Eplicon

For those that missed the Mondo pre-order, the Amazon link is now live. Hurry! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYLVSSQ5

I'll probably get the super deluxe edition; there really hasn't been a satisfactory release of the soundtrack on CD until now. It's been a long time since I last played it, but the very first issue sounded muddy, like someone amped Dolby noise reduction to the max to the point where the music didn't breathe and had no clarity, almost like hearing something while suffering from bad cold and stuffed up ears. Every five years when a "new" anniversary edition is released, it sounded no better than the previous incarnations. The new/bonus tracks on those had no bearing to the original, i.e., contemporary cover versions of the most popular songs. (Didn't buy all of these releases, just sayin'. ) I do have that limited two-disc edition 35th anniversary from a few years back that contained some more underscore than the single CD version, but that wasn't as good as it could have been. Glad a definitive edition is finally coming out!

Link (https://www.disneymusicemporium.com/product/XVCD60/john-williams-indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny_ )seems to be live again for pre-order. My order went through and there's a corresponding pending charge on my credit card. Crossing fingers, and good luck everyone else who also missed out!

My copy arrived this afternoon, and unfortunately, it has the aforementioned defect and sound anomalies. As @John Takis said, this blemish is not very easy to spot, and even harder to get a picture without getting reflections from everything else. EAC did me no favors, either. Rather than rip the disc right away, I decided to do the "test selected tracks" first, just to get an idea of what might happen. And it wasn't very encouraging. The "Est. remaining" number for the entire disc kept on increasing and increasing to the point where it probably would still be stuck on track 1. Like I'm going to spend over two weeks to rip a CD. Still waiting like most for Varese to address this issue and correct it since the so-called replacement copies have the same problem. Right now I'm not too eager to deal with their customer support (aka Misty) since I had a really difficult time with her over a lost shipment last year before it was finally resolved.

Count me in as one of those who assumed that Disney had an exclusivity window before seeing a wider release. I was unable to pre-order this when I had the chance due to being bedridden for a few weeks after surgery. Did Disney strategically opt not to mention this being a limited run to avoid speculators? Or was this two CD purchase limit placed from the get-go? I'd get the digital version as a last resort, as I neither want to double dip for identical content should a CD be made available again, nor do I plan on breaking the bank on eBay.

Agreed about this being a touching moment. Williams being bestowed that honor was the highlight of the program. Williams is generally modest and appreciative when given accolades in relation to his craft -- Grammys, Academy Awards, etc. But when recoginized for his contribution to the humanities, he seems to show a little more emotion.

Since the back of my head appears in some of the earlier photos (I was sitting in A 12 on the orchestra right side), I might as well chime in... I didn't have the best viewing angle, but the performances and sound were excellent, and it indeed was a very nice concert. The opening montage of his various filmography played to the music from E.T. was very nice, as it covered other aspects of his career beyond his blockbusters, like Born on the Fourth of July, Far and Away, and Seven Years in Tibet. Home Alone seemed to get a noticeable reaction, although I wasn't sure if it was due to a fondness/nostalgia for it, or that some didn't realize that was one of Williams many iconic works. When Steven Spielberg spoke, he didn't go into the usual anecdotes, i.e., thinking the two-note motif to Jaws was a gag, or how Williams felt he wasn't worthy enough to score Schindler's List. Instead, he gave a simple, but a loving reflection of how he and Williams first started working together and that this collaboration and friendship continues fifty years later. Spielberg and Denève gave Williams a couple of shutouts, which then the audience cheered and gave him a standing ovation. People were filming and taking pictures, but I couldn't tell where was until seeing a later video. Anne-Sophie Mutter on "Markings" was both a work of art in performance and composition. For me, when Williams writes a concert work, he seems to have not only color and texture in mind, but ambiance as well when performed in a formal, classical hall setting. I could pick out more details from the orchestra that isn't as noticeable on the album recording. Her later duet with Yo-Yo Ma was also a nice touch, in a "Dueling Banjos" kind of way, and how they playfully dared the other to outdo the last bit of playing. Denève did an excellent job with Jurassic Park, as thx99 mentioned, as this rendition was closer to the tempo of the original film recording. The revision that Williams did, which I believe began in 1995 with the Williams on Williams: The Classic Spielberg Scores album (and carried through subsequent performances/recordings), took away a lot of the grandeur and majesty with the faster pace. Slightly disappointing was the Superman March, as it was truncated and had a quite a few jarring transitions. However, the montage of Williams over the years made up for that, which included some rarely seen ones, such one photo where it looked like he was napping on the couch after a difficult recording session. When 90 years old you reach, conduct as much you will not, but Williams's much anticipated appearance just for the sole encore of "The Imperial March" was worth it. Earlier Denève made this comment about Williams, which really summed up not just the event, but his career: "John's music is timeless, but he is ageless."

Part of the issue is that Mike and Nick had a relatively short window to get it edited, mixed, and mastered to coincide with the special edition release of the trilogy. I've tended to prefer the RCA 2-CD set, at least in the case of Empire, because of the sound quality. The Arista set, which adhered to Eric Tomilson's stellar mix, had quite a few dropouts and other anomalies as the tapes used at the time was the only available source. If anyone hasn't read it before, check out the Jan/Feb 1997 issue of Film Score Monthly (available in the "print backissues" section as a PDF); Mike wrote some really good articles about it not covered in the RCA liner notes.

Kojian's. The biggest selling points: The 20th Century-Fox Fanfare, plus what was then the unreleased material. This and the OST albums (this was years before we had expansions of any kind) were so ingrained in my ears that hearing Williams own collective take of the trilogy years later was anticlimactic. I felt the playing by the Skywalker Symphony was lackluster, uninspiring, and too slow. It was almost as if Williams was tired of having to hear this Frankenstein's monster that he created with the Star Wars theme for the umpteenth time. Then again, it might have been due to the SSO being a pickup group. One of the comments I read when the album was released was that it didn't seem to have the kind of performance from an established orchestra.

Yeah, even as a 9-year old back then, I thought the liner notes concerning Star Wars were a bit silly ("'Battle it out' with cosmic explosions," "Space You Out," etc.) for a movie I took very seriously! If anyone is curious on what Marty Gold's arrangement on Star Wars sounded like: Mine was also scratchy and prone to skipping as heard here! Still, I played it a lot since it was all I had in terms of Star Wars music at the time.

Not counting all those later CD and digital editions, I still have the original double-LP, as was released on 20th Century Fox Records. Later I "upgraded" to the cassette because I needed a clean-sounding tape for portable listening purposes as the vinyl eventually made too many loud cracks and pops to make a good recording out it. While Star Wars, as was the case for many others, was the movie that got me into John Williams and film music, it was actually my third LP album of his after Superman and The Empire Strikes Back. Before that, the only thing I could afford was this cheap compilation (about $4 in the late 1970s) from Peter Pan Records. It was more orchestral (to put it mildly) than Meco's version, but still had quite bit of that disco vibe. And it wasn't really what I'd call a cover version, more like an arrangement with variants that made the music unrecognizable at times.

If memory serves, members of the Boston Pops didn't care for it, either. This was apparently the source of creative differences that nearly had Williams quitting the BPO back in the early '80s. The 1941 march doesn't do too much for me; maybe it's the flamboyancy or comedic tone of it, although the same probably could be said of "March of the Villains," which I actually do enjoy.

Didn't critic Royal S. Brown also make comments along those lines of how Williams actually set back the progress of film music by going all out retro for Star Wars? I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something to that effect.

The intended version for me as well. With the release of the FSM set, not only was it a revelation in finally listening to the intended main titles restored in its rightful place after the "Prelude," but also hearing it synchronized to the title sequence (featured in FSM's "Score Restore" article when the Blue Box was released). However, since seeing the clip, now all those nuances in the performance where the orchestra "hits"/modulates/flourishes on the names in the credits sticks out far, far more than ever before in just listening to it by itself. But in a good way, since the intended main titles now makes more sense musically, if that makes any sense, and this is the version is my "go to" when I want to hear the Superman theme. But for nearly 30 years, until 2008, I had always loved the film version -- with those two edits. It was something about this performance of the main theme that had a bit of an oomph to it that seemed absent on the original 2-LP album. For a time I had thought this was a version that Williams recorded specifically for the credit sequence. And of course, that was not the case, and that it wasn't later that what I found to be so energetic about the performance (i.e., a bit faster) was due to a slight pitch alteration! I remember wondering why the LP sounded so slow in comparison... I thought my dad's turntable wasn't calibrated properly, so I had cranked the speed control up to make it sound more like what I heard in the movie -- and I'm not referring to changing it from "33" to "45" speed; it had a knob to fine tune going up or down in pitch. The glory days of analog technology with knobs and buttons!

There can be too much of a good thing, sometimes. With all those expansions from last year and more recently that of SUPERMAN, it's almost coming at the expense of listening to the newer releases. I still have a big backlog of new (that aren't new anymore!) albums that are still sitting on the shelf, unopened because of this. It's not necessarily a good problem to have. Still, I eagerly await whatever expanded scores are coming out just to repeat the cycle. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯