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Here's a weird thread! Does your normal every day member of society brain ever stop while listening to a really fantastic and incredible modern John Williams track and go..."this was written by a man in his 70s/80s?!?!" It happens to me mostly on the more streamlined and cleaner works John has written. Also some of the more aggressive and action music. "Everybody Runs," "The Hunt," "No Man's Land," "The Tide Turns" all come to mind. I actually just got it during the action music in No Man's Land. You don't, at least in most of our modern western cultures, associate a gentle old man with menacing bombast and almost rock-'n-roll level [orchestral] music. And yet there it is. It sends chills through my body imagining John in his old age sitting at a piano punching out notes that become "The Hunt" in the Lost World. Consider what a not-so-small role time plays in our ability to communicate with each other. Just look at the last 20-40 years. People growing up in the 70s and 80s have brains wired for a completely different musical language from those growing up in the 90s and 00s. The younger ones find the musical palette of the past strange and syrupy, the older ones find the new music overly emotional and like loud noise. And here's a man born closer to Tchaikovsky than to most of us and he can write music that is very much in keeping not only with that era, write music that is 80s, 90s, 2000s, and beyond. That's what makes my jaw drop. His 2000s music sounds completely modern, completely in sync with our modern sound palette, and yet completely out of sync, anachronistic with his own age. I have to believe that it's a conscious choice, that the great man behind the curtain chooses to connect with us with our modern language, to write cool music. To write music like No Man's Land. Music you wouldn't be embarassed to admit listening to to your cool modern friends. It's magnificent if you think about it. Wizard of Oz level magic. Imagine if an elderly author could write a novel in Shakespearean English, Victorian English, and Modern Colloquial English at will. Now imagine if he could blend all those iterations of the English language into one novel that makes complete and absolute sense. Because that's basically what John is doing. Anyways, cue Joey discussing how modern Williams and modern Williams suck.

I was utterly wowed by The Hunt, and was amazed at the contemporary, yet superior Ludlow's Demise. I was like, "this guy tops 'em all". Similar thoughts to what Blumenkohl expressed. What a great week that was when The Lost World CD hit shelves.

You need this: Karol - who needs to get On the Beach sometime (it's great)

Spielberg never mentions him at all in his audio commentaries.

I think Newman's score is a deserving score. Last year the three best scores lost, War Horse, Hugo, and TinTin to a less than deserving score but the flavor of the month.

I agree Lee. I think Shawn Murphy is to blame a little on this. Browsing on pc for once in my life here, the full fat JWFan experience is nice to see every now and then. But hey Blume, what's your sig all about? I mean, could you be any more full of yourself and downright narcissistic on this message board? Who do you honestly think is supposed to give a shit whether you love them or not? Give the endless and overestimated promligations a rest for a while, will ya? What will you bring next, a bugle? It's phony nonsense.

- Conrad Pope