blondheim

Of course whether or not intellect matters to you more than appreciation can be an opinion. I agree with that. I was speaking more of whether intellect was intellect, which I think is rather more black-and-white (although nothing ever totally is)
 
 Here are my problems with his methods:
 
-in his blog, Bear talks about constructing each of the themes the same way, ostinato, A section, B sectionc, etc. I don’t think every character should be reduced to the same cookie-cutter structure. I find that cheap.
 
-his discussion of intervals bothers me; at first it seems fine when he talks about creating intervals that define his themes so that you can hear by the first interval who or what you are listening to. However, there are only so many intervals and when you write seventeen themes, you are eventually going to reach a point where you are simply asking “which interval haven’t I done yet?” He seems more intent on memorability than musical integrity or intent. Ambiguity also seems beyond him. Shore used many of the same intervals over and over but made sure that there was a subtextual reason for the similarity. Bear seems dedicated to making them all memorable and different at the expense of that, which as a composer and consumer both, seems like the easy road. Also cheapens the effort for me.
 
-I’ve already mentioned what I think of his many inspirations.
 
I also wonder why so many people keep mentioning phrases like “wrote it all by himself” “this many themes” “paper and pencil” “this much music in this amount of time” None of these are comparable to quality. The music is average at best. I don’t if it’s simply the horror of watching so many people foam at the mouth over it but it’s losing even its three-star luster day by creeping day.

I quote Gia Gunn: “What you wanna do… ain’t necessarily what you’re gonna do”

I don't know if anyone cares what I think, but this isn't productive. Go ahead and criticise his arguments or manners, but he's entitled to his own opinions.

Basically being a pastiche composer. Emulating others instead of developing his own style. Writing thin, clunky scores that go plinkety-plunck with very dry recordings. Action music is too simplistic, emotional themes are all structured the same way, etc.
 
That ‘hack’ feeling they feel is how Bear’s work has been making me feel. I still have yet to hear a distinct voice in anything Bear does. The paragraph where he states that his Middle Earth isn’t just inspired by Shore but by… literally everyone made me laugh out loud. No wonder I think he sounds anonymous. 

Basically being a pastiche composer. Emulating others instead of developing his own style. Writing thin, clunky scores that go plinkety-plunck with very dry recordings. Action music is too simplistic, emotional themes are all structured the same way, etc.
 
That ‘hack’ feeling they feel is how Bear’s work has been making me feel. I still have yet to hear a distinct voice in anything Bear does. The paragraph where he states that his Middle Earth isn’t just inspired by Shore but by… literally everyone made me laugh out loud. No wonder I think he sounds anonymous. 

Basically being a pastiche composer. Emulating others instead of developing his own style. Writing thin, clunky scores that go plinkety-plunck with very dry recordings. Action music is too simplistic, emotional themes are all structured the same way, etc.
 
That ‘hack’ feeling they feel is how Bear’s work has been making me feel. I still have yet to hear a distinct voice in anything Bear does. The paragraph where he states that his Middle Earth isn’t just inspired by Shore but by… literally everyone made me laugh out loud. No wonder I think he sounds anonymous. 

True, but not exactly part of the development, see Fellowship theme in the FOTR EE title card

I think of it as the kind of prefiguring (ahnen) of a form the leitmotif will later take, which you get either in overtures or even within the body of leitmotivic works: technically, the presentation of the motive associated with the sword in Das Rheingold ("So grüß' ich die Burg / sicher vor Bang' und Grau'n!") is "jumping the gun" in terms of the way that motive will be gradually rolled-out in Die Walküre.

The blogs have not increased my appreciation for Bear, this score, or his methods. Quite the opposite actually. I understand now why I don’t like his work: I just don’t like the way he goes about composing. And that’s okay.
 
In a weird way I find it kind of funny, for years I’ve defended Giacchino against his haters who just don’t like his methods of composing. But now I have found a composer where I feel that way and so now, finally, I get it. His work still doesn’t bother me much and I enjoy it but I totally understand someone disagreeing with his methods. It’s fair.
 
In a Ent-sized nutshell, I understand how Thor feels.

The blogs have not increased my appreciation for Bear, this score, or his methods. Quite the opposite actually. I understand now why I don’t like his work: I just don’t like the way he goes about composing. And that’s okay.
 
In a weird way I find it kind of funny, for years I’ve defended Giacchino against his haters who just don’t like his methods of composing. But now I have found a composer where I feel that way and so now, finally, I get it. His work still doesn’t bother me much and I enjoy it but I totally understand someone disagreeing with his methods. It’s fair.
 
In a Ent-sized nutshell, I understand how Thor feels.

Not accounting for tastes, the Shore theme has the advantage of being something we've already heard (or, for new listeners, something they will hear) multiple times, in several forms and with all manner of associations, and so it has a significance to the listener that a completely new theme by Bear doesn't have.

For the same reason flea market paintings of landscapes don't hang in the National Gallery, and Van Gogh's Wheatfield does.
 
We don't live in a world where things exist in a vacuum.
 

Oh good grief. I think this is the first time I've mentioned Bear's score (which I like) in relation to Shore's, and that was in response to another comment which was drawing a comparison.
 
And look, this is a site where we discuss film music, of course people are going to make comparisons. Especially when we're talking about two scores that are written for the same source material, and one is clearly influenced by the other. To say nothing of the fact that Shore wrote the theme for the series...Shore's music literally immediately precedes Bear's in every episode.
 
So if anyone is inviting comparisons here, it's Amazon. If Amazon didn't want such comparisons, they shouldn't have brought Shore on board. And if Bear didn't want comparisons, he shouldn't have created something so clearly reminiscent of Shore. Shore's work bears no resemblance to Rosenman's, but you can't say the same for Bear's to Shore's. So yeah, I think comparing the two works is more than fair.
 
And in any event, comparing the two scores doesn't mean you can't enjoy both. 
 
Not that you're comparing them.

You just answered your own question.
 
The soundscape is very, very important: leitmotives always become associated with certain orchestral colours, whether its muted horns with the Tarnhelm, rumbling pianos with the Imperial Walkers or tin whistles with Hobbits. To replicate those colours so deliberately is to invite comparisons and, in so doing, ensure the score lives with an inferiority complex.
 
Doesn't mean its not a fine, fine score; but the comparison is unavoidable. Only if Bear broke away completely with Howard Shore's practices - and, significantly, had the show not had a bona-fide Howard Shore piece in it - could those comparisons be avoided. As it is, they can't.

Well, sure. I'm not trying to make this a debate about the subjective musical integrity of Shore's music...there are plenty of other threads that have waded through this and I've said more than my piece on it. Though I'll add that I think you're carrying a pretty reductionist view of what you consider "advanced" and not. And that even in its simplicity, there is actually another kind of complexity Shore builds, especially as film music.
 
But all that aside, those deliberate choices ended up being fundamental to those scores' success. It's why that music made the splash it did in Jackson films...and why it felt like such a breath of fresh air in the midst of long trodden path of indulgent romantic fantasy music that had existed up until that point. Not unlike what Kilar's score did for Coppola's Dracula. And in doing that, it achieves what most film scores only dream of doing, but rarely get to. It lives and breathes as its own world.
 
I do not believe McCreary's score does that. And that's fine. I never expected the score or show to ever raise to those heights. But I also find the whole thing rather boring and flavourless for my taste. I'm glad it's doing more for others.

I would be perfectly capable of listening to Bear's score without thinking of Shore, by the way, just like I can Leonard Rosenman's. But, unlike Rosenman's score, here each episode opens with a (fantastic, by the way) Howard Shore piece.
 
Furthermore, each episode features timbres which are used very deliberately to evoke Howard Shore's "sound": We see Dwarves, enter the male voices. Why? Because that's an association we have in Howard Shore's scores. Elf scenes? Ethereal female choir and harps? Why, because that's a colour Shore associates with the Elves. Hobbits? tin whistles and uileann pipes galore, because that's what we associate with the Hobbits. Even the Hardinfelle that's used to score the Soutlands scenes (and Halbrand's) recall Shore's Rohan writing. Orcs get lots of percussion and very nasal exotic woodwinds. Why? Because that's what the bad guys are associated with in HOWARD SHORE'S SCORES.
 
If you don't want to invite comparisons, write something totally different. As it is, Bear didn't do that: He intentionally wrote something that begs the comparisons, and only serves to highlight the differences.

A simple harmonic language isn't a bad thing.
 
Besides, the complexity of Shore's writing is less in the harmonic language and more the motivic complexity: There had flat out not been anything like it since Der Ring Des Nibelungen.

The key difference that I'm able to discern from both scores, is that Shore's music feels so distinctly like it's built a sonic and imaginative world of its own. It's not just about how many themes and different instruments one has used. But look at the way those scores have orchestrated, the way it's been recorded, the modal style of the writing, the sparsity and tact with which soloists are incorporated...it all feels so deliberate and hence feels like music of another time and place. Yes, it benefits from being attached to the films and its original hyper-surge in popularity, but the music was clearly trying to do something that was just not being done in films at the time (whether you like it or not).
 
McCreary's score is mostly just drawing from existing modern film music tropes and conventions (even if it uses everything but the kitchen sink in instrumentation), and while it might have some pleasant moments, it ultimately feels as vanilla as the show itself. And at the risk of sounding terribly pretentious, it has no real point of view to offer.

Idk, I find it pretty generic as well. I would definitely not call it “the greatest” anything.
 
My cancer is seeing the endless praise this score is getting. Someone compared the Galadriel track to Joe Hisaishi and I felt like I had fallen through a rift in time and space…

Well this is part of the little game the apologists for this mess play. The evolution goes something like this...
 
You can't judge the show based on production photos!
You can't judge the show based on the trailers!
You can't judge the show based on the first two episodes!
You can't judge the show until the season's over!
(season ends)
It's only the second season, it's too early to judge the show!
It's a five-season arc! You can't judge the show until the final episode!
 
 
 
 
 
 

You jest, but I spend times in corners of the net where these apologetics are used all the time. I was already objecting to it back in the marketing days: "You can't judge the show until its out" - well, not thoroughly, of course, but if you're at all media savvy and have been around the block a couple of times, you can probably tell if it will or won't be for you. I mean, that's how we decide what to watch and what not to watch, being that we clearly don't watch EVERYTHING: We look at trailers, synopses and listen to word-of-mouth and decide whether we might like something or not.
 
Now that half the season is out, there's more and more of this last apologetic of "well, we need the context of the whole season" and in this case I think the apologetic stems from people being, well, franky, naive and taking the showrunners' words much too at face value when they equated this season to "an eight-hour movie." Its one of those things where I'm sure the showrunners would like us to think of the season as one long movie, both for artistic reasons but also for this very reason: that it basically makes the season critically-impervious until after the final episode has aired which I have nothing to say to except "oh, how convenient!" I think at one point they even made the equivalence of the show is one, 50-hour movie which is even more preposterous.
 
It reminds me of George Lucas standing at the AFI awards and saying how he considers all six Star Wars films to be a single movie. This is the same kind of thing: even just within the first three episodes we've switched directors, an art director and a set of writers; and we know the episodes were made sequentially, and that there had been a long break in the schedule before embarking on the third episode. This "one movie" equivalency is empty.

Williams has nothing to prove, no need to make some “final statement.”  He will give the film in front of him the score it needs like he always does.

A thing to consider: the film is Spielberg's love letter to his parents, whom he loved immensely and who both passed away not too long ago. Steven often brought both of them to attend John's scoring sessions over the years and JW himself came to know both quite well, so it's fair to assume that this was personal and intimate for him too. From all I saw so far, it feels just right to score such a personal story with an intimate chamber-like approach instead of going bombastic. This probably will disappoint people who were expecting Adventures on Earth Part 2, but what we'll end up getting is for sure something that both director and composer felt was right for this film.

Hook is definitely coming, it’s only a matter of when.

If anything, Mondo releasing Matessino’s complete rebuild of the OST is strong evidence that Hook IS coming.