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FSM's 2008 Top 40


John Crichton
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Film Score Monthly is currently counting down their list of the top 40 composers:

31-40

21-30

Last year saw Zimmer in the #1 spot and Williams down to #3 after two years of semi-retirement. Can Indy get Williams back to the top spot?

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Film Score Monthly is currently counting down their list of the top 40 composers:

31-40

21-30

Last year saw Zimmer in the #1 spot and Williams down to #3 after two years of semi-retirement. Can Indy get Williams back to the top spot?

:( Zimmer...number one? I mean, I'm a big HZ fan, but calling him number one. . . .that's rather absurd.

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;) Zimmer...number one? I mean, I'm a big HZ fan, but calling him number one. . . .that's rather absurd.

I agree so much.

He should have been #1. He's able to shell out 4-5 scores a year. JW almost died when he had to do 4.

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;) Zimmer...number one? I mean, I'm a big HZ fan, but calling him number one. . . .that's rather absurd.

I agree so much.

He should have been #1. He's able to shell out 4-5 scores a year. JW almost died when he had to do 4.

Perhaps you're right. I recall reading how Spielberg was surprised that he did 4.

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;) Zimmer...number one? I mean, I'm a big HZ fan, but calling him number one. . . .that's rather absurd.

I agree so much.

He should have been #1. He's able to shell out 4-5 scores a year. JW almost died when he had to do 4.

he almost died? That's news to me.

Of course the man was in his 70's when he did those 4 scores, plus he tours around the US conducting as well.

A man Zimmer's age should be able to do 4-5 scores a year with no problem. Didn't Goldsmith do 7 or 8 in one year? Just reading Williams schedule, committments and traveling he had to do during Superman and Superman II in the Blue Box book makes 4-5 scores a year seem like nothing.

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;) Zimmer...number one? I mean, I'm a big HZ fan, but calling him number one. . . .that's rather absurd.

I agree so much.

He should have been #1. He's able to shell out 4-5 scores a year. JW almost died when he had to do 4.

Remember JW uses a pencil and paper, which I'm sure takes much more time than Zimmer's style.

Also, as Mark said, JW spent a lot of time giving concerts around the world (and rehearsing many weeks before them).

And he's much older than Zimmer.

And last year Zimmer only composed 2 scores (The Simpsons Movie and At World's End)

And last year in October, JW began thinking about the music for Indy 4.

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JW has only done 4 a year 3 times in his whole career. Hans does it EVERY year. Not only does he compose on his own, but he produces several other scores, and that is very time consuming.

Zimmer does not write four scores every year. And while how much of the scores he does write is up for debate, he is the wrong composer to emphasize that he composes it on his own. And I'm interested in hearing the four great scores he composed in one year.

...and this is all besides the point, because FSM is not listing the composers according to talent or quality. Their annual Top-40 is their percieved rankings of composers according to their current popularity in the film scoring world, how notable a year they had before, and what are their prospects for the next year.

Zimmer's quality as a film composer may be debatable (duh....though I was and remain a big fan). But his being one of the absolute most in demand composers in Hollywood is not. He's not a no-brainer for number 1....but there's no composer who's specifically more in demand at the moment. This year, it seems like the old stallwarts are gonna be lower on the list than usual, making way for the meteoric rise of Giacchino and Marienelli, as well as Desplat's constant rise in popularity. Even with that, Zimmer, Shore, Horner, T. Newman, and Howard are certainly still up there (Elfman may be a bit lower...I'm not sure).

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Which he seems to not be doing alot of lately, hence the semi-retirement.

One single work can take a lot of time to write. It's not like film scoring, where you're forced to write a lot of music in weeks.

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Yeah, I know. I don't care about that kind of lists like FSM's is, I was only quoting your sentence. I know you were referring to JW's film career, I wanted to point out that JW isn't just film music :P

But this is just my point of view... I was talking to a friend about this today, after watching a video of Penderecki conducting a sinfonietta for strings. I told him we should talk more often about Penderecki instead of Giacchino in this board, because JW is, after all, a contemporary composer.

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Yeah, I know. I don't care about that kind of lists like FSM's is, I was only quoting your sentence. I know you were referring to JW's film career, I wanted to point out that JW isn't just film music :P

No prob. :P

And don't start on Giacchino! :P I'm convinced, he's the Next Big Thing in film music. (cue silly Williams comparisons)

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No, we should judge them by the quality. Hans being able to compose 4 great scores in 1 year deserves that #1 spot. It's FSM, they wouldn't give out #1's if the composer didn't truly deserve it.

I don't think he deserves #1 for pumping out a load of #2.

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No, we should judge them by the quality. Hans being able to compose 4 great scores in 1 year deserves that #1 spot. It's FSM, they wouldn't give out #1's if the composer didn't truly deserve it.

I don't think he deserves #1 for pumping out a load of #2.

Touché :D

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Scott's list is unfair to Jerry! He calls John Williams "America's composer." Shame on you, Scott! Dead or alive, Jerry Goldsmith will always be America's composer.

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Does Dr. Hobgood really need any help? This was the man who took JW's comments that film composers should study music as an insult to Goldsmith. One of him is plenty.

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Ahem, yourself, sir. It's my thread! :P

Next you'll say the movie thread is Marc's because he started it.....:P

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No Damnit!!!!! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Michael Giacchino should be #1!!!!!!!!!

Shows you how powerful Williams is, man doesn't compose a major score for almost 3 years yet he's #3.

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Not to mention Scott fanning the retirement flames even more:

This summer's release of the decades-awaited Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will feature the first new Williams score in two-and-a-half years, since his Oscar-nominated Munich. It's hard to know how many more scores Williams plans to write (certainly Spielberg seems nowhere near quitting, and he's a spry 61), but considering he's 11 years past the age most people retire, we're lucky to have any new music from him, and if he decides to finally call it a day, a fourth Indiana Jones seems like a wonderful swan song for America's composer.
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How disappointing. I would have been happy with Elfman getting the #1 spot. Giacchino definitely needs to be higher.

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