Richard Penna

I'd see that as a somewhat non-progressive stance, but depends why you would think that. I.e. a female Bond is a change to tradition and I suspect most people don't have an issue with it being a male actor. Some other stuff in other news has just wound me up a bit with regards to general sexism - I'm not suggesting they should be rushing to cast someone non traditional. Whereas if it's the black aspect, that's more of a problem.

Actually not a huge amount of action - maybe 15 mins or so in the 60 minute score - and there are no synths or textures that Goldsmith normally used - a completely organic sound. If you've never heard it before, the OST might be enough, but LLL's (sadly OOP) expansion adds some really nice material - it was a minor grail for me but thankfully it was one of the earlier modern Goldsmiths they did.

Not difficult for me with Goldsmith to at least pick the finalists. It's either The Mummy or The Edge. One's complex, exotic and just damn exciting, but the other's evocative and provides such a unique atmosphere, with a lot of personal meaning.

Yep, that's what I meant. I know existing ones have to meet their goal. At least this one is a reasonable representation of the number interested though.

Not seeing why that needs a radical rethink. I honestly can't conceive of why anyone except plain old racists would have any problem with a minority Bond. But then I'm rather strongly on the side that I don't really see why it has to be a male character, in much the same way that The Doctor is no longer an exclusively male (nor white) character. No doubt if I said that on a Bond forum I'd be banished to Trenzalore forever because "tradition", but 007 is just a codename, right? Couldn't it be literally anyone?

Perhaps they could lower their sights in terms of not bothering the re-recording cleanups they had planned and just focus on licensing, editing and mastering the existing recording. Not ideal, but if you can't raise enough, surely it's better than nothing?

Isn't that pretty normal for shows that want to capitalise on a recently prominent figure? IIRC one of the Godzilla movies had a trailer heavily featuring Bryan Cranston fresh off his BB prominence, whereas I read he was in the movie for only a few minutes. Evidently the makers of MotA think Gatwa is now sufficiently well known both sides of the pond to use his as promotion.

I have a very niche obsession which over a few years I shared with someone on the other side of the world (long story... one of those endless searches for stock music used in a TV show) and my co-searcher admitted to me once that he was starting to have problems a bit like this. He was so obsessed with searching endlessly that he was starting to neglect basic social activity and family interactions. My limit on this subject has more been at the level of those making detailed edits of the prequels, for example, i.e. searching for the best sources, making careful edits, and celebrating when a new source of music is found. A lot more detective work and internet research is needed for my thing, and I wrote a blog based on our findings, but I've always been very conscious of when it's time to switch off and go and do something else, like any hobby. It's partly helped by another group of obsessives looking for stuff from a different TV show (with overlapping music usage) and nowadays I just let them do the hard work Thankfully I have a personal distraction in the form of a website I run, which occasionally needs attention and has rather a lot of bodges to iron out gradually.

Whittaker was fun and some of Chib's stories were good (particularly the first series) but most for me were a bit on the boring side and all that timeless child stuff went way over my head. I have no idea what was going on for most of Flux. While I love the show I don't get annoyed by (or tbh, usually notice) canonical issues or inconsistencies as long as the story and general vibe of the episode has something going for it. I lost Moffatt a bit towards the end of Smith's era a bit (series 6 is a bit rubbish, really) but I'd rather have his or RTD's attempts to be clever than Chibnall's and I really liked the four new specials.

My main experience of Wallfish is The Invisible Man which simultaneously has some really effective emotional/psychological moments with strings and electronics, and also the most literal nail on chalkboard action scoring that would make most fans here of traditional orchestral music vomit. If he can minimise the latter and continue some of that inspiration with what looks like a very atmosperic and tense film, this could be good. Although I'm in the minority club that really likes what Streitenfeld and Kurzel came up with, so I look forward to this sort of scoring.

That's good news, although I think I have a more positive view on the four new episodes thus far than some. I hope Gold is maybe going to put out a specials soundtrack to coincide with this series' premiere, but given his most recent comments about being pissed at his own fans for "stealing" his music (I'd have a few questions about what sort of security his agent's site has, or why it was stored there to begin with) I wonder what sort of release he's going to do at all. I hope he doesn't become the sort of composer that decides his music is just for the show and say FU to fans that have bought his entire DW discography.

Heard and shazammed a random song at a restaurant on Saturday evening and it turned out to be Ex's & Oh's by Elle King, from whom I already had the song that is on the Ghosbusters songtrack. The album as a whole takes a bit of getting used to (very countrified rock) but I like it, although a skim of one of her other albums wasn't doing a whole lot for me. Based on recent experience, something tells me I should listen to a bit more music radio

I really enjoy the 3rd too - watched it again last week with a friend who was loving it. I do think that in terms of story ideas it needs a bit of fresh air, but Atkinson's pitch perfect timing and chemistry with Bough are still brilliant. I could probably watch English or Bean doing anything for 2 hours and it would be funny. Sounds like a fourth is indeed happening! https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/johnny-english-4-officially-confirmed-newsupdate/

Those who want to see Atkinson as Bond, just watch Johnny English. I love all 3, although the third is running a bit low on credible ideas.

I'd prefer Cavill or Elba. I don't see how being young (in the sense of still in your 30s) is very important for Bond. And yep, The Sun is not a paper I'd use for anything more than clickbaity speculation.

My first encounter was back in the early 00s, back when I would scour the internet for 'main title' music and similar and would come across scores that were in general circulation at the time, hence having come out within the last few years. I have an exact snapshot of my score collection from January 2003 and I have no way to know which of these was my first Goldsmith track, but it was either The 13th Warrior, The Mummy or The Edge. Specifically Fire Dragon and the end credits suite from the former, half a dozen tracks from Mummy, and Lost in the Wild from the latter. I know I had AF1 too, but evidently not yet because it's not here! In the first two cases I have the end credit suites which indicates where my general lack of hostility to edited credit suites comes from. I think if you're just starting out in scores and you're looking for tracks that represent lots of ideas, a bit of dodgy editing here and there is not forefront of your mind. (and I think that nowadays that extends to basically anyone outside our communities). I also got the 40 Years of.. box at some point as an attempt to get into his music more, although with only partial success. I basically kept a bunch of interesting tracks but wasn't (and still am not) bothered about expanding on those with the original soundtracks. His music doesn't often work for me in full form outside of my favourites.

The Rock arrived last week and I had a proper second go through to identify a better curated personal OST. And now that Hook is back in stock, the wait continues for TLW to come back. It can't be rocket science to find a 5 minute window when they have both available..... right?

With the new series of Gladiators in the UK there's been a minor resurgence of interest in the soundtrack of the original 90s series. While I have the first release and found the second one for a sensible price on Discogs, I also recently found there was a 'main theme' CD single which features two tracks from the first CD in instrumental form (without Storm's vocals). Sadly it's not even a case of finding it at a sensible price - it's just not around at all and I have a saved search on Ebay and Discogs to see if one turns up. The odd person puts a rip on YouTube/Soundcloud but somehow manages to compress the fuck out of it in the process (and if they're not doing that deliberately, they don't know what they're doing).

It lends the sequence a bit more of a mythical feel as you're not seeing any real characters except Sauron. The final bit with the one ring is a bit underwhelming though.

I'm 99% sure I was taken to see The Secret Garden at the cinema as a kid but I was nowhere near the age that the music would've left any lasting impression. The track above is pleasant enough and I'll give it a whirl on Spotify (Varese's 30-minuters strike again I see) although if it's essentially just a half hour of flowery piano/string/woodwind material it may not be my thing. Although Doyle did what sounds like a similar sort of thing with All Is True and that's one of my favourite scores.

I'm not into either of these scores so haven't followed the various machinations, but is there a good reason why he co-scored Maverick with Zimmer/Balfe? I.e. a reason that doesn't involve them being able to put Zimmer's name on the cover, but a genuine workload-related reason. I received The Rock yesterday and my read of the liners made it clear that Zimmer/HGW's involvemement was due to better editing technology resulting in the music needing constant changes.

One of my few quibbles with the score is exactly this, and especially with the new section put back in. I get a bit apologistic with these moments because the composer is having to follow the film, but nonetheless it's not a very cohesive battle cue. The other quibble would be that I'm not a massive fan of Rescue Mission. It's a perfectly fine cue but it functions a bit like a prologue that needs music that's not very prologue-like on album. Were I looking to arrange the album for optimum listening I'd actually move this cue somewhere a bit later, and maybe even put Grimmel's Surprise as an opener, which has a much faster and accessible build-up and ends on a similar vibe.

Despite my modern distaste for the Oscars, I realised that as the US has gone forward an hour (a couple of weeks before us) and they're starting it earlier and it's no longer under Sky's captivity (now on a free to air channel) so I might actually see what the first bit is like, and maybe they'll even do best score really early...

I agree that stylistically it doesn't fit at all but I like the verse melody (the chorus being Test Drive) and in general I do like electronically driven songs. Not everyone's thing though, of course. I gave S&S a re-listen after getting this set and I just couldn't find a way into it. If that song has anything to do with the score or film other than a very tenuous cultural link with the band, or some meaning of sticks and stones... I'm not hearing it. It would be like putting Radioactive on a soundtrack album for a family comedy set in Vegas. Yes, the band is from there but what do they have to do with the theme or plot of the film? None of the albums needed a song.

Oh, if loads of cues were revised then the bonus section should be as long as it needs to be to present those variations. My point was that surrounding those alternate takes within often large component cues can result in a very bloated bonus section. If you're looking at it purely as a resource for alternates you find interesting (and swapping out) then it's a good approach. I'm essentially a bit skeptical that when a cue that has (say) 5 revisions, as a composer slighty rethinks their idea, do we really need to hear all of them? This is where I put my trust in a producer to determine where a revision is musically and creatively interesting.