Gnome in Plaid

No love for Mr. Morgan's Last Love? Personally, it's the first Zimmer score I've liked since Sherlock Holmes. Shame it doesn't seem it'll get an album release.

OK. That's awesome. I need to write something with that.

Judith got an album release? Sweet! Dreadful movie, but between this and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, I feel so spoiled with the Kaplan releases this year. Now that's a guy who never got his due.

Overrated? Hmm... I think it really depends on what crowd you're talking about. I'm not sure how many film composers other than John Williams and Hans Zimmer most people would even be able to name, and so by that yardstick, clearly Zimmer. If you're talking overrated among score aficionados, I'd say it depends on what level of commendation the composer actually gets. Giacchino probably gets more praise than he deserves, but the guy is clearly competent, if not on the level of the true masters. Guys like Ramin Djawadi and John Murphy, on the other hand, don't really get much praise, but any is still more than they really should.

Reaching for the Moon (Marcelo Zarvos) - Nothing spectacular, but some beautiful wind and guitar moments, and a quite romantic score in the way the word is used in common speech. Jane Eyre (John Williams) - It's a score I can always give a re-listen. The Jane Eyre Suite might be my favorite Williams track ever. The Score (Howard Shore) - Wow. What a disappointment. This marks one of only two Shore scores (the other being Scanners) I've actively disliked. Just nothing to recommend here at all. Blah. Hider in the House (Christopher Young) - This one is an undiscovered masterpiece. The first track is an 18-minute suite that's probably the best piece Young has ever written, and the rest of the album holds up just as well.

I'd agree with you on most of those, but Clint Mansell? Sure, he's written some bad scores (World Traveler, Knockaround Guys), but at his best (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Sahara), he's better than anybody not named Williams, Shore, or Horner working today. Sorry, but those scores are just not my cup of tea ('Lux Aeterna' is nails-on-a-chalkboard for me, and The Fountain is what imagine they pipe through PA systems in hell's waiting room, along with Elbow's One Day Like This and Barry Manilow Greatest Hits). I prefer Pop Will Eat Itself. Not familiar with David Wingo, but Marc Streitenfeld and John Murphy are great picks. To each their own, I guess. I first listened to Mansell's score for Requiem for a Dream shortly after I read the book (which I read shortly after Last Exit to Brooklyn) and my first reaction was "My God, this is Hubert Selby's literary aesthetic distilled into musical form." Much like Selby's writing, I can understand people not liking it, but I happen to love it. As Darren Aronofsky wrote in the forward to a new edition to the novel, "[selby] writes about the darkness. It is in this darkness where Selby flips on his flashlight and searches for our humanity." And I think Mansell understands that perfectly. Hell's PA system is a perfect way to describe Meltdown (not The Fountain), and I mean that in the best possible way: The Fountain is a much more accessible score, and it's one of my all-time favorites. First Snow: I really can't fathom someone disliking this.

One of my favorites has always been October Sky: As soon as that violin picks up, just goosebumps.

Wow. That is an absolutely beautiful piece of music. I'd love to hear more of your stuff.

He's done a bunch of small indie movies. All of his stuff is pretty much indie rock guitar+occasional piano. It's not necessarily bad music, just very forgettable.

So, a friend gave me a copy of an old Intrada CD "Hider in the House" for my birthday... and it's breathtaking. After listening to it and doing a little forum-digging, I came to the realization that Young isn't really discussed much here. Anyway, without further ado, I'll do what I can to alleviate this deficiency. A clip from Hider in the House: "Birth of Sandman" from Spider-Man 3: "Concerto to Hell" from Drag Me to Hell:

I'd agree with you on most of those, but Clint Mansell? Sure, he's written some bad scores (World Traveler, Knockaround Guys), but at his best (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Sahara), he's better than anybody not named Williams, Shore, or Horner working today. I've disliked most of Debney's work, but The Stoning of Soraya M was really good. Also, with some of his more recent stuff, Brian Tyler has started to show some promise. A couple more names you could add to the list are John Murphy and David Wingo. I had insanely high hopes for Marc Streitenfeld after American Gangster, but he hasn't written anything that even qualifies as mediocre since. Additionally, I could probably write an extended essay about how I feel conflicted about Hans Zimmer.

I have a couple of grails, but the top of my list would probably be Allyn Ferguson's Les Miserables.

What I'm looking for I wouldn't call classical, but I think this thread is really for "art music" in general, so, here goes. 1. What concert works have aleatoric stuff similar to Shore's louder pieces (think the end of "The Doors of Durin" from FOTR or "The Drowning" from The Cell)? 2. What spectral composers might people recommend? I recently heard some of Gerard Grisey's works and really liked them.

Does anybody else hear some hints at the Pity of Gollum in "Riddles in the Dark" right at the beginning before the first History of the Ring statement?

Personally I'd love to see some more unusual scores explored: Williams Revenge of the Sith's more bizarre cues (I'd love to see Datameister's take on "Riding the Lizard") Shore The Cell The Departed Naked Lunch Sakamoto The Last Emperor Derrida Beltrami The Hurt Locker Streitenfeld American Gangster Mansell Requiem for a Dream Doom (yes, I'm serious) The Fountain Goldenthal Cobb

There was a thread back in my lurking days asking a question along the lines of "What film would you most like to hear Williams write a replacement score for?" and I remember thinking that, contrary to the many examples of crap RCP scores, the movies I would most like to hear Williams have written are ones that I liked, but with scores utterly out of his wheelhouse. A great example would be "π": a movie I quite enjoyed, with a score that interested me, but not something I could ever picture JW as having written. "The Hurt Locker" would be another fine example. I would love to hear how he would have approached those two films.

$100 says whoever came up with the idea for that game has never actually read The Lord of the Rings.

I love that main theme! If you can't get real instruments, I might recommend using some sort of free VST or soundfont to take off the MIDI-sounding edge. For what it's worth, as it is, it still sounds better than "Curse of the Black Pearl."

Since it's been pretty much established that Williams and Morricone scores are off-limits, The Lord of the Rings (Shore) - I can dream, can't I? Patton (Goldsmith) - A friend told me this was released at one time, but I have nothing to back up that claim. Apollo 13 (Horner) - I'd love even just to see "The Launch" and "Master Alarm." The Cell (Shore) - The "visual" "manifesto" approach alone makes this interesting. The Fountain (Mansell) - "Death Is the Road to Awe" makes my top 5 list for the last decade. Kingdom of Heaven (Gregson-Williams) - Same goes for "The Battle of Kerak." Islands in the Stream (Goldsmith) October Sky (Isham) The Departed (Shore) Naked Lunch (Shore) Cool Runnings (Zimmer) The Land Before Time (Horner) The Silence of the Lambs (Shore) Sahara (Mansell) Edge of Darkness (both the Shore and Corigliano versions) Requiem for a Dream (Mansell) Grand Piano (Reyes) - If you're not familiar with this, by all means check it out. American History X (Dudley) 42 (Isham) Persepolis (Bernet) Eastern Promises (Shore) House of Sand and Fog (Horner) Halo 2 (O'Donnell/Salvatori) Appaloosa (Beal) The Hurt Locker (Beltrami) The Hours (Glass) The Lion in Winter (Barry) Well, that was certainly a longer list than I intended it to be, but it can't hurt (maybe some of these might even see the light of day!)

I've never actually seen the movie (don't think it sounds like my cup of tea), but I absolutely love his score for The Cell. I'm surprised that score doesn't get more discussion around here; personally, I find it absolutely fascinating.

This thread needs more "Where There's a Whip There's a Way."

Well, the poll shows we all saw it coming, but I don't think that makes it any less frustrating. -Gnome, who can think of at least 15 scores better than Gravity last year.

I voted for Book Thief, Gravity, and yes, but that doesn't disguise the fact that there's very little of interest in this year's nominations. It's the first time in a while that none of my personal top 5 were nominated. The Book Thief is probably my least favorite Williams score this decade. Philomena and Saving Mr. Banks seemed pretty generic, and Gravity somehow managed to be both irritatingly sound-driven and overscored at the same time (the last scene was nothing more than a pale imitation of Horner's "Re-Entry and Splashdown"). I'll admit I haven't listened to Her or seen the film yet. Of the scores I've listened to this year, only The Book Thief even overlaps my top 10 and the Oscar nominations. I don't know if it's Academy politics, general Hollywood love of the status quo, or rule technicalities, but this year in particular, the nominating committee fell pretty far short of its duty.

Posting images of JW scores, but in a resolution too poor to be in the least way legible? JoAnn Kane, you're a cruel lady.

Enh. I've never found Beck particularly impressive, but seeing RCP replaced on a film (instead of the other way around) gives me a warm feeling inside.