Richard Penna

Given some recent heated debates here, enjoying something 'for what it is' is an underrated practice. I was listening to an album by Steps last night, a UK 90s/00s pop act that I was rather into. No one's going to pretend it's anything other than basic, bubblegum pop, but you'd likely also find that the millions of fans around the UK couldn't care less. It feels great to listen to it if it's your thing - I get a rush I'd never get from the Beatles. More recently I listened to a few Taylor Swift songs, and hand on heart couldn't understand what all the fuss was about - but play my favourite Dua song and millions will be similarly disinterested.

I think the first sample above is slightly clearer - it's subtler than some, but it's definitely got a bit more clarity for me. If you'd only given me one, I'd likely have no complaints.

There a few taste-related links between my Mum and brother (Dad doesn't really listen to music) but really, my love for instrumental music doesn't seem to have much rooting in anything, and my taste in pop music is similarly baseless - my brother prefers rock, Mum likes folk. I often ask myself why I like darker, textural music more than others (Spotify determined that I was a vampire last year because I play lots of dark, emotional things) and that may never be easily answered.

The only one I can see in the UK is this one, and its release date is 1990. Maybe some newer version around in some other countries and they messed up the album art?

By 'not a fan', I find a lot of it too loud and overbearing - I have 15 minutes of it. I also commit a grave cardinal sin with this score: I prefer the film's isolated score version of the stealth ship fight, complete with some sort of isolated electronics. TWINE has a nice balance of orchestra and electronics - Pipeline being a particularly nice example. Not sure I've ever listened to DAD and the film never appealed to me. What I've heard about the synth mix on the soundtrack doesn't enamour me to listen to it, tbh.

Thunderbirds was massive in my household when the BBC did a repeat in the early 90s. I'm fairly sure my Mum made me and a friend Thunderbirds outfits and we had all the models. Certainly, Gray's theme is up there with the best movie and TV themes. Although I always thought the Fireflash would've stopped way earlier in real life - it feels like they dragged it on a bit for dramatic purposes. Having said that, the model work on display there and generally) is outrageously good - similar to how amazing Nick Park's claymation was for its time.

Wow, so Mike was doing audio work on them a year and a half ago. I guess that means approvals are really a pain.

Gotta be. I remember pondering what the Eshkeri could be. If the lord looks kindly upon me, it could be Johnny English 2, but more likely to be Stardust (OST is enough for me) or something else I'm unfamiliar with.

Not sure if I've kept track entirely but doesn't that leave Williams as one of not many remaining composers (if there are indeed any others) on Roger's initial list for the year?

Never heard this (or of it) before so I'm giving it a whirl on Spotify. I have to concur with thx99 - it sounds flat (vaguely bordering on mono in a few spots) and the acoustics are just weird, like the bass is nonexistent but the trebles are sky high. Is it possible that this was just not recorded well? It's not my thing though, so I'm not going to listen to the whole thing.

A YouTube personality over here made a feature film and alongside the DVD/Blu-ray release, they put it out on VHS... on a DVD. What they did was play the DVD onto a VHS tape, then recorded back to the DVD, so you'd play the DVD and the video would look like it was from a VHS tape. Personally? I was delighted to say goodbye to VHS tapes decades ago. Horrible things. If you watched them as much as I did, you'd eventually be left with a snowstorm or need to wait for the show to be repeated and re-record it. Blu-rays start out pristine and look and sound the same even if you watched them on a loop for the rest of your life.

Cold Mountain I saw the movie and got the DVD years ago - feels like it slots in just before winter starts properly. Also a fairly rare occurrence where I find a few of the songs just as interesting as Yared's score - I found the promo sufficient for his material.

There's a link being made here that I think is a bit tenuous - any score is going to be recorded in the highest resolution and quality possible... because that's the job of the recording engineer. If whoever mixes the sound in the final film does a terrible job or the whole film ends up being mixed in mono (for example), that's just how they did their part of the job - it doesn't negate a general reasoning to record the music properly in the first place. Plus, I've heard quite a few older scores which sound amazing on CD but not that great in the film. Also... things go wrong. Clearly something went wrong during recording the finale cues from The Mummy Returns as they sound like shit, so a similar question could be asked of 'why didn't they bother hiring L.A's best engineers for this score?'. That's the wrong question to ask because it's assuming that no one makes mistakes. The answer is probably that they did hire the best, and someone screwed up.

My top 3 are Rose, Amy and Ruby. Not sure who I'd pick amongst them right now. And it's not just the actors, but their chemistry with the Doctors that affects this, and Tennant, Smith and Gatwa are three great doctors.

I got the first one when I was in a more naive and rosy-tinted period many years ago. I now have just one track which has the main theme.