Lewya

Both are very good, not great though. Not sure which one I prefer to be honest. Giving RiR the edge for now I guess.

Newton Howard is better than Powell of course, but why not Goldenthal? There's your competent guy. Christopher Gordon maybe, but not the other guys you mention.

That should be obvious though.

Not even close, it isn't even in the top 10 scores of the year so far.

Really? I would re-post the same picture in response to you. It is mostly poor stuff. What's so funny about that? Powell is a better composer than Giacchino. Powell's score may be less offensive than Giaccchino's Rogue One despite all of the annoying slamming MV/RCP percussion, excessive ostinati and choral Jenkins junk.

Oh dear, the score is HORRIBLE - Williams's pastiche mixed with Zimmerish RCP/MV tropes - slamming percussion and seemingly endless ostinati over most of the score. Also utterly tasteless Karl Jenkins's Adiemusesque choral mush thrown in. Powell dropped the ball. It may be a small improvement over Rogue One though, but that doesn't say much at all i'm afraid. I don't get what people are hearing in this. Williams's sole track is on the other hand is very good, it is obvious that nothing Powell did lives up to it. I am deleting Powell's score right away, saving only Williams's track. Why not hire someone competent, like say Goldenthal?

Here are the people I would put above Williams as far as Americana writing in the film world goes: Thomas Newman, Aaron Copland (obviously),Virgil Thomson, Leonard Rosenman (at his best at least), Hugo Friedhofer (at his best, think The Best Years of Our Lives which is a score Newman likes an awful lot by the way), Elmer Bernstein and Leonard Bernstein. Personally I find that it is hard to beat Thomas Newman in this category - it is probably the most individualistic and best Americana that movies have gotten since Copland. I would put Williams above Goldsmith probably though.

He didn't write it, he endorsed another guy who wrote that.

I agree with publicist here - I am not really a fan of either ending or the movies in first place, both are OK-ish, but nothing really good. I mean it is better than most film music, but not some of Williams's best material by any means nor does it represent film music at its best. Neither movie represents Spielberg at his best either, possibly the beginning of Saving Private Ryan excepted. Both scores are solid 3/5 scores, ok maybe 3.5/5 at most. I agree with Alex Ross that Williams's ersatz English score for War Horse has massive flaws (to say the least). Totally agree with this review of the soundtrack which Alex Ross, perhaps the finest music critic around, seemed to endorse at the time when the film & score was released: "John Williams has always been a master of the film score. His post-Korngold meets Holst (via Sibelius) approach to the space race defined the decade in which I was born. Equally, the sobbing melancholy of his Schindler's List theme provided a rare blockbuster's insight into what we lost in Central Europe during the 1940s. But while Korngold provided the impetus for those score, Vaughan Williams seems to have been the springboard for War Horse. Sadly, like Spielberg's direction, the score is a diminishing return. The opening movement 'Dartmoor, 1912' uses myriad flourishes from VW's best. There's a cadenza that's straight out of The Lark Ascending. Pentatonic melody and harmony dominates. The Tallis Fantasia pops up. Lombardic rhythms follow parallel fifths. You name the 'folk' touch and John Williams employed used it. But rather than the textural diversity of his previous scores, this is not a homogenous sound world. It's merely a smash and grab through purportedly English musical identity.What Williams has failed to employ is something akin to Vaughan Williams' use of folk song or Tudor hymnody. People may carp and lob the cow pat moniker at his output, but the constant variation and development of themes such as 'Dives and Lazarus' or Tallis's Third Mode Melody grounds its gestures in a larger history. It's idealised, but at least it has something to say. John Williams uses the gestures without the signifiers. And as the score inevitably turns away from string-rich symphonics to synthesised sound, you wonder whether it would have been better to employ a composer versed in the native musical tongue. But that lack of understanding seems indicative of the film as a whole." I mean, it is still respectable film music, but it doesn't in any way represent Williams at his best or film music at its best. It is masively flawed stuff to say the least.

Hero - Tan Dun A nice, solid score that is better than most film music, but it is nothing that special. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - John Williams A good score this one too, but it is nothing special. The weakest Potter score by Williams. Despite some standout tracks/material, this is not by any means among Williams's stronger scores.

I just found this in a tweet - Georg Friedrich Haas on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens score. His wife asked him what he thought of the score. Georg Friedrich Haas: "It was very good. He has a strong hand with his craft."

I forgot about Ignatiy Vishnevetsky - I agree, he is one of the best. Disagree with Brody on Williams obviously (he is not a fan).

What do people here think about Richard Brody? I think he is interesting or at least can be at his best, but I am not a big fan. For me Rosenbaum reigns supreme among living film critics, even if I disagree with him every now and then. I do agree more with Brody on Damien Chazelle for instance - I don't get the praise for La La Land - a movie Rosenbaum thinks is great. I can't say any prominent film critic I know of has impressed me with their comments or knowledge of on/of scores - it tends to be lacking category, unless it is a jazz affair I guess, then it tends to get picked up by either Brody or Rosenbaum in particular. I don't think I have ever seen Brody comment positively on a film score that wasn't jazz unlike Rosenbaum who rarely but nonetheless sometimes comments on the score.

I am a fan of early Tiesto before he got overly commercialized - his remix of this track is great. And I am also a fan of early Deep Forest - I picked a dance mix for this thread though.

I agree, I never said it was very interesting to listen to. None of the scores listed are very interesting to listen to. Shadows of the Empire is a nicely orchestrated nothingsness (ok, with some decent ideas) with some pretty heavy lifts - Ravel, Walton etc if I remember correctly. Serviceable, even a cut above that, but hardly great music.

I can't say I care for any of these scores listed, but Desplat's Potter scores may edge out the other alternatives, especially the final one - I thought he did a pretty solid job even if they are by no means great or anything I particularly liked much. It is the best score, but not the best "tribute", meaning the closest to Williams's music. Mike Verta probably does the best Williams's pastiche though imo.

Apparently Williams knows some of Higdon's music. Christopher Rouse, another Pulitzer prize winner and academic weights in in the comment section: Gloria Coates, one of the most successful female composers alive liked the post as well. Kevin Puts liked the post. Du Yun, a recent Pulitzer prize winner "loved" one of the images. Love spying on what these successful composers think of Williams, wether good, bad or indifferent

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A few of them you posted are new to me. I also liked the Casino Royale Bond song, but not enough for it to make my top 10. I forgot about the Mulholland Drive song (underrated score that one too), that one is near the top as well for me.

For me, it is these ten songs that represents the peak of the media songs of the 21st century so far - most of the songs are from the television scoring world - anime specifically: Placeholder for a A.R. Rahman song - I can't decide which one to pick now, but one of his songs surely belong in the top 10. I dug this one, but it is probably not his best: And finally, the three The Lord of the Rings songs - I really like all three of them, even the Enya one - I know am cheating a bit here counting all three songs as one entry, only linking to one of them. Edit: I totally forgot about Frida - a good one, not sure which one to remove so I will just leave it like this. Other than these ten (with some cheating), there have been some good ones, but nothing as good as these ten that I know of. If I was forced to pick one favourite, a number one of the top 10, it would probably be a battle between Inner Universe and Battlecry. But I might have missed something, that is a part of the reason why I am wondering what you would single out as the top 10 media songs (from film, television or games) of the 21st century so far. What would your top 10 media (film, television or game) songs of the 21st century look like?

That was annoying, Eno's comments on Williams that is. I am probably as big Eno fan as I am a Williams fan - I am a pretty big fan of both. On most days though I actually prefer Eno over Williams. It would be interesting to hear him eloborate on why he thinks so, it is most likely because of what TGP said. I would actually agree with some of the criticisms, but I would obviously not be anywhere near as dismissive as he is. He sounds overly dismissive. My biggest critisism of Williams is probably that I would like to hear less of the big romantic writing and hear more diverse, alternative scores. Like Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker - I miss some of his 70s diversity and the occasional daring every now and then. That said, Alex Ross probably overlooked some of Williams later diversity. I am not only thinking of A.I., but also of Catch Me If You Can just to mention two titles - and there are some more that qualify. I wouldn't say Williams is as diverse and/or daring as he was in the 70s, but he hasn't fallen THAT FAR behind, at least not if we count the 00s - possibly even his finest decade in terms of diversity etc since the 70s. A valid critisism though is that he isn't keeping up the diversity consistently - it only happens every now and then - too seldom imo. It is not that I would like to see him abandon his most known "big" style entirely, but I would like to hear more alternative things far more often, especially since we know he can do other things so well, so I am not the biggest fan of the brand "sound" that he built since he is so rarely writing the kind of more alternative scores that I enjoy a lot (as much as I like his big usual mode - it gets too samey because he does it too often). As I have said elsewhere - on most days I would probably prefer to listen to Newman more than any other film composer even if he isn't necessarily my favourite film composer - one of yes, but I don't really have a number one. I love a dozen or so of film composers for different reasons, but I don't have a number one.

Kevin Puts a pretty recent Pulitzer price winnner had this to say: "The soundtrack to my childhood was written by John Williams. And only later in my life as I developed as a composer did I really come to understand what a great genius he is. There is no emotion or interaction between characters, no matter how complex, that he can not find the music for. And often those really amazing scenes are those we don't even notice that much, but the movie would not do what it can do to us emotionally without the music that he finds in these scenes. And of course this is because of his tremendous craft and tremendous intelligence that he can find for these moments. In our field, in the field of new music we are often criticized for being too cinematic or writing music that is too close to film music, but I have never really understood the aversion to these comparisions. I find it kind of flattering actually, because there is so much film music that I love so much but also because as a composer I want to tell the story with great impact for it to really hit home emotionally for the audience. And the best film composers are after the same thing". In his Pulitzer price winning opera Silent Night Puts said he was "going for a cinematic quality, commenting on the action and the emotions of a scene as it unfolds as a great film composer like John Williams might do it". Jennifer Higdon another fairly recent Pulitzer price winner said this: It’s one way Higdon believes she can contribute to musical life in addition to her work as a composer, pointing to John Williams as a role model. She recalls the impact of the Star Wars soundtracks when she was in high school and just discovering the potential of orchestral coloration. “I consider him a hero because of the colorful way he uses the orchestra but also because he has been such a generous musical citizen.”

Lol at that article and headline, I had to read it through twice to make sure it wasn't satire.

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It is a very good theme and one of the best things he has done since, but it didn't impress me. I was talking about whole scores or entire years, I am sure there is something that makes the cut for an impressive moment in one of his post 2005 scores that I am not aware of at the moment, Rey's Theme might be the closest I can think of. That just can not be compared to the wonderful year with at least two great scores (Memoirs and Revenge) and two other good scores.