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Tracklist for New Potter Film.


Ollie

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Well, RCP trains composers to emulate existing styles and to work together rather than as individuals. I'd say the word "clone" is perfectly accurate.

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According to the article Drax posted, " The cinematography...[is] amazing, and the film has a truly rich look to it reminiscent of the best of the old-school Hollywood epics."

Must be in black and white.

Is that bastard David O. Selznick still alive? Tell him he's fired.

Shh, we'll be arrested under hate speech laws.

Arrest yourself.

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Well, RCP trains composers to emulate existing styles and to work together rather than as individuals. I'd say the word "clone" is perfectly accurate.

There really is no "training." Hans Zimmer promotes collaboration, how the composers write is their own doing, and most of them have their own styles.

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There really is no "training." Hans Zimmer promotes collaboration, how the composers write is their own doing, and most of them have their own styles.

Some of 'em do; many of them just choose to write within the style Zimmer created. They give the impression of being clones, since it's often hard to hear any individual voice in them. But you must know by now that this doesn't necessarily stop me from enjoying the music...I just have to be in the right mood, and it needs to have enthusiasm (and perhaps a hint of originality) without annoyingness.

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It's just one stew of sameness to me.

Yes I'm sure that if you listen to their scores often, you can detect differences between Badelt's music and what Jablonsky is doing.

But it's just small personal variations on what is the established "Hans Zimmer Style ®".

I personally am not interested enough in this style to discover each composer's slightly different angle on it.

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Yes I'm sure that if you listen to their scores often, you can detect differences between Badelt's music and what Jablonsky is doing.

Yes it does require one to listen to a portion of their work to be able to identify their style. But, honestly, isn't it like that for any composer? If you're hearing your first JW score, you're not gonna be able to identify the style until you hear more.

Well it all boils down to what you like, and like you said, you're not interested to become familiar with these composers. I'm fine with that, but it does irk me a bit when people just combine them.

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Yes I'm sure that if you listen to their scores often, you can detect differences between Badelt's music and what Jablonsky is doing.

Yes it does require one to listen to a portion of their work to be able to identify their style. But, honestly, isn't it like that for any composer? If you're hearing your first JW score, you're not gonna be able to identify the style until you hear more.

But by the least you can tell this is a different composer han goldsmith, horner, elfman, steiner, herrmann, rozsa...

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AOL Radio has been previewing the HBP soundtrack today (rather stupidly!); they're playing 1 track at the start of each hour. What I've heard so far has been excellent; such a step up from OotP!

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Thanks for the info, I'm starting here with "In Noctem" - very nice piece so far, unsettling, and beautiful at the same time. It is a dark vocal piece - think Double Trouble almost.

What was "Opening" like?

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When you say many, do you have specific names? I can usually pick 'em out, the styles that is.

I can't claim to have the degree of MV/RCP experience you have, and I don't deny that the individual composers must have some identifying attributes. But in many cases - no, I don't have any particular names in mind - the differences between two of the composers' work are less noticeable than the differences between two Williams scores, or two Giacchino scores, or two Goldsmith scores, or what have you. With these composers, the commonalities tend to be more like subconscious tics...little stylistic things that sneak into many of their scores. With MV/RCP composers, the commonalities define the scores. I'm listening to a rented copy of TDK right now (and somewhat enjoying it, despite myself...but the whole thing is just so homogeneously MV-ish. I can barely hear JNH in it at all, but if it were to come to light that Zimmer's contributions were actually ghostwritten by Jablonsky or Djawadi or Badelt or whoever, I wouldn't have any trouble believing it. They're masters of writing within one very specific style, with slight personal touches.

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"In Noctem" was gorgeous - I have no idea what scene it accompanies. "Opening" was interesting, but it's a very brief statement of Hedwig's Theme and then a choral theme that is almost Hedwig's Theme but not. The build-up to the Death Eater's spiralling out of the Dark Mark is great though.

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On AOL radio they are playing one track every hour. It's incredibly tedious and I'm only gonna stick around for one more, but it means the soundtrack is out there, or soon will be...

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Apparently this soundtrack will include a free download of a 5.1 surround sound version. Huh? No doubt it will be compressed, but the surround experience is compelling. Let's hope it's mixed well.

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"The Friends" - Emotional, pastoral. Very string heavy, some horn counter lines and harp arpeggios. Very much in keeping with the feel of "Loved Ones and Leaving" from OotP, but heavier. It's a nice track, though between the two I've heard "In Noctem" is better, it really is a beauty!

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Now that I think about it, "In Noctem" is what I would have imagined for The Dark Lord Ascending chapter from DH. I just heard "Harry & Hermione", which was a tender piece and the type of theme I've been waiting to hear between the three friends. I think Nicholas Hooper has really made a concerted effort this time.

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Awesome. :lol:

I did like OotP so I did have faith in Hooper for this score, I'm glad it hear it's turning out good so far. I really think that he has the right "sound" for the Potter films and if we can't have Williams, Hooper is good enough for me!

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OotP is one of the few soundtracks that I don't fully condemn because I like being judgmental like that. Some of the tracks are just great, I honestly think, but what seems evident to me is that Hooper ran out of ideas, ran out of time or just stopped caring. The score shines during montage scenes. The worst is that tiresome drivel that passes for suspense music during the Department of Mysteries scene.

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I listened to a podcast with Nicholas Hooper that came out just before OotP. He said that he had been working on the Order score from the get-go with Yates, however the film changed very late in the game (I'm guessing the immense cuts and insertion of montage scenes), so he ended up only having 3 months. Sure, not desperate in terms of JNH and the King Kong situation, but for someone composing for their first major Hollywood feature this must have been incredibly daunting. I've listened to the score much more openly after finding this out. HBP looks he's been able to really show what he can do.

And here we go again...

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When you say many, do you have specific names? I can usually pick 'em out, the styles that is.

I can't claim to have the degree of MV/RCP experience you have, and I don't deny that the individual composers must have some identifying attributes. But in many cases - no, I don't have any particular names in mind - the differences between two of the composers' work are less noticeable than the differences between two Williams scores, or two Giacchino scores, or two Goldsmith scores, or what have you. With these composers, the commonalities tend to be more like subconscious tics...little stylistic things that sneak into many of their scores. With MV/RCP composers, the commonalities define the scores. I'm listening to a rented copy of TDK right now (and somewhat enjoying it, despite myself...but the whole thing is just so homogeneously MV-ish. I can barely hear JNH in it at all, but if it were to come to light that Zimmer's contributions were actually ghostwritten by Jablonsky or Djawadi or Badelt or whoever, I wouldn't have any trouble believing it. They're masters of writing within one very specific style, with slight personal touches.

Well I can pretty much say with certainty that The Dark Knight is mostly Zimmer with some JNH. I believe it was Mel Wesson who did the ambient music design and came up with the bat wing effect, and Ramin Djawadi could have possibly been an additional composer. I can't remember; definitely no Badelt or Jablonsky.

I think the way you said it is perhaps the best way of describing it. A lot of it is written within a certain style, but there are still certain stylistic differences that creep up based on who is actually composing. But to me, there are scores that are just so blatantly not Zimmer. I guess it's harder for me to see it from your point of view because I'm so familiar with the music.

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I guess it's harder for me to see it from your point of view because I'm so familiar with the music.

And I can appreciate that - sometimes I'll hear a new score positively ripe with MV cliches, and I'll be greatly annoyed because of that. If I listen to it enough, though, I often start hearing its own identity more and more. Not sure if that's a deepening illusion or an improving perception of the score's true uniqueness...probably a little of both. But it does happen.

But...I still stand by my statement that many of the stereotypical MV scores (i.e. written by various different composers) sound more like each other than CE3K sounds like The Terminal, or Forrest Gump sounds like BTTF, or Medal of Honor sounds like Up. The MV style is easily imitated and frequently recycled.

Note that my first exposure to the MV sound, the first Pirates, blew me away! Not yet familiar with the cliches, I heard it as fresh and exciting and intense, if not enormously complex. But my love for that sound has been somewhat diminished by how ubiquitous it is, just as any other specific style would lose some of its specialness to my ear if it were used in countless movies. I mean, I love Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I certainly wouldn't want close cousins of that score being used for everything from pirate adventures to technological thrillers to war movies to historical flicks.

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But...I still stand by my statement that many of the stereotypical MV scores (i.e. written by various different composers) sound more like each other than CE3K sounds like The Terminal, or Forrest Gump sounds like BTTF, or Medal of Honor sounds like Up. The MV style is easily imitated and frequently recycled.

But that's what makes the MV/RC style so masterful -- it's simple, it's versatile, and it's malleable. A lot of us only preach "reduce, reuse, recycle"; the artists at Remote Control Productions actually practice it.

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I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but there's some truth in that statement - there's a reason it's been so successful. It's visceral. Its emotional content is very accessible to the Western ear. It's easily mimicked, as we've said. It's specific enough to always sound "cool," but vague enough to fit numerous genres without most people being bothered by it. It relies more on electronics than the competition, allowing the costs associated with live performers and acoustic instruments to be lowered. And it offers opportunities for young proteges to make the older masters' work easier while furthering the proteges' own careers.

It's not like Zimmer just got lucky with this stuff; his business model is a solid one. Unfortunately, there's a group of us with some artistic reservations about that. I just count myself lucky to be able to enjoy some of the resulting music in spite of this.

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I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but there's some truth in that statement - there's a reason it's been so successful. It's visceral. Its emotional content is very accessible to the Western ear. It's easily mimicked, as we've said. It's specific enough to always sound "cool," but vague enough to fit numerous genres without most people being bothered by it. It relies more on electronics than the competition, allowing the costs associated with live performers and acoustic instruments to be lowered. And it offers opportunities for young proteges to make the older masters' work easier while furthering the proteges' own careers.

It's not like Zimmer just got lucky with this stuff; his business model is a solid one. Unfortunately, there's a group of us with some artistic reservations about that. I just count myself lucky to be able to enjoy some of the resulting music in spite of this.

Your analysis is spot on. It's show business, and the invisible hand of the marketplace leads filmmakers to Zimmer & co. You can't argue with that.

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I always thought it should have been Harry and Hermione, not Ron and Hermione - but then again, I always did relate more to Harry, and Hermione had just the right cute-to-geeky ratio for my tastes... ROTFLMAO

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Just listened to a track from the new Potter score (AOL Radio broadcasts one cue at the beginning of each hour); the cue was "Drink of Despair" (or so), and I'm pretty unimpressed. It's short and sounds like a reduced version of "possession" from the last score, without clear melody but with electronically distorted moans at the beginning... hmm, hope the rest is better...

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I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but there's some truth in that statement.

Yes what Alan said is rather true. And with the whole "reuse, recycle" thing, there isn't a single composer that doesn't do it. Honestly I think James Horner does more of it than Hans Zimmer.

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Yes, he does. Horner's recycling is just laughable...it tends to discredit him in my mind. Which is unfortunate, as he's written some really solid stuff that I enjoy quite a bit. But when you say that all composers do that...sure, to a certain extent, but the ones I like tend to be pretty good about not reusing the same old material over and over again. As I said, there'll be little stylistic tendencies that give their oeuvres some cohesion without monotony. It's clear that ROTLA and Star Wars were written by the same composer, and there are even a couple of passages that sound pretty similar. But on the whole, they're definitely different works.

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