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Or maybe scores like 'Russia House' and 'Basic Instinct' are more a piece of 'real' Goldsmith whereas the older stuff is a more cerebral composer cleverly channeling Bartok/Strawinsky/Hindemith into his film music. But over-rated? No...When i see either 'Russia House' or 'Basic Instinct', i can't think of a better, in the sense of dramatically apt, score. If it has to be a 90's Goldsmith, i'd say 'Rudy'. That is Jerry bowing to the most hoary of Hollywood's clichés...and see how people love that one.

Scores which fall vastly short of their reputation? Then we need more of those! I'd be happy with more of those - but I still think they are quite overrated - maybe not VASTLY. In what respect? I never encountered the slaphappy kind of affirmation for those that overloud spectacles like 'ID4', 'Cutthroat Island' or even 'Harry Potter' are getting. They are just not the kind of scores which seem to generate that special brand of hyperbolical fan raving.

Scores which fall vastly short of their reputation? Then we need more of those!

Heaven forbid that the creator of the music is allowed to shape the album release. Wait, i only have to think of 'A. I.' and 'First Knight' and i strongly feel the urge to punish myself for such imponderable composer ass-kissing!

o The idea is wonderful, but the execution is just diabetes-inducing and smug. Spielberg obviously only fulfilled a contract he couldn't get out of. The fact that he didn't hire Williams speaks volumes here, but who can blame him after the Morrow disaster?

It was and i liked it.

You just listened not closely enough. Once you get all the themes, it's better than 'ESB'.

For that, he needs more than solid craftmanship. It would include becoming something of a national celebrity with 5 oscars and a household name in the musical world of America. I don't see how Giacchino can achieve that.

You really want the shoot in the foot, don't you? You have just to accept that it's impractical to occupy a term and trash it's whole meaning. What comes next, Jeshopk declares war to the jurisprudence because he has decided he does not like the established definitions of the field anymore? And what about this fat woman? What has she to do with the fact that it makes no sense to call yourself an artist if you don't believe in ANY of the established notions, broad as they may be, of what constitutes art? I could play devil's advocate and say that someone who plays this double-standard might gain a healthy profit from it. Yeah, let's trash those stubborn yet established art views of yesteryear, but please, call me ARTIST!

Without hearing them? Man, that's talent. No. It's Colosseum, the early-bird german distributor of Varése.

'One Little Indian' I'm rather pleased to listen to a new Goldsmith release which isn't already thrice-released stuff made available again with one additional cue in mono. This is a nice, sunny and light western with one robust and one yearning theme, both highly melodic and played broadly at least 3 oder 4 times, so no complaints from the themes department (It's a crossing between 'Rio Lobo' and 'Take a Hard Ride'). The inventive orchestration makes this clearly a Goldsmith-child of the 70's and there are several longer passages which just have a lovely shine to them...and of course the two obligatory action outbursts. Somehow i know that there will be considerably less people listening to this than to 'Wolverine', 'Star Trek' or stuff like that...but i can safely say this one has more replay value.

But that seems all centered around the notion that a bourgeois concept of arts was imposed onto mankind by some evil power and now we must destroy it. The fact is that the concept of fine arts was formed 3000 years b. c. and to reduce it to a post-industrialist class struggle is like saying Steven Spielberg is the epitome of american cinema. The point is that, as in all sciences, the definitions for art are ever-changing and what you cite as social criticism is an old hat by now. If there are not at least some guidelines and benchmarks, which very well might be overseen by more articulate and educated people, there is no need for the concept, easy as that.

If you are able to make sense the of the successive words google, rapidshare and isolated dvd score you might be on to something.

No, the wisdom would be to accept that not everything i like automatically is a work of art.

No, what you are really saying is that you assume that we all have the same general understanding of what the word 'art' means and it's implications, definition-wise and historically, from which you deduce that we all form our own definition what art is for us, individually. And i say that is nonsense, because if there are absolutely no standards to apply, we don't need the term, period. Why not just leave the ART out of this and just say 'i like it'? Or should we invent a new word? Like 'iArt'? And for the 'AOTC'-hungry: it's more smart than art. The action music, anyway.

Yeah, but that's not to be decided by one single person, as you were insinuating earlier. And for you, a short-lived pop chart is to be equated with historical significance? That's interesting, because it is anything but, 99% of this stuff shares the fate of being forgotten soon. Nobody disputes that great art can be very popular, but to claim everything which ever rised above a certain public radar must automatically be ART just makes the term obsolete (and how do you measure this 'historical significance', anyway?). Not everything popular culture produces must be art, why should it? Or we have to disntinguish between grade A to Z art, which i find just as impractical (or is the 'Mona Lisa' really in direct competition to the 'Pirates of the Carribbean' poster, then?). Of course you can ignore all this and go on proclaiming 'everything is art!' but i don't see what you can accomplish with that...

He did it as a nod to Goldsmith. Then he would release 38 minutes and would make sure that the 12 minutes of action music are outbalanced by wobbling suspense stuff.

I like the sounclips...Horner and fantasy rarely go wrong ('Jumanji' excluded).

Now wait a minute, beauty may lie in the eye of the beholder, but the arts certainly have established some guidelines over the centuries what constitutes a special art like music. These guidelines may be rather flexible and partly subjective, but to say every musically uninhibited nincompoop can yell 'ART!' and voila, the handy ringtone becomes art....it's grotesque. There has to be a consensus or there aren't any arts.

'The Village' sure wouldn't have suffered from having 10 minutes more (the concert version of the 'Love Theme', for a start). It's a strangely sequenced album (the last cue seems to end the score on a rather nondescript note). I agree on the other albums, though.

I always thought if the makers would've insisted on a more orchestral approach á la 'First Blood', this one would be a treasure. As it is, you need a good stomach but the manly theme is great (as always).

I find it tough enough without even including 'Signs'. So it's a battle between 'Unbreakable', 'Village' and 'Lady in the Water' with a narrow win for 'The Village' because of the love theme and it's sublime variation in 'Those we don't speak of'.

Again, only applies to specific idioms. In others, it can be a hindrance.

Problem is, all of this applies only to Zimmer writing vaguely epic Hollywood style music. He has written in a lot of other idioms with different requirements, i. e. pop, rock, fusion, country etc. And we all know how it sounds if better trained composers start to write songs and pop...better key modulation and more wicked harmonization aside, it mostly sucks.

I don't know you at all, thankfully.