thestat

One of those legendary ELF scores with all his trademarks - completely underappreciated. The film is amazing as well - do ignore the Morgan Creek one that is the 98 min version. The Barker cut is truly amazing, one of the first honestly big budget LGTBQ films ever. Very innovative and challenging in its politics that I am very happy that Elfman amplified extensively!
 
It does not make sense to have Cronenberg play his role in the MC cut - the longer cut, you know why he accepted the role. 

Wow. Is this great or what? Young is blasting out career-best work left and right.
 
Movement 1 is brilliant, truly capturing Young's melodic skills and detail in orchestration and, especially, his ability to play with horror tropes - but then the last 4 minutes from 8:00 are a brilliantly dark fable with children's choir and all the best Young orchestral tropes at full display. I love the fact that he ends the movements with that crazy blast of mayhem!
 
Movement 2 is another encapsulation of a magnificent career that keeps escalating into stratospheres - the detour at 4:10 is touching and epic. Makes me wonder what Young would have done with The Lord of the Rings.
 
Movement 3 is very impressive, very much Young exploring horror tropes and going very Goldenthal at times.
 
It is now wonder he has had such a fan resurgence recently. We all know what he does so well. It is fantastic to see producers funding him to do this. I mean, The Empty Man is a great film but it was a massive flop. The Young score, again, is fantastic.
 
So happy I supported the Nosferatu incentive!
 
 
 

Wow. Is this great or what? Young is blasting out career-best work left and right.
 
Movement 1 is brilliant, truly capturing Young's melodic skills and detail in orchestration and, especially, his ability to play with horror tropes - but then the last 4 minutes from 8:00 are a brilliantly dark fable with children's choir and all the best Young orchestral tropes at full display. I love the fact that he ends the movements with that crazy blast of mayhem!
 
Movement 2 is another encapsulation of a magnificent career that keeps escalating into stratospheres - the detour at 4:10 is touching and epic. Makes me wonder what Young would have done with The Lord of the Rings.
 
Movement 3 is very impressive, very much Young exploring horror tropes and going very Goldenthal at times.
 
It is now wonder he has had such a fan resurgence recently. We all know what he does so well. It is fantastic to see producers funding him to do this. I mean, The Empty Man is a great film but it was a massive flop. The Young score, again, is fantastic.
 
So happy I supported the Nosferatu incentive!
 
 
 

Wow. Is this great or what? Young is blasting out career-best work left and right.
 
Movement 1 is brilliant, truly capturing Young's melodic skills and detail in orchestration and, especially, his ability to play with horror tropes - but then the last 4 minutes from 8:00 are a brilliantly dark fable with children's choir and all the best Young orchestral tropes at full display. I love the fact that he ends the movements with that crazy blast of mayhem!
 
Movement 2 is another encapsulation of a magnificent career that keeps escalating into stratospheres - the detour at 4:10 is touching and epic. Makes me wonder what Young would have done with The Lord of the Rings.
 
Movement 3 is very impressive, very much Young exploring horror tropes and going very Goldenthal at times.
 
It is now wonder he has had such a fan resurgence recently. We all know what he does so well. It is fantastic to see producers funding him to do this. I mean, The Empty Man is a great film but it was a massive flop. The Young score, again, is fantastic.
 
So happy I supported the Nosferatu incentive!
 
 
 

Wow. Is this great or what? Young is blasting out career-best work left and right.
 
Movement 1 is brilliant, truly capturing Young's melodic skills and detail in orchestration and, especially, his ability to play with horror tropes - but then the last 4 minutes from 8:00 are a brilliantly dark fable with children's choir and all the best Young orchestral tropes at full display. I love the fact that he ends the movements with that crazy blast of mayhem!
 
Movement 2 is another encapsulation of a magnificent career that keeps escalating into stratospheres - the detour at 4:10 is touching and epic. Makes me wonder what Young would have done with The Lord of the Rings.
 
Movement 3 is very impressive, very much Young exploring horror tropes and going very Goldenthal at times.
 
It is now wonder he has had such a fan resurgence recently. We all know what he does so well. It is fantastic to see producers funding him to do this. I mean, The Empty Man is a great film but it was a massive flop. The Young score, again, is fantastic.
 
So happy I supported the Nosferatu incentive!
 
 
 

Wow. Is this great or what? Young is blasting out career-best work left and right.
 
Movement 1 is brilliant, truly capturing Young's melodic skills and detail in orchestration and, especially, his ability to play with horror tropes - but then the last 4 minutes from 8:00 are a brilliantly dark fable with children's choir and all the best Young orchestral tropes at full display. I love the fact that he ends the movements with that crazy blast of mayhem!
 
Movement 2 is another encapsulation of a magnificent career that keeps escalating into stratospheres - the detour at 4:10 is touching and epic. Makes me wonder what Young would have done with The Lord of the Rings.
 
Movement 3 is very impressive, very much Young exploring horror tropes and going very Goldenthal at times.
 
It is now wonder he has had such a fan resurgence recently. We all know what he does so well. It is fantastic to see producers funding him to do this. I mean, The Empty Man is a great film but it was a massive flop. The Young score, again, is fantastic.
 
So happy I supported the Nosferatu incentive!
 
 
 

Actually liked Dead Reckoning and its score, despite my misgivings about Balfe as a non-composer. 
 
Interesting when checking this score list that Joshua Pacey seems to be the one in charge of a lot of the great action stuff in the film. Anything credited with the fantastic stuff at the airport etc comes down to Pacey - I reckon a lot of this is Pacey, especially the string figure that comes in at about 0:59. 
 
 

Chris Young is a god amongst men. I can't wait to hear The Piper and Nosferatu in full, having pledged £70 on Nosferatu. 
 
The Piper seems wild - but that is good. Very recent: 
 
 

Totally agree with EdMilson here - Franglen totally pulled this off. Yes, it's not Horner but then again what is? The end of Knife Fight is fantastic action music up there with James or Don Davis in their 1990s heyday with snares and pianos and all manner of mayhem and I am just glad that someone does this sort of work nowadays! 

Totally agree with EdMilson here - Franglen totally pulled this off. Yes, it's not Horner but then again what is? The end of Knife Fight is fantastic action music up there with James or Don Davis in their 1990s heyday with snares and pianos and all manner of mayhem and I am just glad that someone does this sort of work nowadays! 

This is a great and under appreciated score for a similarly wonderful film (especially Barker's 2.5 hour director's cut that makes the LGBTQ+ politics of the narrative very brilliantly explicit).
 
The score is from Elfman's prime era, where this track especially rocks in that idiosyncratic 90s way
 
 

Everyone needs to go on Burwell's website and read his absolutely to-the-point comments on his projects (there are no punches pulled here)
 
https://www.carterburwell.com/projects/Conspiracy_Theory.shtml
I remember talking with Mel Gibson before the New York premiere of the film, and he said he wanted to make a Bible movie. He was quite serious about it. Years later, after he’d shot The Passion Of The Christ, he called me to ask if I’d like to work on it. I was in the middle of a big project at the time, The Alamo, and couldn’t find the time so I didn’t really have to face the question of how I’d write such a score or how I’d work with Mel. I appreciated the seriousness with which he approached the subject, but by the time we spoke about the project he was already making extreme comments about whether the Mossad would let him live to finish the film (at least that's what he said to me). These hopefully were jokes, and his politicization of the film certainly made for good PR, but I’m sure it would have been a strange ride if I’d taken it.
 
There's some fantastic detail about the perennial Don Davis involvement in 90s films: https://www.carterburwell.com/projects/A_Goofy_Movie.shtml
 
I spoke with Don (whom I've never met) very cordially about a potentially difficult situation. I told him I understood his assignment and just hoped that my themes would survive in some form. The music as you hear it now is mostly my thematic material, but honestly some sections sound much more like Don Davis than Carter Burwell.

Oh wow. Sorry for you. I hope you have at 30 people writing your posts from now on. And you need to make sure you don't rock the boat - the middle aisle, all the way, no emotion, pure instrumental functionality. ie, nothing.

Oh wow. Sorry for you. I hope you have at 30 people writing your posts from now on. And you need to make sure you don't rock the boat - the middle aisle, all the way, no emotion, pure instrumental functionality. ie, nothing.

Oh wow. Sorry for you. I hope you have at 30 people writing your posts from now on. And you need to make sure you don't rock the boat - the middle aisle, all the way, no emotion, pure instrumental functionality. ie, nothing.

Russo is the most banal of composers - he gets what he needs to do but never anything more at all. Listen to the theme of For Man Kind - it sounds like the kind of music that should be in a space opera but it is so hopelessly bland. Sure, Fargo had some good Burwell approximations but Alien.....it will be Jed Kunzel again - some orchestrator dude doing ghosting and Russo does the most banal theme imaginable.

No it's not official, none of it will be in most cases - even with Horner and Pagemaster etc. Davis included tracks from the Pagemaster release on his promo CD that he apparently sent out - much like HZ composers do with their websites - and we are just left with a 'well that doesn't sound like composer A and B, but it sure is very similar to the Matrix'.....I mean at least HZ started crediting them......
 
The problem with HZ composers is that they never get to develop an idiosyncratic style outside of the first patch - Powell, HGW, the rest are interchangeable

Yes, glad to see the ID4 comparisons. While Debney's came first, Cutthroat Island is part of that massive orchestral turn in the mid-90s that I credit to Stargate. Best example - Silvestri going from often quite lean orchestrations in his pre-1995 work to the massive Symphony of London sound that Stargate brought in (including hiring the orchestra for Judge Dredd, a Danny Cannon film, by no obvious chance at all). It is clear to me that Arnold breaking out like he did in 1994 generated a level of industry apprehension that resulted in some reshifting of orchestra sizes and types that led to some of the greatest music known to humanity.
 
 
 

I really hate Barry's modernisation attempts in A View to A Kill etc, but fuck, The Living Daylights is a massive beauty in terms of the Old Man Disco he brought along with him, and totally convinced everyone he is the coolest guy in all:
 
 

This is horrible - it is like the worst of Kamen brought to table, cheesy-arse light entertainment music (in this case what sounds like an approximation of British propreity with a dangling piano) and those optimistic melodies.
 
Still, great orchestration.

Yes, glad to see the ID4 comparisons. While Debney's came first, Cutthroat Island is part of that massive orchestral turn in the mid-90s that I credit to Stargate. Best example - Silvestri going from often quite lean orchestrations in his pre-1995 work to the massive Symphony of London sound that Stargate brought in (including hiring the orchestra for Judge Dredd, a Danny Cannon film, by no obvious chance at all). It is clear to me that Arnold breaking out like he did in 1994 generated a level of industry apprehension that resulted in some reshifting of orchestra sizes and types that led to some of the greatest music known to humanity.
 
 
 

Yes, glad to see the ID4 comparisons. While Debney's came first, Cutthroat Island is part of that massive orchestral turn in the mid-90s that I credit to Stargate. Best example - Silvestri going from often quite lean orchestrations in his pre-1995 work to the massive Symphony of London sound that Stargate brought in (including hiring the orchestra for Judge Dredd, a Danny Cannon film, by no obvious chance at all). It is clear to me that Arnold breaking out like he did in 1994 generated a level of industry apprehension that resulted in some reshifting of orchestra sizes and types that led to some of the greatest music known to humanity.
 
 
 

Wow they really are the same!

Unbelievable, that Goldsmith wrote such sophisticated music for his very first film score assignment.
That has an emotional depth, that I miss in his much later scores. 
And now please nobody say "Listen to Ruby".
It is not the same. To me at least.
 
Anyway, I love this.
 

John Barry - Dances with Wolves (2015 La La Land)

 
Not only John Barry's masterpiece, but one of my very favorite scores ever.
 
It's just magnificent. Lots of themes (more than you'd normally find in a Barry score), all of them are wonderful, especially the Sioux theme and the Love Theme. It's epic and sprawling, slow but never boring, reverent, solemn and noble. Even the action music, when Barry uses lots of drums and percussion hitting what it seems to be aleatoric notes, is perfectly in line with the music. It's such an emotional experience, I can't listen to this score without crying just a little bit. 
 
Three of my favorite scores ever, Barry's Dances with Wolves, Horner's Legends of the Fall and Newman's The Horse Whisperer, form this trilogy of sorts of 90s epics about manly cowboys living in the beautiful vistas of the countryside of the United States, forming strong bonds with animals (wolves, horses, bears) and falling in love with beautiful women. Two of these movies also have Native Americans that become friends with the main character, not sure about The Horse Whisperer (never seen it, despite my love of the score).
 
Either way, all three scores are among my favorite pieces of film music (and music in general) ever written.