Grade The Year 2006 by Various Composers

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

John Connah...it is time.

The year 2006 was said would turn out to be a lackluster year for scores, following the drought of 2005 (John Williams debatably excluded depending on who you ask). Perhaps one of the biggest problems of the last couple of years has been a distinct lack in exceptional quality in film scoring. Gone seem to be the days of scores that were inseperable from their pictures. Where scores once had sharp definition, blurry by the numbers compositions seem to be all over the place. There seems to be a constant feeling of déjà vu or indifference when one listens to scores these days. Scores seem to be good and even great, but tend to miss that remarkability to become more than just good sounding fluff for the year. There were some very iffy projects, from The Dead Man's Chest and Poseidon to Flags of Our Fathers, The Prestige, The Sentinel, .

Even so, the year 2006 wasn't quite as lackluster as many had expected it to be. If anything, there seems to be hope for the future. This year saw the release of some great efforts, James Newton Howard seems to be on top of the ball with scores like Lady in the Water and Blood Diamond, the former being one of the best listens in quite some time. David Arnold showed us that he's still got it with Casino Royale, and Mychael Danna provided us with some beautiful work in The Nativity Story. Even James Horner gave us a breath of fresh air with Apocalypto. There was also The Departed, The Fountain, Eragon, The Good German and more. There was also the establishment of two promising new names: John Powell and Alexandre Desplat.

Desplat's The Queen perhaps stands as this years finest film score. It is creative, it works marvelously in the film, and, hold on to your diapers, it has the uniqueness to set it apart as exceptional.

We have ways to go before we top some of the unbelievable years of the past, but it is not too daring to say we're slowly breaking out of the "drought."

So now let's grade this last year over all!

And I shall give to this year a B.

To put it in perspective I'd grade the rest of the decade:

2000: B-

2001: A-

2002: B+

2003: A-

2004: B-

2005: C

And I know there's more scores to grade out of 2006...but I don't want to have more than 4 polls per page.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Big fat D-.

[SomeNewGuy 0]

B-. That may be too generous.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Far too generous.

[robthehand 3]

C-

[Ollie 1,059]

C, and that's being kind.

[Morlock 11]

C+. Stefan is just talking nonsense, he's listened to maybe three scores this year.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Your point being?

[Red 75]

C because there was no John Williams this year.

[alfredo 0]

C, there has been a few things I liked but nothing exceptionally good. If anything good came out of this year it is the composers who have started to show their stuff and give hope for the future, i.e. Michael Giacchino, John Powell and Desplat.

[bondo 33]

B-

There were a few ok and good scores, but nothing great. Nothing highly memorable.

[QMM 4]

B-

John Powell for composer of the year

[crocodile 8,016]

D-

Maybe even I am too generous. But there were worse years.

Karol

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I think people are being a bit harsh...

Maybe they haven't listened to enough scores.

[Ollie 1,059]

No, they recognize the difference between quality and garbage.

Either that or they are tired of the "been there heard the same thing from better composers".

[Greg1138 3]

C-

[tpigeon 3]

There was very little to get excited about. Most scores these days tend to be so full of cliches and defined by boring conventions that film scoring has become almost a lost art. There are always great scores, but the number of truly great pieces of music written for film seems to be dwindling. As usual, Howard and Elfman are contributing to the save-the-film music cause, as are Hollywood up and comers Desplat and Marionelli, but by and large, film scores are defined by their mediocrity. I don't know about the rest of you, but I miss Goldsmith. After a few years without any of his score, his death is finally starting to sink in. I hope Williams continues to score films, in particular smaller and more interesting ones.

Ted

[Ollie 1,059]

Nicely put Ted. I agree about Goldsmith, the only composer left that I actually look forward to getting a new score from is John Williams.

I like JNH but I just don't find myself getting excited over him, the same with Elfman. I like Howard Shore but I don't feel the urge to have every score he's done. I was really excited about Michael Giacchino but I'm afraid he's going to get stuck doing tired franchises using other composer's themes.

It's not like I totally ignore composers working today. I listen to Shemur, Desplat, Tyler etc etc and I get the same old tiring been there heard that feeling from their music. They lack that fresh sound that grabs my attention.

[tpigeon 3]

What I like about Howard and Elfman is that even though they adopt many contemporary ideas with regards to scoring, they adhere to most important role of film music. They make the music live and breathe with the images. A good score doesn't just translate the image into a melody (which is what film scoring has become); it becomes a contributing character and integral role in the film, however loud, quiet, or sparingly it may appear. So many studios could care less about this anymore: they just want to hire somebody to write the obligatory music so that audiences won't freak out when there is no predictable musical accompaniment to the same old tired movies that invade the multiplexes. The real artists have fled into the smaller, quieter realm of filmmaking, but they are out there. But concerning Hollywood, only Williams, Howard, and Elfman have been able to remain true artists in their field while scoring big Hollywood films. It's a real shame.

Ted

[MikeyKW 0]

C-. The few decent scores (Casino Royale, DaVinci Code among them) this year could only be judged so based on my initial low expectations.

I blame the studios as much as anyone as they seem to be rushing films through production faster every year with little given for composers to write their scores or to have them properly "married" to the film.

[Richard Penna 3,690]

C because there was no John Williams this year.

Fanboy

Not very much that wildly impressed me this year. Lady in the Water and Planet Earth blew me away, Powell's output was pretty good, but I didn't like much of what Zimmer came up with (I hate DMC and only occasionally listen to Vinci).

I discovered a lot of previous work from many composers, and of course we got Two Towers, but overall a C- year for me.

[Ollie 1,059]

Now if you count new releases of older scores then this was another great year for film scores.

[futuremartymcfly 0]

2006 wasn't that bad, it just lacked spectacular scores. It was year a decent number of good to great scores, just not much that will be remembered in 10 years.

The end of the year, though, was a lot better then the summer, more so then usual. Probably since you had all of the Media Venture scores composing all the blockbusters, and more high quality composers busy with Oscar-contending films.

[nightscape94 965]

I'll just grade it a "C". I wouldn't say it was horrible, but I only got into a few scores over the last 12 months. I guess mediocre would be a way to describe it. It's no better, but not especially worse, than any other average year.

Tim

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I do fully agree that without Goldsmith and Williams, there is absolutely nothing to get butterflies in your stomach about. 

The closest things these days is Hans Zimmer, and that's only because of the controversy that comes along with his new releases. 

[futuremartymcfly 0]

I do fully agree that without Goldsmith and Williams, there is absolutely nothing to get butterflies in your stomach about. 

The closest things these days is Hans Zimmer, and that's only because of the controversy that comes along with his new releases. 

At least there are several composers that have had great starts to their careers. Imagine living in the sixties and wondering who would replace Alfred Newman or Bernard Hermann. Nobody would have predicted John Williams to be a possibility.

[Ollie 1,059]

Yeah but you still had Miklos Rozsa, John Barry, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein.......

[Damo 0]

I give it a BIG C-.