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


Ollie

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The artwork for the front cover looked like something made for a bootleg

How clever of you to hide that in a wall of text. When ever I say that about a CD release, I suddenly get harassed on the message board by the album producer in a surprise visit!

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I've been listening to this on a loop for a while now. It's one of those great moments where a composer completely captures a tangible feeling in music. As much as I hated those northeastern three month winters, I'm going to miss the snow around Christmas. Might have to trek up to Yosemite after a snowfall to see what this music is describing again. If I were any good at drawing/painting I'd try to capture the images this puts in my head. Wish this guy would write this kind of substantial game score more often than Bethesda requires, or go into film, or into "concert" music. Whatever, just write more, as long as it isn't for frilly games.

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I enjoy the Generations score, but like the majority of overrated TNG music, it pales in comparison to the music of Deep Space Nine, which is far too suppressed while TNG scores are given too many releases.

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I've been listening to this on a loop for a while now. It's one of those great moments where a composer completely captures a tangible feeling in music. As much as I hated those northeastern three month winters, I'm going to miss the snow around Christmas. Might have to trek up to Yosemite after a snowfall to see what this music is describing again. If I were any good at drawing/painting I'd try to capture the images this puts in my head. Wish this guy would write this kind of substantial game score more often than Bethesda requires, or go into film, or into "concert" music. Whatever, just write more, as long as it isn't for frilly games.

It's wondrous, that cue. And so is the rest of Skyrim.

Remarkable how Jeremy Soule was able to create a completely orchestral sounding score with HQ samples and layering of vocals for a huge choir effect.

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I love the statement of Sauron's theme at the opening of that cue. Again, wish BotFA had that kind of awesome low brass (though it may not call for it). Real highlight is the Galway solo and onwards (4:51 to end) that comes later. Everything about it screams Tolkien! to me. I mean that in the sense that it really helps instil that Tolkienistic value of that there is always good and hope, no matter the darkness that lies ahead of you. The great statement of the Grey Havens theme that closes the cue off really helps too. I embeded the video at the best bit of that, but what precedes it should be included too.

I would say that some of the moments in BOFA, if they were performed by the LPO, or recorded/mixed/mastered better, would be able to be counted.

A

The end of The Tomb of the Steward is great too, even though it seems to have been written for a scene which definitely doesn't exist anywhere, in any version of the film.

That choral stuff? I love that bit!

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HOME ALONE 2 - JW

It has been years and the season seems right (actually doing work in Indesign and Photoshop goes down really easy listening to orchestral pratfalls mimicking Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci falling down ladders). The most shocking revelation was the uncanny similarity of HOME ALONE 2 to the first Potter scores and TINTIN - i don't know if Williams had an epiphany writing this (Heureka! I found the secret recipe!!) or he just forgot that he wrote this (it happened before). It's still a bonanza of christmas delights, lots of sweet frosting and possibly one of Williams' most thematic works. It lacks the chamber music charm of the first one, but in a triple Whopper way it delivers the goods though you may experience diabetic coma when the 100th schmaltzy rendition of SOMEWHERE IN MY MEMORY rolls by.

Though two cd's is A TAD on the long side HOME ALONE 2 really belongs in the 'they don't do 'em like that anymore' category.

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I dig that. It's on Spotify, too.

Cleaning the archives i found this one

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THE VANISHING - Jerry Goldsmith

An incredibly shitty movie based on a mean dutch thriller from the late 80's is a textbook example of 'take the money and run' - George Sluizer directed both movies and sadly went with every bad suggestion the Fox executives possibly could make to 'improve' on his original vision. Entrée Jerry Goldsmith, beloved bad movie icon, saviour of cinematic dreck since the late 50's. This score, so legend has it, was deemed unreleasable by the choosy maestro back in 1993 due to its apparent suckiness - obviously not only the lord works in mysterious ways since the much more sucky MALICE from the same year found its way on a boring 33-minute Varése release (though it has a great main title).

A bootleg surfaced in the late 90's. It turned out that the score was neither fish nor flesh, too expertly done to wholly disappoint, but also a bit too meandering along in that barely-passable 90's thriller style that precluded any BASIC INSTINCT-like greatness, possibly due to Goldsmith realizing what kind of movie he had on his hands. With 20 years having passed, THE VANISHING offers some surprising subtleties that help to understand the gradual change film music went through since the 90's. On the surface, huge blockbusters like WATERWORLD still had sprawling orchestral scores but middle-of-the-road thrillers, courtroom dramas and so on already started to demand bland und unnoticeable accompaniment to blend in with the sound track. So THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL it ain't but in hindsight you realize that Goldsmith actually is telling you the story in music - only that he devised ways to cover a lot of it with bare bones orchestration and motivic short cuts that he must thought he could get away with at the time.

The main thematic idea for Jeff Bridges' demonic character introduced in the first cue is a bumbling-in-a-menacing kind of way tune that is rather transparently orchestrated and only later you realize that it isn't this little BASIC INSTINCT-lite ditty that forms the body of the score but an eerie half tone step that starts the cue and really connects the whole score - it's the score's (and Barney's) demented brain (listen to a bombastic breakout of this halfway in the cue ABDUCTION). This is the strongest stuff and while 65 minutes is way too much of it there are a lot of short cues that are very effective in presenting this idea in various guises (some cues like THE STARS or LET ME TELL YOU even have a serious REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD vibe going on, one of Goldsmith most obscure and best thriller scores that was far ahead of its time). There is a pleasant romantic melody for the doomed couple played by Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock but it's really another slight variation on RUSSIA HOUSE.

Since we're in the early 90's and the composer is named Jerry Goldsmith there is no way around rather cheap-sounding electronic percussion hits and plinky-rinky effects that are sometimes effective but more often irritating since they don't contribute that much but there you have it (there's also a hideous Fairlight effect that comes right out of RENT-A-COP!). The final 15 minutes unleash sharp kettle drum attacks and frenzied action riffs that are actually as good as the same kettle drum attacks and frenzied action riffs in L A. CONFIDENTAL. This is maybe not top-drawer Goldsmith but also a far way from superficial sleeping pills like MALICE. If you skip 40% of the Varése Club release you end up with 40 minutes of a subdued but undervalued thriller score that has some quite good cues. I actually had this in rotation and it withstood my litmus test - to play it again or skip it - several times. A nice discovery i forgot about for too long.

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The most shocking revelation was the uncanny similarity of HOME ALONE 2 to the first Potter scores and TINTIN

The first times I heard Tintin I was really confused until I could place where I knew a little figure in the title track from (turns out it was from the alternate Holiday Flight).

Re-relistening to it yesterday also made me aware that there's even more Hook and Potter in it than I had remembered.

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Islands in the Stream by Jerry Goldsmith

Wow, this score is really great! Should have checked it out sooner.

I bought it for a couple of reasons. It's quite possibly my favorite book, it's Goldsmith, and Sharky had great things to say... But my first listen didn't yield much. I need to go back to it for another shot but it's not a priority at the moment.
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I've been listening to this on a loop for a while now. It's one of those great moments where a composer completely captures a tangible feeling in music. As much as I hated those northeastern three month winters, I'm going to miss the snow around Christmas. Might have to trek up to Yosemite after a snowfall to see what this music is describing again. If I were any good at drawing/painting I'd try to capture the images this puts in my head. Wish this guy would write this kind of substantial game score more often than Bethesda requires, or go into film, or into "concert" music. Whatever, just write more, as long as it isn't for frilly games.

It's wondrous, that cue. And so is the rest of Skyrim.

Remarkable how Jeremy Soule was able to create a completely orchestral sounding score with HQ samples and layering of vocals for a huge choir effect.

I want his studio. Maybe I should mosey on over and knock on the door.

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Checkmate & Rhythm in Motion by John Williams

A Guide for the Married Man by John Williams

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Is that a recurring motif?


Islands in the Stream by Jerry Goldsmith

Wow, this score is really great! Should have checked it out sooner.

I bought it for a couple of reasons. It's quite possibly my favorite book, it's Goldsmith, and Sharky had great things to say... But my first listen didn't yield much. I need to go back to it for another shot but it's not a priority at the moment.

The main theme is lovely, especially with those swirling winds. But yeah, I could do without some of the island-flavoured music, but still a very good score.

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Julius Caesar by Miklós Rózsa

El Cid (NZSO re-recording) by Miklós Rózsa

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Indeed.

This story does bring out the best in many composers :) Both Williams' and Hermann's score are also sublime

Agreed.

Revenge of the Sith twice, NBC News, discs 2 and 4 of the Deep Space Nine set and Star Trek: First Contact.

News, the final frontier?

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Jaws - John Williams

Alien - Jerry Goldsmith

Cleopatra - Alex North

American Beauty - Thomas Newman

Altered States - John Corigliano

Zero Dark Thirty - Alexandre Desplat

There Will Be Blood - Jonny Greenwood

They all sucked.

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Jaws - John Williams

Alien - Jerry Goldsmith

Cleopatra - Alex North

American Beauty - Thomas Newman

Altered States - John Corigliano

Zero Dark Thirty - Alexandre Desplat

There Will Be Blood - Johnny Greenwood

They all sucked.

BOORRIINNG!

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Jaws - John Williams

Alien - Jerry Goldsmith

Cleopatra - Alex North

American Beauty - Thomas Newman

Altered States - John Corigliano

Zero Dark Thirty - Alexandre Desplat

There Will Be Blood - Johnny Greenwood

They all sucked.

Sucked boredom from your life you mean and replaced it with awesome?

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Notes on a Scandal by Philip Glass

Have I mentioned this is my favourite Glass film score? It's his finest attempt at a "traditional" film score, while still retaining his musical style and voice. The way he interweaves his usual minimalist ideas in motivic ways is impressive in itself, but you've never heard his music with such menace and darkness. Those low woodwinds do just the trick. It's definitely the superior to his other work of the year, which I'm not a big fan of.

Just really good stuff.

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Notes on a Scandal by Philip Glass

Have I mentioned this is my favourite Glass film score? It's his finest attempt at a "traditional" film score, while still retaining his musical style and voice. The way he interweaves his usual minimalist ideas in motivic ways is impressive in itself, but you've never heard his music with such menace and darkness. Those low woodwinds do just the trick. It's definitely the superior to his other work of the year, which I'm not a big fan of.

Just really good stuff.

Yeah it's pretty much the best representation of the never changing Glass.
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