letter' is a rather quiet cue but it's the culmination of intelligent storytelling in music: it accompanies a montage of Raisuli/Roosevelt during the reading of a letter of the former and weds the two themes for both, cleverly both based on the same open fifth (the american one in major, the occidental one in minor), making them two sides of the same coin. 

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Sea Hawk (Korngold)

King's Row (Korngold)

 

Seems to me like, while his earlier soundtracks were great, KING'S ROW was around the time when Korngold went "Super Saiyan".

 

 

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A less known fantasy work by James Newton Howard that is semantically and idiomatically not too far removed from 'War Horse' (scottish, oirish, british, it's all the same anyway, eh?). It doesn't rise above solid eclecticism but has some truly enchanting thematic strains and at least occasionally uses the Chieftains to good effect. The Main Title frames the fairy tale-like setting in the scottish highlands with a delicate folk song ballad and the score is all the better when JNH builds on this - unfortunately, the rest is a bit over the place, ranging from generic mickey mousing to numbingly loud action music right out of 'Waterworld' & Co.

 

The piece de resistance is the sustained 7-minute fantasy/adventure cue 'Swimming', which reminds me of Goldsmith's 'Hollow Man' dvd commentary, basically saying that a composer nowadays should be satisfied when there are one or two musical sequences per score worth the expendable rest. There is also a wondrous 'E. T.' moment in 'The Net' and a beautiful finale cue. The Chieftain-suite rounding out the disc is a nice bonus.

 

This is the selection i'd recommend:

 

Main Title        3:08  

You Didn't Even Get Wet        2:59 

The Workshop        2:38  

Driving to the Loch        2:03    

Run Angus        1:22  

The Fisherman        1:39    

Angus in Training        2:54  

Swimming        6:35    

There's No Monster        2:01  

The Net        4:22  

The Jump - End of the Story        4:41  

Suite        8:08    

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Yeah, it does have some really good moments. But, for whatever reason, the album is less than spectacular. Which I find to be a problem with most JNH scores actually.

 

:music: Kong: Skull Island. I don't think it was necessarily great but it has some really neat moments. This theme is quite nice. As I understand it from watching the film, this actually Kong's theme. As far as monster themes in modern movies are concerned, this one is pretty strong.

 

 

Karol

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Raiders of the Lost Ark (Williams) - Haven't listened to much else since seeing the concert last weekend.  If you want to know how to write an action score, study this until it's emblazoned on your brain.

 

Behind Enemy Lines (Davis) - Not so much, at least the action parts.  It's a schizophrenic mess of a score that has both some of the best cues of Davis' career, only to be immediately interrupted by electronic noise that would make even Holkenborg cringe.  "Ustao" is breath-taking, though.

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7 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

There's probably an excellent 40 minutes program that can be created out of it. As it is, though, it doesn't make for the smoothest listening experience.

 

Great love theme, though.

 

Das Boot - 10 BH (before Hans) It's not really an album to listen through but still giving then-current american film music a run for its money (in regards to new-ish pop stylings and how to apply them). The theme is still a killer.

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12 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

3o1BwT8.png

 

Dances With Wolves - John Barry (1990)

 

This score has some lovely moments, there's no denying, but in complete form it just feels overlong. The main reason for that is the lack of variety in it: most of it sounds a bit samey. Add to that a lot of one-minute-long cues that feel inconsequential, action music that isn't particularly exciting (Pawnee are Coming/Rifles/Pawnee/Pawnee Attack/Stone Calf Dies/Toughest Pawnee Dies is frankly a chore to listen to) and themes the composer doesn't do an awful lot with (the various statements are not really different from one another), and you're left with a score that is a tad disappointing, given the big epic tale Barry was given the opportunity to work on.

Still, it's not all bad of course: as a whole it is a solid work, the music fits the movie well, the main theme and love theme are rather nice, and the score occasionally soars (Charge, The Buffalo Hunt - Smiles A Lot Is Saved, Timmons Leaves, The Loss Of The Journal And The Return To Winter Camp, Farewell And End Title...), but it's definitely the kind that is more digestible in abridged form. There's probably an excellent 40 minutes program that can be created out of it. As it is, though, it doesn't make for the smoothest listening experience.

 

6/10

I find the original 53-minute album to be too much already. It is good music, has great themes. It probably deserves all the praise it gets. But I could never listen to it for some reason.

 

Karol

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The expanded album following the OST is the one I go to for this score. And usually pick a programme containing the highlights and not the whole 75 minute album.

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The Wrath Of Khan

 

One of those "evergreen" scores that's still exciting even after literally decades of listening to it. Amazing how many long lined thematic ideas run through it.

 

Not only a great Trek score, but a great Horner score.

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1 hour ago, crocodile said:

It is good music, has great themes. It probably deserves all the praise it gets. But I could never listen to it for some reason.

 

Yep. I can totally understand why some people love it, but it doesn't do an awful lot for me.

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14 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

3o1BwT8.png

 

Dances With Wolves - John Barry (1990)

 

This score has some lovely moments, there's no denying, but in complete form it just feels overlong. The main reason for that is the lack of variety in it: most of it sounds a bit samey. Add to that a lot of one-minute-long cues that feel inconsequential, action music that isn't particularly exciting (Pawnee are Coming/Rifles/Pawnee/Pawnee Attack/Stone Calf Dies/Toughest Pawnee Dies is frankly a chore to listen to) and themes the composer doesn't do an awful lot with (the various statements are not really different from one another), and you're left with a score that is a tad disappointing, given the big epic tale Barry was given the opportunity to work on.

Still, it's not all bad of course: as a whole it is a solid work, the music fits the movie well, the main theme and love theme are rather nice, and the score occasionally soars (Charge, The Buffalo Hunt - Smiles A Lot Is Saved, Timmons Leaves, The Loss Of The Journal And The Return To Winter Camp, Farewell And End Title...), but it's definitely the kind that is more digestible in abridged form. There's probably an excellent 40 minutes program that can be created out of it. As it is, though, it doesn't make for the smoothest listening experience.

 

6/10

 

Why would you start with the complete version instead of starting with the OST?  No wonder you found it overlong!

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1 hour ago, BloodBoal said:

 

Yep. I can totally understand why some people love it, but it doesn't do an awful lot for me.

 

Ditto. I respect it, but not as much in love with it.

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9 hours ago, crocodile said:

I find the original 53-minute album to be too much already. It is good music, has great themes. It probably deserves all the praise it gets. But I could never listen to it for some reason.

 

Yup.

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8 hours ago, Romão said:

My favorite part from Dances with Wolves has always been the wonderfull Two Socks theme

 

It is one of those 'unnatural' Barry melodies that took me some time to appreciate (whereas the John Dunbar Theme is the kind of dim-witted Ten Tenors tunes that starts to sound embarrasing after a while). Still, the love theme that is a muted presence in the score is hands down one of the best Barry themes of its ilk and together with the Two Socks and the wide heroic indian theme the only really bearable stuff from this overrated simpleton of a score.

 

 

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Speaking of Dances With Wolves.

 

Wolf Totem.

 

The opening seconds featuring low ominous chords and high pitch ethnic wailing might make some expect the worst, but once the theme sets in all if fine.

Essentially Horner in epic Barry made, and that's a good thing! The usual ethnic flavoring is kept to a minimum and supports the music rather than defines it. This may be a chinese film directed by a French guy, but it good old-fashioned Hollywood epic scoring.

The final cue especially is a stand out. The kind where Horner closes the film with sweeping broad strokes on a large canvas and slowly winds everything down. (no film composer does this quite like Horner, who will comfortably take 3,5 minutes for an ending coda while everyone else does it in 45 seconds)

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58 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

(no film composer does this quite like Horner, who will comfortably take 3,5 minutes for an ending coda while everyone else does it in 45 seconds)

 

3 Seconds:

 

 

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Life (Ekstrand) - Oh goddamnit, why?  Why do people responsible still put film dialogue on soundtrack albums?  Stop doing that!  Otherwise, not a bad score, even if it owes a lot to its predecessors, but not one that left much of an impression, either.

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