Nick Parker

I come to praise John Williams, not to bury him!

I'm a part of the silent majority! Come after me and legions of fellow Thorites shall be emboldened to wreak fury the likes of which you've never seen!

My history of exclusive specialty label purchases: 2009 - Mars Attacks! Bad idea, but I was young 2015 - AI 2018 - Dracula 2020- CE3K War of the Worlds

Ugggggghhhh, why'djall keep posting about this!? Now I have to get this release. This will be the first time I ever purchased two specialty label releases in one year!

Reposted from another thread for sake of better relevance:

I've made this argument before, but I will continue to do so: I find scores such as The Mandalorian to be infinitely closer to the spirit of John Williams' approach to Star Wars--and indeed his creative spirit as a whole--than the efforts of the Gordy Haabs et al. In practically every aspect, Star Wars has always been a melange of countless and far-reaching influences and elements, some contemporaneous, some from the past. You grant that it's subjective, which is of course every bit valid, but for me the end result of The Mandalorian, its cocktail of Western guitar twangs, ethnic instruments, modern and vintage electronics, traditional orchestral instruments and idioms, create a sonic world that I've never heard before.

So is this the STD thread? (SoundTrack Disenchantment)

One thing I'll say that I don't think has been already is that I don't think it's fair to judge a composer on the musical qualities of an entire score, and that they're lesser if a complete score isn't engaging in every single cue, start to finish. By necessity, on most films, there's at least one moment or scene that requires some kind of musical setting, where silence would not be as effective, but still has to stay out of the way by being pretty nondescript or "flat". In these instances, the composer has to write something purely functional, not something to satisfy their sense of musical storytelling.

I feel like the Creed movies went a long way in restoring the character to his earthy roots.

I've definitely encountered this, too, both qualitatively and tonally. It's not necessarily the norm in my experience but you're completely right in stating the possibility that there might be some surprises. What I meant moreso is that on many, if not most albums, they are collages of individual tracks, united by an overarching concept more than anything else, whereas film score albums tend to be a tapestry where distinct tracks can be more difficult to discern, just by the very nature of what film music usually has to do. Let's take a famous score such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, we'll say. The opening track, In the Jungle...it's moody, filled with all kinds of tense and mysterious instrumental colors and harmonies. I love it, and I love listening to it. But would I really call it a standalone track the way I would, I don't know, "Doin' It Right" by Daft Punk? Hell no.

For one, if you didn't, I'd be curious to hear how it "flowed" for you, as album storytelling and film score storytelling are often very different. Which leads to my second reason, being that generally speaking, I feel like a track can give much more a sense of a standalone album than the same for a film score album.

How often do you listen to non-soundtrack albums, Arpy?

It reminds me of his piece for Gloria Cheng: once he finds a vaguely interesting idea, he just can't let it go. So here he riffs on the ever popular Neapolitan progression for minutes, with little variations that turn out more vanilla than anything. I like some of the string writing, and a few of the piano flourishes, but they don't do enough to stay interesting for a whole track. You're right in that he was channelling an "exotica" sound, and he could probably defend this track saying that he wanted it to be chill and not go wild with all kinds of movement or anything...but all that's here are superficial trappings. I'm sure he had a lot of fun making this. (An unrelated link to an "exotica" track that doesn't feature more dynamic instrumentation, chords, melodies, etc. and still remain chill AF...totally non sequitur of me really ) So in the end this track is a hollow pastiche of better things that has come before...so actually a perfect representation of Giacchino's creative soul!

Didn't take me long to guess who this was in spite of the name change.

Just a week ago I was thinking about Alex North and his score for Prizzi's Honor, which uses various Italian composers like Rossini.

Ohhhhhhhhhh snap!!! This is one of my favorite Williams scores...it's like he took the melodrama of Revenge of the Sith and used it as a foundation to spread with some of the most metal writing of his career. It also shows just how impressive and vast his knowledge of film repertoire can be, as he seamlessly weaves in references to the thick layers of oppressive brass of Akira Ifukube into his wholly modern and unique sensibilities. One of my favorite tracks, for those unfamiliar (trying to find ad free videos available to non Americans) :

I'll take your word for it, as I still haven't seen it. (Stu clutches his heart in unknown agony somewhere).

That's one thing too that I really liked about the movie, Joe's jealousy and attachment that loosens as he realizes that letting go would be the greatest act of love he could commit. Extrapolating from Thor, I think this was an experiment of Spielberg on tackling his influences and adorations in a very direct way--ie a remake in this case. It seems that he found more subtle ways to incorporate his filmic loves and influences into "new" projects, such as War Horse, or the 70's thrillers in Munich (and Post, less successfully).

Is this because they're tied in quality or does the latter also use concert music as a base?

I just want to meet KM, get off my back!

I really liked the whimsical tone that pervaded everything, and it captures a bittersweet feeling about loss, acceptance, and moving on after that gives it a surprising pungency. Definitely feels more like a cult TV classic than a film by the most consistently successful film director of all time.

It's nice and sweet; I'm sure women came out of the theater calling it "cute".

You monster! Those crusty teeth breakers are a plight on humanity, designed to be fed to POWs! These ones on the other hand...