Tom Guernsey

I forgot to add that I always rather liked the way McKenzie finishes the Witches of Eastwick-esque main theme with a little upward motif rather than landing back on the tonic as JW does. It gives the melody a better sense of movement into the next phrase than the WoE original doesn't quite have. Don't get me wrong, the theme from WoE is great, but landing back on the tonic at the end of the first phrase gives it an odd sense of finality when in fact it's only just got started.

Dr Jekyll & Ms Hyde (Mark McKenzie) - A mix of Danny Elfman, Witches of Eastwick and (oddly) the march from 1941 which makes it pretty low on the originality stakes but results in a breezy, tuneful comedy score from that era when people did JW pastiches really well (the McNeely period if you will...).

Which score are you referring to?!

Family Plot (JW) - I have to admit that I always found this a bit underwhelming and can't say I was an more, erm, whelmed. The main, harpsichord led, theme is great but the underscore is fairly low key for much of the running time. One of the rare occasions where a tighter running time would have emphasised the highlights. The Eiger Sanction (JW - OST) - Only listened to the original album arrangement a couple of times since I originally acquired it as I'd always filed it under "scores I like but the sound quality is dire" so it's great to enjoy the newly remastered version which manages to not just sound a bit better but to be almost unrecognisably better. Great themes (the main one is very Morricone-esque) and enjoyable listening to bits of JW before he fully hit the big time. Babe (Nigel Westlake) - I almost feel a bit bad for Westlake as you pretty much end up remembering only the Saint-Saëns rather than Westlake's own, entirely charming material. I listened to the original tracks released on Varese last year and still think it's one of the most unlikely scores to have received a re-recording. To be honest, I can't say there's much to pick between them, both are performed and recorded well. Nice to have the choice I guess. Currently on Eastern Promises by Howard Shore... superb stuff.

I kinda felt it sounded like something but not enough to keep me endlessly puzzled (and not a patch on the El Dorado mystery theme!).

That makes two of us! I almost kinda like that JP is taking inspiration from the classics as JW did for the original trilogy but in a way where he makes it his own. On a related note, is it me or do the strings at the start of Lando's Closet sound a bit, I dunno, muffled somehow? It may be just the way it's orchestrated but it always sounds a little off to me.

I did! My bad.

Random musical connection of the day... the End Credits from Yared's Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky has an ascending minor string figure that sounds like it's straight out of a Star Wars score but also a whirling woodwind figure that's very Harry Potter. I'm sure they are entirely coincidental and it's more evocation than anything specific but quite noticeable once you hear it. Otherwise, a solid Yared drama score.

Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio (Elliot Goldenthal) - Definitely one of those early purchases during my film music (and associated crossover works) that was perhaps a bit too challenging for my tastes at the time. It's still not an easy work, but with the benefit of a greater exploration of 20th century classical, this time I found it compelling and thrilling. Glad to have finally revisited it. I also did well at the Oxfam music store in Southampton... plenty to enjoy this week (just as well as I also brought back a dose of covid with me...).

Gave the rest of Road to El Dorado a listen following the exchange and loved it. Such a great score and the songs are pretty good, even if the one song performed by the characters is slightly marred by the fact that neither Kenneth Branagh or Kevin Kline can sing for toffee. I do love that swashbuckling theme and so glad that the eternal mystery in my head has been solved (and I really mean it, it's one of those tunes I randomly hum to myself a lot and it's a huge relief to know where it came from!). A few other observations... I could be reading too much into it, but I wonder if the use of the Dies irae is for the Spanish villain is meant to link his villainy to his religious beliefs somehow. I'm probably reading too much into it, but it's an effective musical sleight of hand. It also means he doesn't get specifically Spanish music, although the use of that musical language here almost feels a bit awkward given that however lighthearted this movie is meant to be in the end, the Spanish are the invaders! Having said that, from a purely musical perspective, it's an interesting musical prequel to Powell's Fernando and you can definitely hear a similar approach to his interpretation of Spanish musical idioms in both.

Oh for sure, but I know what you mean, it's one of those many action scores he did through his career which are expertly crafted even if they don't stand out in the top tier of his output. I made the mistake of watching that video again after I posted and it reminded me just how impressively crafted that cue actually is. Sure, there are only a handful of elements, but how he passes between those elements - the chaotic gun fight music, the hints of the heroic theme, the quieter sections where he pulls it back for dialogue and the tolling, bell like motif when the terrorists succeed - is impressive, especially with his off kilter time signatures (7/8, the odd 5/8 bar). Easy to forget that JW isn't the only composer who writes/wrote thematic action music as here there are clear motifs and ideas representing the different aspects of the sequence and it's an effective musical tussle between those elements. Two other things... the directing/editing of this sequence is pretty damn great, which obviously helps with the music, and the FX work is top notch (unless the aforementioned finale shot). I assume there are numerous model effects intercut with live action footage of a real 747 but I'd be hard pressed to pick them out, aside from rationalising which shots would almost certainly be too difficult/dangerous to stage with a real aircraft. However, it also highlights one of the issues of using CGI, you can show anything whereas this at least plausibly looks like it could have been captured by real cameras. I can imagine these days the camera flying all over the place thus immediately indicating that it must be fake. Admittedly that can be great for a specific type of effect (like the escape from the city sequence in Spielberg's War of the Worlds where the camera moves about in and out of the car) but often it just enhances the level of fakery - see the Jurassic World movies versus the original JP movies as an example, but I digress... again!

Autopilot. Haha. Very good. Although I would submit that, even on on autopilot (not the inflatable Airplane! sort), Jerry's writing was nothing less than impressive... this analysis of The Hijacking is well worth a watch: However, I can't deny your comments on the final FX scene - absolutely dreadful. I wonder if they ran out of money!?

I still go for ST:TMP as my favourite Jerry but I totally agree that NIMH is a wonderful score. I find the song a little hard to take I have to admit, they push the lovely melody into cloying (James Horner was better at just about pulling it back to avoid it in his animated feature ballads) but the score is utterly sublime. I think I prefer it over Legend as I’ll never quite love some of the synths in Legend (although I’ve come to terms with them!). While it sounds ridiculous, I almost feel I’m missing out that I haven’t bought the new ST:TMP release and getting to discover the full score is top notch sound. Unlike TWOK where the older release had somewhat compromised sound, that isn’t really the case with TMP so I’m happy with my 3CD set. It’s already the score I’ve probably brought more times than any other. Original release (an astonishing £26 at Tower Records on Japanese import in 1990something). The 1999 release. Twice. I somehow lost one copy. And the 3CD set. Worth every penny though.

So Nino Rota is doing the music?! Sweet!

As the second most number of recordings of a single work (Mahler 5 being the top) I feel I should have a more informed opinion on The Rite of Spring but I don’t have one that is my absolute go to performance. Having said that I highly recommend the LA Philharmonic version conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. It’s live but the sound is great and the performance thrilling. I have Stravinsky’s own on the extensive boxed set and from what I recall it’s a fine performance and the sound is perfectly good. I still hold the Dorati/Detroit recording in high esteem as the first recording I bought. Great performance of the Firebird too. The performances of Stravinsky’s music conducted by Robert Craft are worth hearing although I think he’s better in the later neoclassical stuff than ROS. On the flip side I’m pretty sure I thought the Karajan version was terrible. If you want a different interpretation the rock version by The Bad Plus is worth checking out. Must given Petrouchka another airing. One of my favourites. By coincidence, currently listening to Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite which some people consider Prokofiev’s answer to ROS. I guess it’s pretty brutal and elemental and was originally written for Diaghilev. I’ve always loved it, particularly the Abbado recording coupled with the best version of Alexander Nevsky (suite) and Lt Kijé. However I’m on the BIS recording conducted by Andrew Litton coupled with a fine rendition of the 5th symphony. The whole Litton cycle of Prokofiev’s symphonies, on first listen, very good indeed. Looking forward to checking out Romeo & Juliet (even if it’s a weird disc that puts the selections from the three suites into ballet order. My go to for the full ballet is the Maazel version although my go to is the highlights conducted by Michael Tilson-Thomas which has all the best bits. I’m sure Thor would approve ;-) I think there is a set of Boulez conducting Stravinsky but I don’t think I have it. Probably worth a listen though if nothing else as Boulez usually lets you hear every detail which is a bonus in such a complex score.

Agreed and I really like the songs by Elty even if the film versions only appear on the (ahem) promo. I don’t mind the synth elements in the score and there’s enough enjoyable orchestral and vocal writing to balance it out. Agree on JP. I quite like HGW but as a melodist he’s not a patch on JP.

I am inclined to agree but it’s nice to have the choice!

Well none of this sounds crazy at all lol. Interesting on Prodigy. I didn’t realise there’d be so much of it. Still enjoyable stuff. Aha well I have enough music in my iTunes library to last over a year so I can wait for AFM to reconsider its position and open up the post 2005 soundtrack scape.

It would be interesting to see some figures. I can't honestly imagine that enough people are streaming (or buying) the individual episode scores of (say) The Mandalorian over and over so many times that they are making significant returns for having put out the full score for each episode in the first series. I mean, ditto, Star Trek Prodigy. I know Star Trek is popular, but there now seems to be about 4 hours worth to buy/stream. Surely that can't be viable... the original album was only 50 minutes.

Ah yeah, sorry, I did read it but clearly blanked out the large numbers from my mind... but the upshot is, it's not JW preventing these releases happening!

Thanks Jay, that's helpful to at least clarify my lack of understanding, haha. It's madness that the current situation allows for super long new soundtrack releases but somehow precludes them (at least when it comes to affordability) if the score is older, but post 2005. That makes the least sense. Interesting that pre 2005 there are no fees, I thought the agreement was that the fees would be low where anticipated sales were under a certain amount (3,000?) but maybe that's no longer the case. That actually feels like a perfectly decent compromise. They benefit from mega hit releases (get a slice of that Titanic or Star Wars or HZ action) but accept that, for the majority of soundtrack releases, sales will be modest. I'm sure they will, eventually, agree to a rolling 10 year limit as 2005 becomes an ever more distant point in the past. The weird thing about the basis of this thread (which has sparked some interesting discussion and information sharing) is that of all the composers a speciality label would feel confident in making some money back on an expensive post 2005 release, I kinda think JW would be at the top of the list. On that basis, the post 2005 fees must be truly hideous if they aren't willing to risk that. I really can't imagine JW is personally preventing anyone from releasing any of his post 2005 scores. And good to see finicky (UK spelling?!)... excellent word. ;-)

You know when you have a theme that comes and goes randomly from your mind but you can't quite work out where it came from... well that swashbuckling theme is the one in my head. Bits of it appear in other (mostly Zimmer or Zimmer like) scores but it either it goes off in a different direction after the opening phrase or starts differently, but this is where they come together as I have it in my head. So double thanks for solving a mystery that's been bugging me for months and reminding me what a kick arse (ass) score El Dorado is. Insert obligatory "this needs a complete release" comment here ;-)

Also one of my favourite Horner scores. I think Apollo 13 is especially good as Horner is (mostly) scoring very specific sequences, so you get the launch, the explosion, the trip round the back of the Moon, the landing etc. As a result, cues have even stronger than usual structure so you can hear the story being told in music, both across the entire score and within each cue. I'm not saying Horner didn't do this on many other occasions, but I think Apollo 13 is just especially notable in this regard. That, added to the selection of the outstanding main themes which manage to not just focus on patriotic Americana but has some genuinely haunting moments (the aforementioned Dark Side of the Moon in particular). I also kinda group Horner scores of particular eras around one that defines that era... so you get the Star Trek 2/Krull early 80s grandness, the scores in and around Cocoon where his style transitioned to the broader, more outwardly emotional style, the Titanic/Braveheart period heavy on romance and Irish influences and then Apollo 13/Sneakers mixing action, drama, Americana and suspense. You could argue endless which scores define each era (i.e. the ones that max out on the key ideas he was using at the time) but you get the idea...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was confused by this! I thought that they were paid for the recording for use in the film and any other use (i.e. a soundtrack) was "reuse". That was (as far as I understand it) the reason that caused all those Varese 30 minute albums since it was over 30 minutes where the fees kicked in as you say. This is making my head explode a bit to be honest. Maybe reuse fees aren't as much now? Or they pay fees for score in the show plus a soundtrack? However, if you want to release more music beyond the original soundtrack (the post 2005 problem), that's when reuse kicks in? Something doesn't quite add up.

I'd pretty much go for John Powell and ensure he had whatever time and resources he needed to write something great. Failing that, I'd score my own film and use lots of uncredited assistants. ;-P