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What Is The Last Score You Listened To? (older scores)


Ollie

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Jupiter Ascending

Fun score, I liked it a lot. A lot of it reminded me of Shadows Of The Empire for some odd reason.

I'm now finishing up with what I was listening to earlier.... the complete score for X2: X-Men United

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Star Trek Nemesis by Jerry Goldsmith: This is a slow burning ST score that takes a good while to truly get going but when it does it really shines. The latter half if full of action and drama highlights and I really like Shinzon's theme and how slowly and surely it takes over the score.

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MAN OF STEEL - Hans Zimmer

The recording sessions, if just to confirm there isn't anything beyond my first impression. The score could be subtitled 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' which is at least a big leap from the giant whale of a mess the movie is (it's only ugly). You can hear Zimmer having fun with the human element of the story and when he soars from his soft pedal points into something that is positively pop-rousing in FLIGHT, he's found an ace way to modernize the busy orchestral histronics from the original Williams score. There's also a nice long-lined wafting theme for what i suppose is the Krypton heritage and when it launches into a sly little scherzo on the low strings in the last 40 seconds in LOOK TO THE STARS you almost believe you're in for treat.

Alas, sleekly engineered as all this is, there are long grievances ahead that come as brute and boorish assaults of what nowadays passes for 'action music'. Often devoid of any discernible characteristics beyond the simplest ostinato constructs and/or deafening loudness you may accept this as fitting aural counterpart to the movie's endless excesses of destruction but taken as music, it just may be enough to drive hopeful future musical talents into accounting - inviting with open arms the Beavis'es and Butthead's of the world to become celebrated film composers.

MOS is (in parts) proof enough that Zimmer is no fluke and can genuinely contribute to a movie, strengthening its humanist core values (however embryonic they may be) but apart from the often superficial rock/pop stylings that are completely OK with me (film is a most diverse medium, after all) the huge amounts of artless noise shine a dispiriting spotlight on the dark side of global mass entertainment.

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All The Brothers Were Valiant - Miklos Rozsa

Something of Value - Miklos Rozsa

Crisis - Miklos Rozsa

The Story of Three Loves - Miklos Rozsa

Quo Vadis - Miklos Rozsa

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Jupiter Ascending

Fun score, I liked it a lot. A lot of it reminded me of Shadows Of The Empire for some odd reason.

I'm now finishing up with what I was listening to earlier.... the complete score for X2: X-Men United

Trent enjoying a Michael Giacchino score? Must be a first.

Karol

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VA_-_Titanic_-_OST.JPG

I'm listening to a fan mix of HORNER's TITANIC in DTS 5.1 Surround sound on my sweet THX-certified 5.1 speaker system (Logitech).

Yes it may be a 'lowly' PC speaker configuration, but the sound being outputted right now is anything but crap. I can't imagine it sounding much better on a high-end sound system. But I'm sure it will.

I've never experienced such clarity and sonic depth in a film score recording. I adore it when various sonic details of the front speakers travel to the rears, sometimes subtle, sometimes not. Such as during the action-packed cues, every speaker envelops me in incredibly detailed sound. I don't want to listen to my CD anymore, it's sounds like poorly encoded MP3 by comparison. Exaggeration of course, but you get the idea.

Oh boy, it makes the score sound bigger than life. It's not even mixed as spectacularly in the film on blu-ray and as such becomes an incredible and revelatory experience.

Oh, and the music is pretty darn great too... One of my top 5 Horner's without question.

And this is a necessity if you're a fan like me: Petition to release every damn minute of the actual film score.

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And this is a necessity if you're a fan like me: Petition to release every damn minute of the actual film score.

So, what will happen when it'll reach 5,000 signatures (ridiculously low goal, by the way)? Suddenly, it'll get released? Bah!

As far as I know, no petition has ever been at the origin of a complete score release.

The labels will release it whenever they feel like it (and when whoever holds the rights will be willing to greenlit a complete score release). Who knows? Maybe one of the labels is trying to release it as we speak, but is facing problems of some kind preventing the release?

P.S.: Didn't want to sound cynical, but rereading my post, it does sound like I am. Bah, whatever!

He liked his Star Trek scores!

I always read it as a "faint praise".

Faint praise is still praise!

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LOL ah yes the old DTS CD gimmick. Well it doesnt sound bad. But it's still just compressed music.

Why not buy the SACD for the real thing?

So in your opinion the SACD should sound even better than what I'm hearing right now? Which is quite simply spectacular (doesn't sound bad... LOL) :lol:

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Jupiter Ascending

Fun score, I liked it a lot. A lot of it reminded me of Shadows Of The Empire for some odd reason.

I'm now finishing up with what I was listening to earlier.... the complete score for X2: X-Men United

Trent enjoying a Michael Giacchino score? Must be a first.

Karol

He liked his Star Trek scores!

I always read it as a "faint praise".

Karol

No way! He has repeatedly said he loves all 12 Star Trek scores, and has spent more hours working on edits of ST09 and STID than he has on any scores outside the Star Wars scores!

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Jupiter Ascending

Fun score, I liked it a lot. A lot of it reminded me of Shadows Of The Empire for some odd reason.

I'm now finishing up with what I was listening to earlier.... the complete score for X2: X-Men United

Trent enjoying a Michael Giacchino score? Must be a first.

Karol

He liked his Star Trek scores!

I always read it as a "faint praise".

Karol

No way! He has repeatedly said he loves all 12 Star Trek scores, and has spent more hours working on edits of ST09 and STID than he has on any scores outside the Star Wars scores!

This.

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LOL ah yes the old DTS CD gimmick. Well it doesnt sound bad. But it's still just compressed music.

Why not buy the SACD for the real thing?

So in your opinion the SACD should sound even better than what I'm hearing right now? Which is quite simply spectacular (doesn't sound bad... LOL) :lol:

DTS is compressed audio. SACD is high def uncompressed audio.

Do the math!

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Ben-Hur - Miklos Rosza

The Ten Commandments - Elmer Bernstein

Man of Steel - Hans Zimmer

The Agony and The Ecstasy - Alex North

All perfect for this time of the year.

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Ben-Hur - Miklos Rosza

All perfect for this time of the year.

For some reason I always explore new Rozsa around Springtime.

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:music: The Grand Budapest Hotel by Alexandre Desplat

Yeah. That was a good pick for Oscar this year. Quirky, fresh and prominently featured. I love/liked all scores Desplat churned out in this period but in terms of movie and artistic experience, this one probably the most "his".

Karol

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Crest of the Wave - Miklos Rozsa

Beau Brummell - Miklos Rozsa

Tip on a Dead Jockey - Miklos Rozsa

Madame Bovary (Music Only Album and Pre-recordings) - Miklos Rozsa

Rogue’s March (Rozsa Library Cues) - Miklos Rozsa

Desperate Search (Rozsa Library Cues) - Miklos Rozsa

Code Two (Rozsa Library Cues) - Miklos Rozsa

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The V.I.P.s - Miklos Rozsa

Ivanhoe - Miklos Rozsa

Lust for Life - Miklos Rozsa

Great Movie Themes - Miklos Rozsa

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Jupiter Ascending - Michael Giacchino

My first impression was that this was a colorful leap forward for Mikey. Having listened a few times, my standing impression is that this is just the latest proof that all he lacks to be a really "great" composer is inventive musical DNA - that is, good themes and motives, with which to unify his obviously substantial abilities.

John Carter - Michael Giacchino

I actually may prefer this one if only because his older, more "compact" orchestrations leave less of a gap between them and the actual musical content, so things seem to be spread a bit less thin than in his latest effort, where you're more desperate for him to break out a gesture that shows as much maturation as the rest of his compositional skills.

I also listened to his most consistently perfect, beautiful score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NsKokhM4EY

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MIGHTY JOE YOUNG - James Horner

The movie is of course Insufferable Di$ney mush, the story of the 1949 ape-going-ape-stop motion extravaganza updated with diabetes-inducing cuteness and the firm grip of dozens of politically über-correct executives breathing eco-conscience down its neck (no panic, you still get your landmiles of destruction and explosions).

If there ever was a perfect match for the occasion, it's composer James Horner. Fresh off his breakout success TITANIC he honoured his commitment to this movie (he was attached before becoming a film music celeb), perhaps realizing that the combination of saccharine and african percussion served him well on Spielberg's A FAR OFF PLACE ( a much more ambitious score), and delivered another behemoth feeding hundreds of musicians ranging from traditional orchestral forces to huge african choirs and dozens of exotic percussion instruments.

There is a perverse joy in Horner being unabashedly Horner, at least when he's into buoyant exotic scores: listening to the opening 15 minutes (the cute sing-along theme introduced in the second half of the opening track notwithstanding), there is a sense of high adventure and drama that might not run very deep but it's breathtakingly orchestrated with Horner at his most painterly (he always was good with ethnic instruments). There are some impossible brass acrobatics here and when the death of a parent breeds a sighing african lullaby halfway through POACHERS, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG is old-fashioned Hollywood in its best sense (and often rather nastily dissonant in its more intense moments).

The whole thing (of course) suffers like all score from Horner's post-LEGENDS OF THE FALL career from tiring repetition - there is no sense of purpose to the xth appearance of the cute theme or the piling up of one huge melodramatic finale after another - and a reliance on unimaginative meters whenever he writes sustained dramatic pieces, a burden on most Horner scores after TITANIC. But there's also a very playful, dynamic side here that sports lots of little musical nuggets (THE TREES) and even one really cool action cue that combines his old-school love for big orchestral gestures with his more detached minimalistic APOLLO 13 style (the second half of THE CARNIVAL). The 10-minute finale cue puts all these strengths and weaknesses into one giant whopper that runs 3 minutes too long but also is a reminder why Horner bursted onto the scene in the Spielberg-dominated 80's: chock-full of unashamed Hollywood sentimentality and catchy tunes, it may not be something you would want to submit in a musical masterpieces of 20th century-contest but it works wonders on a rainy sunday afternoon. Which also happen to come with greater frequency, so...

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The Rocketeer. How easy it is to become familiar, then tired, then even slightly jaded with a score after listening to it for a while. That can happen even more easily with scores that lean heavily on a handful of themes (as Horner is wont to do anyway). I always liked The Rocketeer, but I got to the point where I paid a lot less attention to the action pieces later in the score . . . before I stopped listening to it altogether for a while. It came as a very pleasant surprise to find that this is a much better filmography as a whole than I remember. Properly heroic without being superheroic (which would've been wrong for this movie), romantic, devilish when it needs to be, uplifting because it should be, this is as fine an entry into Horner's repertoire as many others I've long considered superior.

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