Danny Elfman's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - 2019 2CD La-La Land Edition

[crocodile 7,978]

This is top 10 Elfman material, easily.

 

Karol

[Jay 37,271]

I agree with the crocodile!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

If it made my top 10 Elfmans, it'd be at 9th or 10th.  But it's an immediate purchase for me as well.

 

[Jay 37,271]

Ordered!

 

https://lalalandrecords.com/mission-impossible-limited-edition/

 

Samples:

 

7. The Disc(†) 1:58

10. Betrayal 2:59

15. Train Time(§)(†) 4:15

18. Zoom B(§) 2:58

3. Red Handed** (†/§) (Film Version) 6:21

4. Big Trouble** (Film Version) 7:01

6. Mole Hunt** (Film Version)/Escape* 3:35

11. Disavowed*/Worse Than You Think** (†) 2:48

12. Langley*(§) 1:01

19. Train Time** (Film Version)/Is He?* 5:33

24. Zoom A** (Alternate)/Zoom B**(§) (Alternate) 5:19

 

[crocodile 7,978]

Warm Butter artwork page is up now.

 

Karol

[Jay 37,271]

The artwork looks great!  Reading the Jeff Bond notes now

[Nick Parker 3,040]

5 hours ago, crocodile said:

This is top 10 Elfman material, easily.

 

Karol

 

Frankly I'd put it at Top 5, maybe even Top 3. 

 

It's so rich, full, inventive, dynamic, and I'd even say sexy. It really shows how deft a dramatist Danny Elfman could be.

[Yavar Moradi 2,576]

Lessee...Black Beauty, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sommersby, Batman Returns...I guess Mission: Impossible might just barely squeak in at #5 for me, though it's got a lot of good competition certainly. Top 10 is easier to say.

 

Yavar

[crocodile 7,978]

5 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Frankly I'd put it at Top 5, maybe even Top 3. 

I wouldn't disagree with that.

 

In fact I did put it as my no. 3 in this thread from a couple of years ago.

 

Karol

[Jay 37,271]

I love love LOVE love Batman, Returns, Scissorhands, and NBXM....but I've probably listened to M:I more than any of those.  I might as well call them all tied for first place, but there's something M:I does that the other ones don't that I can't put my finger on.  I suppose it's just a little more inventive, original, out there...it was composed on some sort of ridiculously short timescale (can't wait to see what Jeff Bond's notes say about this) and sometimes great art is made that way - with no time to second guess yourself, you just keep the pencil moving, and I suppose your subconscious takes over more and you come up with something you never would under "normal" conditions.  Or something like that.  I'd be curious to hear what Elfman thinks about the score, these days!

[crocodile 7,978]

Yes, it's both incredibly respectful of the original music and yet it sounds absolutely like nothing else in this genre. It's flamboyant and witty and there's a sense of dance-like quality to the heist sequences that's very different from anything else in the series. It's bit too quirky for an American action thriller type of film and I love that. It's also amazing how many little themes and motifs Elfman uses on top of the two Schifrin themes and how they're stacked one on top of another as the film reaches its climax in Train Time.

 

Karol

[Nick Parker 3,040]

4 minutes ago, Jay said:

I'd be curious to hear what Elfman thinks about the score, these days!

 

Danny Elfman:

 

*looks at Mission:Impossible CD*

 

*looks at last five years of film scores*

 

*sighs, pours straight rum, tips glass to Mission:Impossible, slams entire thing, then gets to work on Fifty Shades spin-off trilogy*

 

[Jay 37,271]

2 minutes ago, crocodile said:

Yes, it's both incredibly respectful of the original music and yet it sounds absolutely like nothing else in this genre. It's flamboyant and witty and there's a sense of dance-like quality to the heist sequences that's very different from anything else in the series. It's bit too quirky for an American action thriller type of film and I love that. It's also amazing how many little themes and motifs Elfman uses on top of the two Schifrin themes and how they're stacked one on top of another as the film reaches its climax in Train Time.

 

Karol

 

Yea, I was glad to see the notes mention which themes are in which cues in the snippet of Jeff's notes on the Warm Butter site

[Nick Parker 3,040]

1 minute ago, Jay said:

 

Yea, I was glad to see the notes mention which themes are in which cues in the snippet of Jeff's notes on the Warm Butter site

 

It's nice, but I feel like I'm misunderstanding you. There aren't really that many themes, and they're pretty easy to hear, yeah?

[crocodile 7,978]

4 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Danny Elfman:

 

*looks at Mission:Impossible CD*

 

*looks at last five years of film scores*

 

*sighs, pours straight rum, tips glass to Mission:Impossible, slams entire thing, then gets to work on Fifty Shades spin-off trilogy*

 

I forgive him as long as he produces interesting concert works to atone for those. 

 

Karol

[Jay 37,271]

23 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

It's nice, but I feel like I'm misunderstanding you. There aren't really that many themes, and they're pretty easy to hear, yeah?

 

Now I don't understand you.  Did I claim anywhere the themes were hard to hear? I just said it was nice to see Jeff talking about them in the notes.  Most booklets don't even have a cue-by-cue section these days!

[Nick Parker 3,040]

22 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Now I don't understand you.  Did I claim anywhere the themes were hard to hear? I just said it was nice to see Jeff talking about them in the notes.  Most booklets don't even have a cue-by-cue section these days!

 

I didn't understand if you were excited because they were hard to pick out of something like that, I don't mean that in any insulting way.

 

A glossary of theme appearances can be useful, but I'm thankful the bizarre tradition of cue by cue "analyses" apparently have mostly vanished  from liner notes.

[Faleel 5,326]

Yeah, I love being confused by alternates now.

[Wojo 2,453]

Skip. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 hour ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Black Beauty

 

Brother!  This would probably make my top 5 as well.  It's kind of a shame that it still hasn't sold out at LLL.  I mean, I'm happy it's available, but unhappy it means that there aren't even 3,000 people who will buy it.

[Yavar Moradi 2,576]

Yeah I think Nightmare Before Christmas will always be Elfman’s magnum opus, but Black Beauty is (and I think always will remain) my personal favorite score of his. Beyond gorgeous.

 

Yavar

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Never been that fond of Elfman’s early action scores. A top 5 would most likely be exclusively Burton, for me. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure will always be my personal favorite, amateurish as it is.  In fact, the amateurishness is more than a small part of the appeal.

[Romão 2,274]

I'm really really fond of Sleepy Hollow. Like the movie, it loses a bit of steam in the second half, but the atmosphere this score conveys is fantastic

[Disco Stu 15,495]

2 minutes ago, Romão said:

I'm really really fond of Sleepy Hollow. Like the movie, it loses a bit of steam in the second half, but the atmosphere this score conveys is fantastic

 

Would probably make my top 10 too!  If I was going to do it properly I'd revisit my favorites and make hard choices.

 

These would be the 10 (in chrono order) that'd I'd have to pick a preferential order for:

Pee-wee's Big Adventure

Batman

Edward Scissorhands

Batman Returns

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Black Beauty

Mission: Impossible

Mars Attacks!

Sleepy Hollow

Big Fish

[mstrox 6,637]

Besides Big Fish, are there any Elfman scores from AFTER his first 15 scoring years (2000-ish) that people would count among their favorites?  I'm genuinely curious about this.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 minute ago, mstrox said:

Besides Big Fish, are there any Elfman scores from AFTER his first 15 scoring years (2000-ish) that people would count among their favorites?  I'm genuinely curious about this.

 

In terms of film scores, I mostly just listen to individual cues I enjoy from that era.

 

"Main Titles" from Charlie

"Alice's Theme"

"Wolf Suite" (Parts 1 and 2)

"New Avengers"

 

And a few others.

 

The classic Elfman of this era is to be found with "Seranada Schizophrana," "Rabbit & Rogue," and "Eleven Eleven."

[mstrox 6,637]

Agreed that his concert works tend to be better.  I find myself doing the same as you - gravitating to the "big" tracks and main titles from his bigger movies.  I get more into his quieter and weirder stuff, things like The Circle, these days. But I think Spider-man would probably be bumped out by so many of those big weird early ones - my top 10 wouldn't include any "later era" Elfman either, beyond Big Fish. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

8 minutes ago, mstrox said:

things like The Circle

 

I enjoy that one too as a kind of novelty.

 

Although my favorite track, the gonzo vocoder performance of "Simple Gifts," isn't by Elfman, it's by Jónsi.

[Jay 37,271]

1 hour ago, mstrox said:

Besides Big Fish, are there any Elfman scores from AFTER his first 15 scoring years (2000-ish) that people would count among their favorites?  I'm genuinely curious about this.

 

Yes - WANTED and both ALICE IN WONDERLAND scores are really good.  Other than those though.... yikes...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

 

I didn't understand if you were excited because they were hard to pick out of something like that, I don't mean that in any insulting way.

 

It came across as insulting, to me, based on your word choice, fyi.

 

Quote

A glossary of theme appearances can be useful, but I'm thankful the bizarre tradition of cue by cue "analyses" apparently have mostly vanished  from liner notes.

 

What's bizarre about going cue-by-cue through a score and describing what scenes the music was written for, and what themes and instruments the composer used to score the scene?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

I used to love Hellboy II, I'm not sure how I'd feel about it now.

 

 

46 minutes ago, Jay said:

It came across as insulting, to me, based on your word choice, fyi.

 

Then I apologize for the impression I gave, Jay.

 

46 minutes ago, Jay said:

What's bizarre about going cue-by-cue through a score and describing what scenes the music was written for, and what themes and instruments the composer used to score the scene?

 

Frankly you answered your own question, in my mind. While some have pointed out to me some liner notes that go a little deeper or use a given track as a launching point to discuss the score as whole or the composer's process behind it, they tend to come off as superficial and factoid-y to me.

 

I just don't see the value in reading stuff like "...Unsettling high-pitched string glissandi begin to insistently play as Ethan Hunt realizes he's been framed, and Kittridge makes it clear that he believes Hunt is a corrupted agent. The strings begin to gradually build in volume and intensity, adding percussive thumps and eventually low brass, until Kittridge insists that Hunt come with him "outside". Ethan responds by throwing the exploding gum given to him by Jack earlier onto the restaurant's large aquarium; here, after reaching a discordant climax, the music abruptly stops for several seconds to make way for the ensuing explosion. As the massive amount of water contained within floods the restaurant, a declamatory, descending figure begins for low strings and woodwinds, soon followed by signature Elfman brass tritones and trumpet shakes.

 

Ethan Hunt uses this opportunity to escape, and the music pivots from ominous, building and resolving to a triumphant C major chord, to segueing into a heroic and triumphant brass statement of Ethan's Theme. As he runs from the restaurant and out into the Prague night, the music again transitions mood, introducing higher strings and dissonant brass punctuations, eventually settling into a mysterious harp figure and high, Herrmann-esque augmented-chord strings, suggesting that even though Ethan Hunt escaped trouble for the moment, his true mission is just beginning."

 

 

[Jay 37,271]

You don't?  I love that stuff!

[Arpy 4,145]

Yes, it's especially helpful if you're musically illiterate like me, but have a faint understanding  and these brief notes help identify what's going on. 'The Music of The Lord of the Rings Films' is a book @Nick Parker would burn!

[Jay 37,271]

Exactly, I have no musical education whatsoever, so appreciate when good writers explain what a composer's doing in a way a layman like me can understand

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Don't listen to Nick, he's just an elitist who wants to withhold musical education from the undeserving masses

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Oh wow, this is of course your dream come through, @Jay! Its an amazing score of course.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

18 minutes ago, Arpy said:

Yes, it's especially helpful if you're musically illiterate like me, but have a faint understanding  and these brief notes help identify what's going on. 'The Music of The Lord of the Rings Films' is a book @Nick Parker would burn!

 

"You have the scores on CD, but you vent all ze way back to eBay to get the 'Music of the Lord of the Rings Films' book. Vy?" *slaps you with glove*

 

I'm not familiar with the Lord of the Rings scores, but  I know they're very thematically dense and woven into the material, and that there's a lot of score for each film, so I could see more why this approach would appeal to people.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Jay said:

Exactly, I have no musical education whatsoever, so appreciate when good writers explain what a composer's doing in a way a layman like me can underestand

 

Again, I don't mean this in a rude way, but the mock one I wrote up above; beyond certain jargon like C major chords and tritones, aren't those things you can sus out pretty easily? 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Don't listen to Nick, he's just an elitist who wants to withhold musical education from the undeserving masses

 

You fool, don't you understand!? I seek to _liberate_ people, to have them find and unlock their own potential for analysis! No longer will they have to depend on film score clergy the likes of Bondicus and Mikus Mattusvno XIII for salvation!

[Jay 37,271]

10 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

Again, I don't mean this in a rude way, but the mock one I wrote up above; beyond certain jargon like C major chords and tritones, aren't those things you can sus out pretty easily? 

 

I think you're missing the point; I don't have a photographic memory of what is happening on screen in every film I own the score to, so to open up the booklet of a score I love and read about what is happening on screen that the music I'm listening to was written for is incredibly helpful and interesting.

I'm not sure why you're having such a hard problem with all this.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

12 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

I think you're missing the point; I don't have a photographic memory of what is happening on screen in every film I own the score to, so to open up the booklet of a score I love and read about what is happening on screen that the music I'm listening to was written for is incredibly helpful and interesting.

I'm not sure why you're having such a hard problem with all this.

 

That makes sense. But--I promise I'm not trying to be obtuse here--unless it's just to give an impression of a scene so you can say "Oh yeahhh" when reading it and recall the scene in your head, given that text can't adequately capture the film for obvious reasons, wouldn't it be more effective when you have the itch to associate the given music with its scene, to watch the film, or try to find a clip somewhere?

 

I'm not asking in a suggestive way or anything like that, but because I'm curious to hear your answer. 

[Jay 37,271]

I own a thousand film scores.  It's not reasonable to watch the film every time I want to learn more about a score, no.

[mstrox 6,637]

I don't care for track-by-track discussion either.  Maybe it's a symptom of the fact that most scores I listen to, I'll never see the movie.  I don't care what's going on onscreen, I just like the music.  For me personally, a theme-by-theme discussion (with timestamps) would be much more useful.

[Jay 37,271]

Well for me, it's not about yourself visualizing the imagery, it's about the composer's process, knowing what events he is writing the music for helps understand why he wrote what he wrote, ya know?

 

And yea, for scores that have themes that can be trickier to notice every instance of, it's always cool when liner notes highlight them for you.

Timestamps seem to have gone away from being in booklets anywhere though, over the years...

[Nick Parker 3,040]

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

I own a thousand film scores.  It's not reasonable to watch the film every time I want to learn more about a score, no.

 

I'd argue that learning more about a score and cue-by-cues aren't necessarily one and the same (again, one of my primary issues with them), but I can see where you would want to read a paragraph instead of finding a five-minute YouTube clip or something in that case (though I also wonder how often the urge would arise). I don't have a lot of film scores, so maybe if I had more I'd feel more similarly to you.

 

4 minutes ago, mstrox said:

I don't care for track-by-track discussion either.  Maybe it's a symptom of the fact that most scores I listen to, I'll never see the movie.  I don't care what's going on onscreen, I just like the music.  For me personally, a theme-by-theme discussion (with timestamps) would be much more useful.

 

I could agree with that. Cue-by-cues strike a weird middle ground to me, so leaning very far one direction and just giving a nitty-gritty lowdown would help for me.

 

2 minutes ago, Jay said:

Well for me, it's not about yourself visualizing the imagery, it's about the composer's process, knowing what events he is writing the music for helps understand why he wrote what he wrote, ya know?

 

 

I totally get whachu mean, and I'm a total nerd for that stuff, too. I just find that most cue-by-cues don't go sufficiently far enough in that direction for my tastes, know what I mean?

[Jay 37,271]

I suppose so, but take for example ALIEN, and the great Intrada liner notes by Mike Matessino.

 

There's a case where Jerry Goldsmith composed the entire score to a cut of the film we'll never see.  Reading Mike's notes and his descriptions of all the little things that were in the cut that Jerry timed certain portions of his compositions to was fascinating, and helped explain why many cues are the way they are, because if you try to line them up to the finished film they might not work any more.  So these kinds of notes aren't really about helping me re-live a film I've already seen, it's just about giving a context to the music.  It doesn't matter if you've seen the film or not, or if clips exist on youtube or not.  It's still a process with a lot of merit IMO.

 

Let me ask you this.  LLL gets a license to a classic film score, hires a great writer to fill a 24 page booklet up with information about the film and score.  What do YOU WANT that author to write about, if the cue-by-cue pages shown on the warm butter site for this score example are not it?

[mstrox 6,637]

For me, I don't want a 24 page booklet, for starters!

 

I posted my preferences on the Superman thread a few months ago.

 

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 3:32 PM, mstrox said:

My ideal liner notes would be a brief history of the making of the film generally, an equally brief history of the scoring process (only pointing out any interesting historical tidbits), and then a list of themes and what they represent, along with a few timestamp examples.

 

A "44 page booklet with in-depth liner notes" might be a selling point for a lot of you, but for me, it's pretty much a guarantee that I won't do more than quickly flip through it.

 

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 3:41 PM, mstrox said:

I've never once seen liner notes that I like from the specialty labels.  What I'd like, as described above, wouldn't take more than 4 pages of a little booklet.  Key words in my above description being "brief."

 

They also all mostly talk about musical stuff, orchestra stuff, performance stuff, etc that I don't care about.  Longer track-by-track discussion of the score.  Summary of the movie's plot.  I'd want that gone.  I also rarely see timestamps when people are discussing themes.

 

Again, it's fine it's there - it's just not for me.

 

[Jay 37,271]

Jeff Bond on Facebook:

 

Quote

And now, I present the longest-gestating project in my storied career! When I wrote the liner notes for this project I was living in a different house and my daughter Veronica had just been born. Somewhere along the line it had to be approved by Tom Cruise and, well, five or six years passed. But now it's finally here! This remains my all-time favorite Danny Elfman score--that cuckoo clock motif gets me every time.

 

https://www.facebook.com/jeffc.bond/posts/10217815605195306

 

Five or Six Years!?  Five or Six Years!?

[Jurassic Shark 12,012]

Well, isn't Cruise illiterate?

[Yavar Moradi 2,576]

49 minutes ago, Jay said:

Five or Six Years!?  Five or Six Years!?

 

And that's not even a record. It may be for LLL, for all I know, but I know Intrada has had some things that took longer, and I remember Lukas Kendall saying that Jerry Fielding's Hunters Are for Killing took 10-11 years, from when he started work on it to when it finally was released.

 

Yavar

[Jay 37,271]

5-6 years ago was 2013/2014, and I thought their plan was to be out in 2016 for the 20th anniversary of the film (and the 1411 catalog number lines up with other 2016 releases).  Maybe they started the notes unusually early for this one.

[Bayesian 1,358]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

I don't have a photographic memory of what is happening on screen in every film I own the score to, so to open up the booklet of a score I love and read about what is happening on screen that the music I'm listening to was written for is incredibly helpful and interesting.

It’s the same for me. These kinds of histories and study aids, so to speak, are a big part of why I enjoy collecting soundtracks on CD. (Ditto for classical albums.)