Music Manifesto

Agreed! Best action score ever written, IMO!

Yeah, but at least some of them use their stardom to do some good.

Haha...sh#tty world.. Grim outlook, eh?

Don't blame the players blame the recording engineer for the poor sound of Last Crusade. -Erik- Hi Erik, After perusing many of the forum topics it seems you know a bunch about Giacchino. To be honest, as much as I enjoy some of his music, I feel the same way about the performance quality of his film/tv recordings. I just don't hear any attitude behind it, it's all just kind of a blur to me. The fact that he uses Mr. Old School as his engineer really leads me to believe that it is the players (mostly the strings ). As I listen to my many soundtracks it seems the performance quality peaked in the 70's and through the 80's, and started to fall off in the late 90's and now is my least favorite. Of course I'm speaking just of LA recordings. What are your thoughts?

Yep, you're right - forgot about that one. I'm gonna' go eat some apple pie to mend my wounds. That was done old school, MGM stage I think...

Just picked up LA Confidential. Why is that movie so AWESOME?!

Wow, at the risk of breaking a forum rule - maybe Spielberg should resign from making films in the USA then out of protest for, well, I'll stop there... At least he wouldn't be a hypocrite. Indy 4 baby, yeah! Too bad Johnny Dub isn't doing it in London. The first two Indy films were superior in sound to LC. I love the LA players, but their sound is just so mundane sometimes.

Money is king. And until this franchise loses severe money, we'll continue to see more and more. Same with Star Trek. Stop making Star Trek movies! Jerry is no longer there to make your movies better!

Horner is a rip-off artist, not a pastiche composer I think. I guess it's a measurement of blatant versus crafty emulation. Even when he lifts note for note, key for key, certain things, I can always tell, within one bar or a few bars that it is Horner. This is because of his mastery of harmonic control (and orchestration).

35-45 year old composers in film? Or composers in general? In terms of composers in film, I would have to agree that Giacchino is up there as one of my favorites perhaps my number one. However, as Marcus points out, this is more of a reflection on the sad state of film music than it is of Giacchino. If MG were writing during the Golden Age, he would be all but laughed at from so many angles. This does not take away from his talent, but in my opinion, his talent doesn't go any farther than being a "method composer." I just don't hear him doing anything truly great. And to speak very seriously for a moment...music composition, to me, is a harmony game. Forget Western vs. Eastern aesthetics. Harmony is king. Now, I feel that Giacchino lacks control of his harmony, big time. The best composers for me working today in film - John Williams, James Newton Howard, Thomas Newman, Randy Newman, James Horner, Elliot Goldenthal, and the like - all have masterful control of their individual and inspired harmonic language. When Giacchino can master harmonic control, I will have no choice but to respect his music and his craft. Until then, I will continue to enjoy much of his of music for what it is, to me at least - and that is pastiche, very good pastiche.

Yeah, the 100% comment was a bit harsh - just me being a sarcastic ass - criticism deserved. I just wish Giacchino could break that barrier of sounding "cute." No matter how much I enjoy or dislike something of his (from serious music to comedic), I always come to the same two conclusions, usually in this order: 1) "Man, I just can't take this music seriously" - even when I enjoy it 2) "Come on, will you please modulate sometime in the next hour..." - I find his music to be very repetitive and pattern based, which is fine, my ears just get tired of the same thing over and over again. It seems like he tries to hide this tendency with a lot of textural things, which I find kind of boring anyway (the textures that is). MOH: Frontline though, my favorite video game music next to Super Mario Brothers (which is so bad and yet so good at the same time).

Just watched No Country For Old Men on a SAG promotional copy. I love that there is no music in the film, save the scene where we hear mariachi source music. Great film - f##ked up to say the least.

The Incredits Grammy went to Gordon Goodwin - big band bad ass who, from what I heard, held Giacchino's hand through a lot of the arranging on The Incredibles. If you know Gordon's unique voicing, you can hear it all over the movie. Goodwin is a monster arranger, yeah man...

I agree that Giacchino has an experimental side, I just think it's too cute - like all of his music. The serious stuff, for me at least, is just as cute as his light music. I just can't take his music seriously - it's popcorn music, very good popcorn music. His "experimental" stuff doesn't do anything for me, it just kind of sits there in existence, taking up space without doing anything constructive at all.

Good man! That's great, congrats to Giacchino. Must be nice to land the films that do well almost every time. That's the problem with the system. I mean, James Newton Howard could easily win for Michael Clayton, and it may be one his most uneventful scores of his career (of course, he has deserved an award so many times...). But alas, the movie did well. Actually, with this Giacchino Grammy win coming so strangely soon after the movie was released and so close to the Oscars, who know, he'll probably win the Oscar as well. I'm curious to know if his agent Gorfaine made a push to the Grammy's to include Ratatouille this year. You never know with the mafia that runs the Grammy ring, rules are broken every year to accommodate those with power (although, I'm not sure of what the cutoff date was, but it seems different than every other year on record, at least from what I can remember). Aren't Giacchino's in-laws crazy powerful movie people? I think I heard his father-in-law, former big, big, big shot at ABC has been very influential in MG's career. Would make sense with just walking on to the scene in Hollywood after having not really "paid those dues," which seemed to upset many people out in Los Angeles - rumors only as far as I know. Can anyone confirm MG's pop-in-law?

Man...this year has been a series of sad losses, indeed. What an actor, what a talent - he will be missed. Hopefully they'll have him in the tribute this year at the Oscars.

Giacchino has a long way to go before I jump on the MG bandwagon. He's got chops for sure but I find nothing inherently special in his music. I do love his video game music for what's its supposed to do though. MOH: Frontline especially.

That clearly shows how little you know about Giacchino's music. He has now a distictive voice compared with his Williamesque early compositions, but the more i heard those, the more i realise how much Giacchino's voice was in those too, and how much its just a Williamesque style, but seldom you can hear a rip off. One example is the nazi theme, it sounds like something williams had composed, and i thought it was very similar's to Last crusade's but then i noticed there was not any similarity notes wise. 100%, meh, super overstatement if there ever was one... Yes, clearly this shows how little I know about his music, ha. What a joke - presumption is king here. I follow as much of his music as I can - I will admit that I have not heard anything from The Trouble With Lou, No Salida or Redemption of the Ghost. And I never mentioned he had ripped things off - he has, but that's another conversation. You can find his music elsewhere, this is indicative of a composer who lacks a voice (he's the king of pastiche right now). People confuse musical tendencies with having a voice. Giacchino has lots of musical tendencies, but no voice in my opinion. To keep in line with your presumptions about what you apparently know about me, I will say to you, your post clearly shows how little you know about what it means to have a compositional voice. Pretty arrogant of me to say isn't it? Of course it is not my intention to presume to know about you, nor am I being arrogant - I only pen that line in order to highlight my point. I look forward to the next presumptuous remark you have about me.

Chinatown right now for me - reflective, perfect. We miss you Jerry!

The Ghost and the Darkness is one of my favorite Goldsmith scores from that decade. It had such a primal feeling to it, great stuff.

MGM musicals? What a goat f##k. I want some Johnny Dub!

Back to Giacchino...will people look past the pastiche and huge movies he has connected himself to in order to take a look at what he is really doing musically? There is absolutely no substance. You can find 100% of his music elsewhere. Perhaps within film this doesn't matter (anymore), and with a generation raised on video games and internet disconnect, perhaps it's easy to put fluff music on a pedestal as a result of not enough people being aware of genuine top-tier accomplishment in film music. Perhaps I'm wrong here.

Hey Fiery Angel, are you a composer in LA or something? Where can I hear some of your stuff? On the Giachhino subject, I've never quite understood why people have put him up on a pedestal. I think it was Miguel (?) that had posted that MG's stuff is pastiche, good pastiche, but nonetheless pastiche. I couldn't agree more. I suppose he has started to develop more of a voice recently, but he has more tendencies which define him than a voice which defines him. Compositional tendencies are quite different than having a mature voice. He certainly has chops, but I don't think he is a great composer, not in the sense of having a fully mature voice. I think it was Stravinsky who said if you haven't found your voice within 2 years of serious study, then you won't ever have one. I believe I read this in one of Taruskin's works. I agree with this notion.

Oh my. I'm new here so I don't have a full grasp of the forum's personalties yet - but do people here seriously put Giacchino in the same league as John Williams?

Thanks for the nice welcomes. I had this slice of apple pie tonight - holy jeez. Oh yeah. Almost as good as The Desert Chase.