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


Ollie

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The Man in the Moon

 

Pretty nice and folksy from the early 90s by JNH. I'm not much of a fan of that era in his career, but this score is quite good, mixing a traditional strings and woodwinds orchestra with  guitar, mandolin, piano and solo violin. The result is an Americana inspired score that sounds like a cousin of later JNH scores, like The Emperor's Club and Water for Elephants.

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1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

The Man in the Moon

 

Pretty nice and folksy from the early 90s by JNH. I'm not much of a fan of that era in his career, but this score is quite good, mixing a traditional strings and woodwinds orchestra with  guitar, mandolin, piano and solo violin. The result is an Americana inspired score that sounds like a cousin of later JNH scores, like The Emperor's Club and Water for Elephants.

 

Yes, that's quite fine. Although I can't really reconcile the folksy, upbeat stuff and the more lyrical.

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The Thief of Bagdad - Rozsa

 

So using the Tadlow re-recording (because the performances are wonderful), I re-created the program of the 70s Elmer Bernstein re-recording (yes, even to the point of editing out sections of Tadlow tracks).  I really enjoyed it!  It's a very nice "OST like" listening experience, a great way to experience the score in 45 minutes.  I'm gonna save that edit and keep it alongside the full album.

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Dave Grusin - CInemagic

 

A 1987 hour-long digitally-recorded album of Grusin conducting the London Symphony Orchestra as well as a NY based ensemble (the booklet does not clarify which tracks come from which recording session) a program of music from 9 of his film scores, spread over 14 tracks (5 scores get 2 tracks, the other 4 get 1 track)

 

The highlight (for me anyway) is "Fratelli Chase" from The Goonies, excellently performed here (and given a new ending the film recording doesn't have).  A lot of the other music is laid back and jazzy, and you can also really hear the influence his music had on "Banning Back Home" from Hook (not just "Mountain Dance", but also Tootsie here has some very familiar elements to the Hook cue). 

 

The booklet features commentary from Grusin on every track, often describing how he rearranged things for this album (it seems the large amount of solo piano throughout this album wasn't necessarily always present in the original scores).

 

Overall, I enjoyed the album, but wouldn't say my curiosity was piqued enough to seek out any of his score albums.

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Lately I've been obsessing over the soundtrack for the movie The Vast of Night
Unfortunately, there's still no official release.
It's really good, though, it's eerie, rarefied. I want it to be released so I can play it in a loop and be transported to 1950s New Mexico, searching for flying saucers that may or may not be hovering behind the clouds.

It's a mix of ethnic songs, rockabilly tunes, and some really simple yet effective strings pieces like this one:
 


 

Or both sad and haunting cues like this one:

 

 



And even some Gustav Holst, which is always good.

 

 



Anyway, this movie did something to me. I don’t know what it is, but I fell in love. Can’t stop thinking about it. Unsettling, weirdly poetic, cleverly shot.
The fact this had almost no budget and it’s a directorial debut is just mind-blowing. Hope you'll like it, if like me you didn't know it existed. It's on Amazon Prime.

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Joel Goldsmith - Stargate: SG1 (1997 Milan album)

 

Hehe, I remember now that they weren't able to list Joel's name in big letters anywhere;  There's no "Music by" type credit or normal mention of his name on the front cover, or back cover, or spine, or back of the booklet, or inside the booklet.  In fact, all you get is "This album contains interpolations of music composed by David Arnold for the feature film and music composed by Joel Goldsmith for the television series" in small print on the back of the booklet.

 

Anyway, this is 50 minutes of ok-ish sci-fi action music.  Every time it is re-arranging a section of Arnold's original score - or interpolating one of its themes into new material - it sounds kinda crummy; He just never uses Arnold's work in a way that sounds good at all.  But the completely original parts have some nice elements from time to time - Nothing revolutionary, but gets the job done.

 

One fun cue was "Egyptology", which reminded me of Ayla's music from Chrono Trigger.  It was actually nice to work in ethnic instruments in this way, as Arnold's original score didn't really do that.  Unfortunately, it's only the beginning part of an 8 minute track so hard to enjoy on its own.  I also enjoyed "Final Battle", which evoked a bit of the action material from Star Trek: First Contact to me.

 

There's four awful tracks (6, 8, 10, and 11) that track in some of the original 1994 recording of Arnold's score, with some of the worst crossfades I've ever heard on any album (I'm not exaggerating).  For tracks 6 and 8 I guess they couldn't afford a choir so just used the original recordings for scenes that needed the Ra theme, but I have no idea what there excuse was for tracks 10 and 11.  I'm sure this tracking worked perfectly fine when watching the show... but this cue assembly in these tracks is truly one of the most amateur-sounding tracks I've heard on a legitimate score release.  There's even a drastic volume jump mid-track in track 8.  Yikes!

 

An album that mostly focuses on Goldsmith's original music (and the occasionally Arnold interpolation that he incorporated into his cues) would have been better, but this album of maybe half Arnold and half Goldsmith is a near-unlistenable mess.  Not recommended.

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1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

The Thief of Bagdad - Rozsa

 

So using the Tadlow re-recording (because the performances are wonderful), I re-created the program of the 70s Elmer Bernstein re-recording (yes, even to the point of editing out sections of Tadlow tracks).  I really enjoyed it!  It's a very nice "OST like" listening experience, a great way to experience the score in 45 minutes.  I'm gonna save that edit and keep it alongside the full album.

 

I have the tracks that amount to about 20 minutes on this ancient CD, which I've always considered fine. But CD rot has set in; it's pressed in the 80s. Plus, I wouldn't be opposed to a few more minutes, so your take sounds interesting.

 

57 minutes ago, Jay said:

Dave Grusin - CInemagic

 

 

It's a great compilation. I remember it popped up on almost every single sales list in the 90s, and it quickly went for decent money. Never got the real deal, but I did get a CD-R that stayed with me for several years before it went under.

 

26 minutes ago, redishere said:

Lately I've been obsessing over the soundtrack for the movie The Vast of Night

 

I so wanted to like this film, because several of my colleagues raved about it, but alas it didn't do much for me. But thanks for the reminder and clips; the score might be more rewarding than the film.

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1 minute ago, Thor said:

It's a great compilation. I remember it popped up on almost every single sales list in the 90s, and it quickly went for decent money. Never got the real deal, but I did get a CD-R that stayed with me for several years before it went under.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just got it from the BMG music service back in the day.  Can't have been that rare around here if they sold it there.

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Yeah, I don't know. I just remember I was surprised to see the prices it fetched on the secondary market at the time. Seemed like a fairly "normal" pressing.

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

Typo fixed

Cool. Although Joel McNeely would undoubtedly have written some great music for a show like that. And it is a surprise there haven’t been more albums of Stargate tv music. It’s generally more interesting than the Star Trek tv music of the same period and the composer roster is pretty decent. Maybe one day...

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Intrada released a 2CD set of Richard Band's contributions to the show, but yea, Goldsmith's contributions deserves a completely different release than this crummy one

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James Newton Howard - The Hunger Games (OST album)

 

I was happy to see this was 44 minutes; I can't say I'm a fan of this score, or remember exactly how or when I picked this copy of it up, but I did go in with an open mind to see if the score would do anything for me today even though I didn't remember it doing anything in the past.

 

The album gets off to a slow start after a nice enough opening track, but then the track "Horn of Plenty" is really good, and from there until the end it's a pretty nice little album of music, with lots of exciting moments.

 

The biggest problem the album has is its ending, or rather lack of one: the final track doesn't have any kind of "big finish" feel, it's just a kind of generic cue with a nothing ending.  Oh well.

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I could never get into the HUNGER GAMES soundtracks individually, but I do enjoy the Silva compilation with the highlights.

 

As for STARGATE, the only thing I'm interested in (outside Arnold's original feature film score, of course) is the still unreleased music that Joel Goldsmith did for STARGATE: UNIVERSE. Some great, Vangelis-like stuff in that one.

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Trevor Jones - Dinotopia (OST album)

 

This is one of the jankiest looking albums I own; Apparently it was released by Hallmark Entertainment, and the art design is quite amateurish, with the back cover and back of booklet featuring text that is hard to read the way it is imposed over the pictures chosen.  Yikes

 

The score itself is.... eh it's decent I suppose.  It's performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Alexander and recorded really well, and there is a nice blend of drama, action, playfulness, and wonder and awe.... but I guess the problem is it isn't very memorable.  If there are recurring themes I didn't even pick up on them.  I just finished listening and couldn't hum one moment from this album for you.  It was in one ear and out the other.  Oh well.

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16 hours ago, Jay said:

Joel Goldsmith - Stargate: SG1 (1997 Milan album)

 

Hehe, I remember now that they weren't able to list Joel's name in big letters anywhere;  There's no "Music by" type credit or normal mention of his name on the front cover, or back cover, or spine, or back of the booklet, or inside the booklet.  In fact, all you get is "This album contains interpolations of music composed by David Arnold for the feature film and music composed by Joel Goldsmith for the television series" in small print on the back of the booklet.

 

Anyway, this is 50 minutes of ok-ish sci-fi action music.  Every time it is re-arranging a section of Arnold's original score - or interpolating one of its themes into new material - it sounds kinda crummy; He just never uses Arnold's work in a way that sounds good at all.  But the completely original parts have some nice elements from time to time - Nothing revolutionary, but gets the job done.

 

One fun cue was "Egyptology", which reminded me of Ayla's music from Chrono Trigger.  It was actually nice to work in ethnic instruments in this way, as Arnold's original score didn't really do that.  Unfortunately, it's only the beginning part of an 8 minute track so hard to enjoy on its own.  I also enjoyed "Final Battle", which evoked a bit of the action material from Star Trek: First Contact to me.

 

There's four awful tracks (6, 8, 10, and 11) that track in some of the original 1994 recording of Arnold's score, with some of the worst crossfades I've ever heard on any album (I'm not exaggerating).  For tracks 6 and 8 I guess they couldn't afford a choir so just used the original recordings for scenes that needed the Ra theme, but I have no idea what there excuse was for tracks 10 and 11.  I'm sure this tracking worked perfectly fine when watching the show... but this cue assembly in these tracks is truly one of the most amateur-sounding tracks I've heard on a legitimate score release.  There's even a drastic volume jump mid-track in track 8.  Yikes!

 

An album that mostly focuses on Goldsmith's original music (and the occasionally Arnold interpolation that he incorporated into his cues) would have been better, but this album of maybe half Arnold and half Goldsmith is a near-unlistenable mess.  Not recommended.

 

The 1997 Milan CD does have some novelty value to me, and contains some really fun cues. But the Final Cut CD is the one to get, if it's still available at SAE. It contains Joel's full score without the Arnold splices.

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ab67616d0000b27379ac1ede7fdfb4fe9b5ba496

 

This score recently got the Camille award. Very deserved, it was one of my top 10 scores in 2019.

 

And on to....

 

ab67616d0000b273d89792c4ba0bf9cee3c982a2

 

Such a fantastic score. Gorgeous east-meets-west tropes. Gordon continues to be massively underrated.

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3 hours ago, The Big Man said:

The 1997 Milan CD does have some novelty value to me, and contains some really fun cues. But the Final Cut CD is the one to get, if it's still available at SAE. It contains Joel's full score without the Arnold splices.

 

Ooh interesting, thanks for the tip!

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40 minutes ago, Raiders of the SoundtrArk said:

 

My favourite score from the trilogy. Love those strong chorus!

 

It's hard for anything to top The Final Conflict for me, and the first Omen is of course remarkable on its own and how it sets up the trilogy - Damien much more than FC. But any claims that Damien is just more of the same are seriously exaggerated (even more so than with Home Alone 2 vs that first score). And even the stuff that's reused is mostly cast in a completely new light.

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9 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Musical quality runs all the way through this trilogy, like the word "Brighton", through a stick of rock.

Out fucking standing!

Couldn't agree more with you. I wish Goldsmith would have done more trilogy as he clearly shows with that one that he's perfectly able to renew himself in the same musical atmosphere.

I'm wondering though if there is more music than what is featured the VS Deluxe Editions?

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The Flintstones  - David Newman (leaked score)

 

90s family comedy film scores are like my comfort food that I often listen to while working at the computer.  D. Newman's Flintstones is an old standby in this category.  Great fun!

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ab67616d0000b273d7c7b5a1eff9306e424b046f

 

Typically nice atmospheric score by Martinez, for this behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Refn's ONLY GOD FORGIVES. I've seen that film (which also features a great Martinez score), but not this documentary from 2014. Love those spacey "glass harmonica"-like sounds he does so well that sort of fluctuate in a higher sphere.

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It's very much in that classic 90s D. Newman family adventure film style.  I was glad he was given an opportunity to write a score like that in the 2010s. Good stuff!

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5 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

It's very much in that classic 90s D. Newman family adventure film style.  I was glad he was given an opportunity to write a score like that in the 2010s. Good stuff!

 

That's exactly what took me by surprise. A lot of it sounds like it should have come from the 90s, especially the softer, emotional cues. The excellent recording just tops that all off.

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John Williams - The Rise of Skywalker (OST)

I had not listened to the OST album in a long time.  It's actually a good album of music that has a nice flow to it.... until the end credits, which is a clunkily edited mess after the nice opening part.

 

The only real fault with it otherwise is knowing the major highlights in the film that are not here (so, kind of the same issue with the Phantom Menace OST album).  But my big revelation today was that specifically, it's the action music that really gets the short thrift here.  The best action cues in the picture are the Falcon Flight piece and the music for Rey and Ren's dual saber duels at the end, and instead of these we get some of the final space battle music that I just find far less compelling (at least the other best action cue, for the Speeder Chase, is here).


Man, I can't wait for an expanded release one day.  It's going to be a good one

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