Madmartigan JC

Yeah, the delicacy of the instrumentation has been totally lost because it's mastered so loudly!
 
Some of the solo sections are unpleasant even with the volume low.
 
Incredibly disappointing, because it was totally avoidable!
 
 
A comparison to the mastering of With Malice Towards None on the last Spielberg/Williams album:
 

Oh dear... who on earth mastered this?
 
It's brickwalled like a pop album, uncomfortable listening even at 50% volume. Especially with headphones :/
 
The room acoustics are really lost when the volume of the instruments are this overpowering.

Could these recordings have something to do with avoiding certain reproduction rights for the originals? Seems weird, but I can't quite understand the need to rerecord them. Not that I'm complaining, (the more recorded versions out there, the more to choose from). 
 
BTW, is that an edit at 3:23 of Harry's Wondrous World?
 

PS: Happy to hear a different approach, but count me Team Ritardando.
 

It's not so much the lack of existing themes that lets this score down. It's the lack of carrying, or even noticing, the dramatic contours of this (albeit flatly directed and edited) show. From planetary reveals, ship take-offs and landings, dramatic reveals, dialogue and scene transitions, this score has it covered... as in, just covered over in simplistic mood music (or, cut to mood music suddently, as in the Ep 2 Vader reveal). Where Williams, or Ludwig Gorransson, would trade in flourishes, instrumental variety, contrasts in tone, and real melodic strength, this score barely manages the drama on-screen.
 
But the lack of even tonally nodding to the legacy themes is a deficit (as Giacchino, Powell and Gorransson have all done, quite aside from quoting them outright). This is all the more disappointing because the new material here is not up to the job.

I watched Episodes 1 & 2 so far and it baffles me how Holt not uses Williams' Themes... so I rescored the Rooftop Fight / Leia's Rescue scene (more or less in JW's style) with Obi's Theme, Leia's Theme and the Force Theme. I kept what I think is Reva's Theme because I quite liked it.
 

It's got nothing to do with the fact that she's a woman, and everything to do with the fact that the score rejects the usage of themes audiences know and expect, despite the fact that Star Wars has such a wealth of well-known themes built up for these different characters. That, and the fact that the music identity for this show seems to be in conflict with itself: part of it is largely non-thematic and/or uses new themes for characters with pre-existing themes, overall in a more modern RCP, Zimmer style; and other bits use the Kenobi theme with an orchestra, written in the vein of Williams. They are vastly different approaches, so it's jarring. It just makes one wonder how we got to this point.

I'm sorry if it's been discussed previously in this thread, but I found the compression of the regular CD so excessive it is incomprehensible to me that DG could issue the album as it is.
Just 27 seconds into the first track (Olympic fanfare...) were enough to notice something was off. I felt so confused by the muddy loud parts that I had to rip it to look at the sound wave. As you can see, it shows abundant compression, while maintaining a wide dynamic range (this is the Imperial March). But doesn't seem too bad from afar.
 

 
However, on closer inspection, the flat summits and valleys are all around in the louder moments. 
 

 
That extreme compression can be found in every track. It's such a shame, because it's an extraordinary album, I love the performance, and of course such a meaningful historic event. I have experienced compression with DG releases before, but never at this level. I am very dissapointed.
 
Those of you who have listened to the other versions (DVD, vinyl) have experienced this too?
 
 

Listened again. Yeah, this is really trimmed, more than I'd thought.  It's the bare minimum really.  This is too short I think.  Appropriate for a fan convention promotion, but I would not want this to be a standard thing, although I agree playing the full version with Marion's theme right after playing the concert arrangement of Marion's Theme is redundant.

I want to destroy these people who talk through the entire performance.

This is the worst thing star wars has ever done musically. I don’t want to hear any complaints about Ludwig Goransson, Shirley or Giacchino, this is sooo much worse

Howdy everyone. Wow this episode made me realize that they are dropping the ball musically big time.
 

Overall, the score for this episode just seems to be doing the bare minimum amount of work - serving the picture, a little bit of extra effort in order to get the B- in terms of using orchestral colors, and nothing else. As a starting composer that’s trying to teach himself everything, I understand the want to do the bare minimum!! Writing music at a high level like Williams is really hard work. But this is Star Wars -  a certain level of sophistication in the writing should be expected.
 

Forgive me if I’m letting my emotions get the better of me on my writings, but I totally see and agree with what you all are saying in terms of wanting the music to be at a much higher level of sophistication.

This, in addition to some parts being handled strangely
just make me a little upset as to how Star Wars might not be what it once was, and this show is contributing to that. Do better Lucasfilm! This is Star Wars.

But, because I want to keep positive,
 

Well hold on, since when was this the domain of the studios?

Shouldn't it be on the composer to be aware of the musical continuity given that they're writing the music? I doubt that it was anyone other than Michael Giacchino that decided to craft the beginning of the Vader's Castle cue (Krennic's Aspirations on the OST) to recall Williams tragic scoring for Anakin's fall in ROTS, or to include the Imperial motif from ANH as a secondary theme for Vader, or even to use the Death Star motif when the Death Star is first introduced. Same goes with Powell

People are holding Natalie to a far lower standard than we normally do composers for Star Wars and I'm not entirely sure why, on the plus side it is making me appreciate the spin-off movie scores far more than I did initially

EDIT: It's actually pretty interesting to compare the scoring given that Kenobi has very similar scenes to Rogue One:
 

Why not give Bill Ross the whole show, then? I think everybody would have been happy if he was the main guy.

I'd honestly much rather take something good on its own without any JW reference or likeness than something with badly forced JW references all over. Sadly this is neither, just kind of nothing. Still holding off on full judgments until I can listen to it on its own, i didn't grow to love Boba as much as I do now until I listened to the OSTs and assembled my program from them either.

This show is testing my patience, musically. 

I don't hate Holt's score, but I certainly feel that it lets the series down by not fully embracing the musical language of the Star Wars saga. I understand that incorporating Williams' themes needs to be done tastefully, and not simply copy-pasted all over the score - however the complete lack of the original themes detracts from so many of those powerful moments in the show.
There were are few (dare I say) good moments of scoring... however, on the whole, I've been finding Holt's score a bit distracting. It sounds rather anonymous and lacks the character of her other scores, which at least have a bit of personality. Tonally, it just doesn't fit with the show. If this was Mandalorian or Boba Fett, this score would have worked well, but it just feels so out of place when RCP-style action music is accompanying scenes of Obi-Wan and these other legacy characters.
 
I'm also curious to see whether William Ross's wonderful cues will be included in the soundtrack release, these have been the highlight of the score for me. They just make me wish that Ross had scored the entire show...

Execute Order 66

And yet again Natalie Holt can't come up with anything slightly thematic or lyrical to carry the drama. Everything's tapestral underscore.

Which planet is going to have a "John Williams" vibe to it? That's the planet I'm excited to visit... (And don't say Tatooine; that's basically William Ross.)
 
Also, Kamino had a very different sound in AOTC from Mustafar in ROTS, which had a different sound from Tatooine in ANH, etc. It's possible to make planets sound different, while still staying in the overall Star Wars musical language... 

You know what I find interesting about a lot of the complaints about Natalie's score? Natalie said that every planet would have its own style of music. The Tatooine material is very different from Alderaan. And Alderaan sounds very different from Daiyu. Daiyu has a very Blade Runner vibe to it, so a Vangelis/Hans Zimmer-esque score makes a lot of sense.

So all this doom and gloom over how Natalie is tearing apart Star Wars' musical legacy and ruining life as we know seem a little too dramatic for my liking. Also don't forget, Natalie said her music was "deeper rooted in Star Wars tradition than Ludwig's music for The Mandalorian" was. I think she knows what she's doing.

Now 
https://open.spotify.com/track/0UvXARxghc7E5grZSpGArl?si=J4unb5qUSHaLGy0RJD-PiA&utm_source=copy-link
 

Release time moved up. I guess i'll hear it in the show first. LETS GO.