MaxTheHouseelf

Another possible tease toward the end of the podcast of more releases coming soon?  Let the predictions begin!  
 
Aside from the obvious SW & IJ, I'm hoping for CMIYC and Terminal, always loved those scores.
It's also the 30th anniversary of Nixon this year, perhaps this was the 2nd Intrada release that was teased two years ago by them?
 

Alrighty. For those who wanted a cover without a large looming Gibson on the cover, here's my stab at it:
 
EDITED

 
 

Quantum of Solace has the best villain, but the Bourne-like shaky camera almost ruin the great action scenes. Truly a relic of the 2000s I really don't miss.
 
Skyfall looks great thanks to Deakins but the story and the script are rather dumb. I'll never understand how that movie is the first Bond to make over a billion dollars at the box office.
 
Spectre has a nice beginning but a truly awful second half.
 
We don't talk about the other one.

I like the quantum of solace opening sequence-music very much (i dont mean the opening song but the car pursuit)

His real archives with manuscripts and sketches is in Vienna! The archive in LA was "just" the sales and rental materials. Still very bad news, but luckily nothing of immeasurable value was in there AFAIK.

Here's my custom cover
 

 

I'm not sure if this has been posted anywhere, but I just saw it at facebook:
 
 

I just listened to Parish Church Aflame for the first in a very long time. For some reason, listening to music written for a people-trapped-and being-burnt-alive-in-a-church scene never felt like the most positive way to start a day. But, well, it still isn't, but setting aside those facts and what people are experiencing in LA, I'd forgotten this is really beautiful music in the string elegy vein of other Williams string elegies ala Obi-Wan cuts Anakin's legs off and leaves him to burn in lava. 

Oh i appreciate there’s nothing specific to discuss yet, but pointlessly rehashing the same potential issues because label x does this or label y doesn’t do that is so dreary.

That's been my problem with Haab since forever. 
The catchy melodies just aren't there. 
 
Contrast to Medal of Honor, where they very much are there. 
And Emperor's Tomb as well.

So I've listened to the whole album for the fifth time this morning and I think I figured out why I think it's good (sometimes great) but that that's also kind of it.
 
I think the way Haab makes sure he gets as close to Williams' sound as possible admirable. He does a nice job and his orchestrations are good.
But because he's mimicking Williams so much, I'm having a hard time not comparing it to Williams himself. And then Haab is just leagues behind.
 
To me the first thing that is missing, which I also have on the Star Wars game scores, is themes that stay with me after the album is done. Now I can see this totally being just a me thing, but it's a thing nontheless. I can still hum Williams' secondary and even minor themes/motifs from the films, but with this score I couldn't tell you how either The Great Circle of Gina's theme sound like. Their theme suites are great, but they don't linger in my memory and I have a hard time noticing them in the rest of the album.
 
The other thing is, is that I feel Haab's suspense and action material is only okay/good. It's all serviceable and screams "now there is suspense and now there is action", but I'm kind of missing a hook in the music. Williams is so good at building a suspense or action cue around an idea that makes them stay with you and makes you want to go back to it. Haab's music is doing it's job in extracting a certain emotion, but it stops there and doesn't go that extra mile of making it stand out. After a while it all just sort of gells together.
 
And I like the Williams quotes, but they all sound like Haab was almost afraid of using them. None of them really have the power these themes usually do (with some minor exceptions).
 
Like I said, I do think it's good and I did enjoy myself. But it's just missing something that makes it really great and is making me want to revisit it over and over again. That's just my two cents on it.

Via Roger Feigelson - Facebook
 
Coming January 20th
 

I've been thinking about that. It's well known that artists make next to no money at all from streaming unless they're very close to the top (a common argument on that matter is that they should do more live concerts instead of supposedly getting rich from resting on their laurels, but that neglects that a) some artists can be very productive while being in no state to do a live performance e.g. for health reasons (never mind a pandemic), and b) not every artist is a *performing* artist).
 
But there's another side to it that I hadn't considered before. I suppose many of us started out copying lots of stuff from friends, or from the library, or downloading it - back in the day, Napster got a lot of criticism from both artists and the industry, but a frequent counter-argument was that many people would use it to sample stuff and then buy the albums they really liked. It certainly holds some truth at least, and as I got older and started earning more money, I mostly stopped "pirating" music and started buying everything I listen to (by now I've even replaced most of my old CDR copies with "proper" copies) - and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
 
But by embracing streaming, which was supposed to be the cure for music piracy, the industry has conjured up a new generation of listeners who never got used to the concept of buying music in the first place. I still don't stream, partly because I've too long nurtured my collector's instincts to give up on that, but mostly because I've got way too much to listen to even without getting instant access to all the stuff I don't have in my own collection - and also because I know that a lot of what I listen to wouldn't be available for streaming anyway. But I imagine that most of those who've grown up with streaming never even got very familiar with the concept of owning an album, and couldn't give a flying flamingo about buying music. Essentially, those who used to complain about people downloading some music instead of buying it have mostly given up of people buying music altogether.
 
Of course, the whole system may crash (or at least, more likely, become a mess and a huge pain in the ass for listeners dependent on it) at any time if a service goes under or some licence fuck up takes a significant portion of music off a platform. That's one of the reasons why the beginning death of films and series on physical media worries me (that, and the quality, the convenience, and the dependency on proprietary streaming software depending on which platform has the licence for a given piece of media at a given time).

I hate this sign of the times. About to turn 53 and have been collecting since I was 15. Film music has been such a huge part of my life. And a lonely hobby… no one I know has the same interest or even understands it. Which astounds me because film scores are so awesome. So appreciative of the specialty labels for there hard work. Fingers crossed they keep at it.

Um so, OK. Stop releasing those obscure batman and DC cartoon scores and start releasing the available Williams out there.
 
Williams pays bills.

Patrick Doyle's Goblet of Fire and Nicholas Hooper's Order of the Phoenix. Bland, boring stuff. Hooper's score is probably one of the most cliche and generic scores of all time, and Doyle's themes don't do much to stand out. I mean, look at this... attempt... at a "Voldemort motif" by Hooper:

Which is literally just a rising scalar line...
I feel the same way about him. The "least dull" score he's done is The Batman, but even that feels overly repetitive and simplistic. If I have to hear his Bat-theme one more time, I might lose my mind.

Every Giacchino score I have, except for The Incredibles. I never listen to any of his scores. Boring, generic stuff. 

[3M4] 
 
 
 

[1M2] 
 
 

To no one's surprise I pick Chamber of Secrets. Yes it has a bit too much repeat, but not as much as Home Alone 2 as far as I can tell, most of the new material is very prominent and very memorable, and it further develops leitmotivs from the previous film pretty well. 
 
Attack of the Clones is overall a great score of course, but it just doesn't connect with me like Chamber of Secrets does. Anakin's theme is mostly dropped despite all its potential for development, some of the action music just lacks a certain punch to me, and while "Across the Stars" is amazing and I've grown to appreciate it more overtime, it just doesn't emotionally connect with me like "Fawkes the Phoenix" does, despite that theme being used far less in the film in comparison. 
 
As for the others, I watched Minority Report recently, thought the score was overall good, but again, it just didn't stick out to me besides a few AOTC-like sequences, and I have yet to watch or listen to Catch Me If You Can. 

You tell em, Barbara
 
 

This will be JW's first public appearance in almost a year, so... a big deal.

Soon! I'm currently playing the waiting game myself, and am as impatient as anybody (believe me)—but I should know some more concrete details shortly... hopefully before the holiday void.

Is there any update? Really looking forward to this book.

Just had my annual Home Alone watch with the family.  The movie never disappoints.  It is rare when a movie nails both the big things and little things so perfectly (like Fuller and the annoying kid talking to the Airport taxi driver).  The old man storyline elevates the whole thing beyond the childlike-aspects.  His hand healing as the movie goes along to symbolize his family healing--damn.  The whole cast--how did they get so many A-listers for what had to look like a trifle of a movie on paper?  
 
As always, Williams's score turns the whole affair into art.  So many timeless themes (Star of Bethlehem continues to be my favorite) and Setting the Trap--who else working then or now would use Carol of the Bells as part of an action fugue?  Mel Torme singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and everything else.
 
I love this movie, and I love John Williams.