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The HP movies provided a better palette of emotions and new characters, places and events. JP would have just been a canvas for more of the same action writing.

I mean, it's not that I feel special admiration for the Harry Potter movies. They are all something between acceptable and terrible. But I love the books and Williams' music for the three first movies. I also love his first two Jurassic scores. But I am satisfied with the two JP scores. I never felt the need to get more of them. Very different for Harry Potter. There I would have wished for an expansion of Williams' musical universe. Maybe, because of the books I feel a closer connection to HP. I also would have been fine with the books and his music only.

I can only dream about how great JW's scores for the later Potter movies could've been. If PoA is any indication, he could write another deliciously dark and epic score like Revenge of the Sith

Disney could make a Home Alone / Alien Mesh-up with aliens trying to invade the house and Kevin building traps for them. Would be surely more fun and probable more interesting than the recent Alien craddle of mankind jump scare movies.

Soon, they'll drop harmony and rhythm as well.

I understand they're trying to carve their own path, but after seeing the movie, I'm absolutely conviced Elfman's theme could work perfectly with this version of the character. As for taking a simple musical idea and using it as the backbone of the entire score, this leagues below something like JNH's Signs

Hmmm. Were the early 2000's (Prequels, Pixar, Harry Potter, Pirates) the next late 1970's / early 1980's?

Nostrome Alone

No. The 9 Star Wars movies provide each a wide palette of emotions and new characters, places and events. Just like Harry Potter.

Titanic

I did.

Potter. I've seen all the Potter films but only seen the first three JPs, but my choice is based on the music and not (or not much) on the films. There doesn't seem to be much need (or perhaps even room) for thematic continuity/consistency in the JP franchise, but Potter, which is basically one long story told in multiple parts, would have been the ideal vehicle for it. Williams brilliantly laid the groundwork in the first film, abandoned (too) much of it for the second one (due to the time constraints I expect) and went into quite another direction for Cuaron, but it's still coherent enough and would have provided plenty of room for expansion and development - both in style (PoA is proof) and thematic content. It's a shame Williams never got to expand on his Voldemort material.

I would definitely agree that the thing about your list is that all you really have to do is just follow Cannes, Berlin, and/or Venice in addition to the Oscars. They're major film institutions and a commercial marketplace, it's not like you're digging around blindly for obscure stuff just to be different. Many commercially viable and not so commercially viable movies come out of the history of these festivals. A big Hollywood distribution sale is part of many an international film's narrative. I'd say anybody who is even a little more interested in movies than average, for example enjoys watching Oscar Best Picture winners or AFI 100 classics, would also be equally encouraged to make the Palme D'Or winners and Sight & Sound part of their movie world. I found many entertaining and interesting favorites doing this and I'm basic as hell. I live in rural midwest America and work at a Target warehouse with a 2-year college degree. I'm pretty fuckin average. But I did drive an hour+ to see Annette, Benedetta, Parallel Mothers, Drive My Car, and The Worst Person in the World in a multiplex and Licorice Pizza in 70MM. I wouldn't say I defend WSS and Spielberg's direction on limited mainstream Hollywood parameters. I saw Annette, I like Annette, I love Carax and Sparks. I was excited for Annette and I was not that excited for West Side Story. I thought West Side Story was a better movie musical and a more rigorous (if less eccentric) piece of direction. I wouldn't call it banal. It's okay if it doesn't make someone's top 25. I also thought Drive My Car was brilliant and engrossing. Although I admit I was waiting for somebody to fuck the car. Wrong movie.

Not even themes, but whole building blocks that are inserted again and again. But if you trim the most egregious repetitions, you end up with one of the most entertaining sledgehammer action scores of the 2000's.

Star Trek: First Contact & Star Trek: Insurrection - Jerry Goldsmith Both great scores. I think of both these score the action music is really strong, but it's the emotional music that really makes these albums great!

It's too bad he didn't get away from Sony Classical sooner... DG is spoiling us with all of these releases. There was a 15 year gap between American Journey and Spielberg/Williams III. Just think of what could've been done in those years. (cue a "I could've done more..." joke)

It is a very nice cover. My John Williams DG collection is starting to look very nice and neat on my shelf

It reads QUICHA in the score. doubled by a synthesizer. Not sure if that's it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuíca EDIT: oh yeah, could be. https://youtu.be/7J2WZGCCpEk

I voted for Harry Potter, because it tells one coherent story over the course of 8 movies. There would have been so much potential for continuing thematic development and introduction of new themes for characters and locations, if he had returned with Order of the Phoenix. Lots of missed potential.

Doesn't this describe essentially the holy ideal of a film score for most JWFans?

Well, the new release certainly fixed one tiny tiny detail that was bothering me on the 2012 set. Name the tiny clipping artefact (or whatever) one second into track 9 that isn't present on the new edition. Is that enough of a reason to upgrade? 🤔😆 Karol

Yes. There are so many composers writing and having written good music. I do something different than that.

I still can't believe adults ask for autographs! " Oh Mr Horner, I'm you're biggest fan! Will you please sign my LLL limited edition TITANIC box set"? 😒

A cover so nice, it ought well be posted twice.

one of the main reasons why I don't listen or even bother to check out newer scores. so many are just incredibly uninteresting to me, thematically.

"Hey you, random director, we of Disney/Hulu need content and fast, manufacture me another Alien movie."

This is a tough one. Which would have been better? These days, I actually prefer the Jurassic Park scores over the Harry Potter scores... by a very slight margin. The action pieces in both Jurassic Park movies are second to none (well, maybe the Star Wars and Indiana Jones action pieces)! So I voted for Jurassic Park!

I think that's a bad example, considering the Jaws theme isn't the two-note motif. That's just the buildup, and that piece actually has a longer-lined melody, which is the actual theme. The two-note motif is just for the Shark, it's not the main theme of the movie for the characters. That's what most people take issue with in regards to Giacchino's theme. There is a longer melody for Bruce Wayne instead of Batman, similar to the Jaws approach, but it doesn't really have any character. It's just... there.

The Britten...

"And guess what Steven said then?"

See @Bayesian. I disagree. There is nothing that divides different kinds of cinema. It is all cinematic story-telling after all, just executed at different levels of rigor and achievement. You sell Spielberg short by labelling him "Spielberg is a crowd-pleasing filmmaker who mostly makes films that appeal to wide audiences, but many of your faves from 2021 likely appeal to film connoisseurs". Speilberg is one of my favorite film-makers too and I like all of these other films also. Speilberg films routinely feature in my Top 10 let alone Top 25. There is no difference in what he makes or what any of these directors make. Hamaguchi, the number one director in my list, said recently recently at the Berlin film festival, "In past history there was no gap between [mainstream and arthouse films]. The role of the Berlinale is to declare there is no gap. It might look like an arthouse film, but it might have some commercial aspect." This is really genuinely true. Think about it, the same Academy members that nominated Speilberg for directing West Side Story, also nominated Hamaguchi for directing Drive My Car. Those who nominated West Side Story for Best Picture, also nominated Drive My Car for best picture. What is difference is the the collapse of commercial mainstream film-making in the US and other english speaking countries - an artistic collapse. Think to the movies that were nominated for best picture in the 1970s - all classics, all great artistic achievements but more importantly all commercial achievements too. All hits, all critically acclaimed. There used to be no difference earlier. Two things have happened. Audiences have gotten dumbed. And the mainstream hollywood film-making is just garbage gutter trash dumpster fire risible and disposable. Take it from Martin Scorsese, if not from me. So again, the movies that I have picked, they are no different from the movies you watch. Surely they might have subtitles, but that surely isn't a barrier in this day and age? I found The Batman boring. It is a 3 hour film. I found Drive My Car entertaining, it is also a 3 hour film. The infantilization of the American film-going audience need not reflect on all of us. We need not be bound helplessly to the steaming pile of shit that Hollywood is throwing at us. Great cinema exists in many forms and it comes at us from everywhere in the world. Once you do that, a list like mine doesn't seem strange but begins to appear to be extremely commonplace and expected. Which is needless to say, Speilberg is a very great director. As great as any of the ones I listed and greater than most of them. He can and should do better. I expect better from him because I know how capable he is of greatness. So I am just asking more of Spielberg, not singling him out as a bad director or anything.

Well damn. After seeing the movie, I do think this is perhaps Giacchino's best score. Best is not the same as favourite. It doesn't reinvent the wheel (nor does the film), but both take what has worked well in the past and focus on doing all of those things really, really well. Fair play, Giacchino. You're back.

That's great, but... You make 24 sound like 64 or something.

I saw the film last night - pretty good, nothing really to write home about. I really liked Pattinson's Batman, probably moreso than Bale's. For the most part the music sounded mostly like Gia's usual emotional/dissonant strings. I can't remember the Penguin's theme at all, and Catwoman's material didn't stay with me, although it worked fine in the film. The Riddler's theme stands out a bit more and does it job as a 'puzzle'-driven theme, and the suite on album is nice, but I can't say it really did that much for me in the film. Really only a few sequences musically stuck out to me and gave me a mental note to check out on album - the highway chase, which is to some extent a kind of percussion-driven take on the Batman theme, but helps propel an incredibly chaotic scene, and the opening montage (not Ave Maria - the bit after). Sadly, the final sequences in the stadium with the flood were just Gia back to his Lost roots, which never really did much for me. I also noticed the brass-driven section wherre he dives off the building in Escaped Crusader. I'm going to compare this score thematically with Marianelli's score to Everest, in that both seem on album to be strange creative choices in terms of themes. You'd think that a disaster drama focused on Everest would have a big theme for the mountain (like pretty much every other one does), and it doesn't. Hence, you'd think that a superhero movie would have a big, long-lined theme for the hero, and again, it doesn't. However, watching Everest made it clear in my mind that their focus was 100% on the danger and emotional impact of the mountain - the main theme is subtle and mournful. The resemblance to the Imperial March is absolutely there and I totally get that some JW fans may be unhappy that Gia has ripped off JW's creation. I had the same 'what the hell is this?' reaction when I heard the suite on YouTube. However, by the end of the opening montage I realised why his theme is what it is - the narrator talks about the Bat Signal being not so much a heroic call, as a warning to antagonists to be afraid. As has already been pointed out, the film is very much a detective-driven take on the character - Batman/Wayne is almost like Sherlock in some scenes - and hence this minimalist theme sounds oddly inappropriate on album, but I think it works great once you get the approach the film has taken. I should point out that someone I was with who is generally a Star Wars fan, didn't notice the similarity until I pointed it out. I heavily suspect that this is a musical similarity that only those of us highly versed in scores will notice.

Well, that just means these scores won't be predictable. Which is a good thing, isn't it?

JP, AINEC.

The first soundtrack I "purchased" was a tape copy from an LP of Kilar's DRACULA. Up until then I didn't know that the music of films existed and you could buy it and listen at your home. So, before that I had made a mixed tape with my cassete player that I connected to my TV and VCR and recorded music from movies, mainly end credits or main titles. I remember the tape contained E.T. end credits, Superman main titles, Batman Returns, The Simpsons opening theme (),Star Wars throne room and finale, a couple of Academy awards music sequences from the best score category and I don't know what else..

Probably JK Rowling's secret account so she can come out and say that Voldemort was always a fan of one or the other and that the subtext was clearly in the books all along and totally not something that was just made up.

You're going to find a way to sneak in a Debussy reference on every discussion about melody aren't you?

And, sometimes you ask for help from those that do.

I had only marginal interest in John Barry until recently. His long lined melodies are the exact opposite of what you're describing, and I'm enjoying his methods of doing his own thing rather than synch points in the action. I think the modern vacuum you're commenting on has made this type of melody even more appealing to me such that I am craving it and searching out past works I might have ignored.

I just know it's not something I'd warm up to, but I'd give anything to hear it.

Hopefully never

Yeah, I meant that he write very detailed sketches as opposed to the story I put up about the guy writing tunes with his thumb or having a lot of ghost writers.

I don't know about Soundings, but I know that, for example, the Trumpet Concerto was orchestrated by John Neufeld. So, in some cases he uses orchestrators also for his concert pieces - surely, in the same way as he uses them with his film works. In other cases, he writes everything in full score by himself (he did in the Horn, Tuba and Violin concertos). Of course the composer is Williams, but Morley orchestrated the beginning of the End Credits. So, maybe she was just saying that it was her orchestration (as in the case of the final Yavin cue from Star Wars)?

She never said that. You're probably confusing the story of the infamous Les Baxter lawsuit. Angela Morley was very, very professional and kind with John, who trusted her a lot especially for arrangements. She did quite a few things for him when he was at the Pops. The fact is that orchestrators and arrangers rarely got credited back in the day. Morley did work on Star Wars, Superman, Empire, E.T., Home Alone, Hook and Schindler's List without getting credit in the film, but she was always credited on the manuscript score.

Karam wasn't implying ghostwriting for JW of course, but about writing arrangements and orchestrations because he was/is still an old school type of guy, i.e. writing pencil scores. And he didn't imply orchestrating Soundings, but rather doing more film orchestration/arranging work around that time because JW was committed writing that concert piece.

I will compose the score for my film. I don't know anything about composing, but, then, I don't know anything about making films either, so I might as well go all in. In the event that I am unavailable or unaffordable, my next choice would be Jonny Greenwood or Mica Levi.

Victoria Land is a beautiful record. My favourite track was always the first one. Same as Blue Bell Knoll from the same titled album. One of my favourite tracks. Has a nice "This is not America" vibe.

Less so every day...