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


Ollie

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Casper by James Horner

The theme is chromatically quirky and seems like he's channeling some of the Elfman sound. Its a fun score but is lower on my James Horner list. And I'm sad there's no danger motif.

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Casper by James Horner

The theme is chromatically quirky and seems like he's channeling some of the Elfman sound. Its a fun score but is lower on my James Horner list. And I'm sad there's no danger motif.

Lovely score, and an excellent recording by Shawn Murphy.

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George and the Dragon - Gast Waltzing

This is truly a refreshingly enjoyable score... in some areas it feels like he's channeling Doyle in cues like "Egg Run" and "Heroes" but his string writing is appealingly layered and distinct. The solo female vocal motif in "Search Loona" and "Meet Princess" is a nice, haunting contrast to the gorgeous, almost Barry-like main theme. The modern percussion in "Hunt Cabillo" and "Celtic Monk" mars what's otherwise a beautiful and underrated score. The Luxembourg Philmarmonic Orchestra comes through beautifully on the performance end, as is the album mastering.

It's a shame the CD version is sold out, but you can check it out on iTunes.

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I have several cd's in the car but it seems that I just don't want to take Star Wars out yet. Nostalgic happenstance.

I may go with some Pino Donaggio tomorrow, and stay in that nostaglc frame of mind.

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Players by Jerry Goldsmith - Beautiful stuff. Sounds like it's a forerunner of JG's later Rudy score. But I prefer this one over Rudy. The piano is mesmerizing and the section A Final Decision is awesome.

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The Ghost and The Darkness by Jerry Goldsmith. Holy crap but the brass fanfare was some of the most powerful fanfares I've ever heard. And the percussion instruments blew me out.

I took a listen to this score today and I have to agree that this is a nice Goldsmith score with an interesting blend of Western sweeping orchestral tones and African vocals and percussion. Goldsmith represents the monstrous lions with the urgent and haunting African chanting and aggressive brass (not unlike in The Edge) which adds a supernatural feel to the beasts but most of the album is surprisingly lyrical, gentle or majestic, alternating between the slightly Celtic character themes and the upbeat African chanting and drums. Although the OST contains about 40 minutes of music I would have loved to hear more, since I am sure the film contains more of the music for the lions which I think is not fleshed out on the CD enough.
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The first Harry Potter is on in the background. Now that I hear the music in the film after listening to the complete score approximately 900,758 times, they really edited it to shit in the film. Except for certain parts on the album, we just had no clue at the time it was so incomplete.

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Men in Black 3 by Danny Elfman

Bought it for no reason earlier today. Similarly to Dark Shadows, it displays that Elfman has indeed matured as a composer. Technically, that is. There are some satisfying variations on a main theme. that are far better than anything in part one or two. But still not quite up there with his best. He's a bit stale lately. Maybe he needs to choose his projects more carefully or in fact avoid any quirky comedy/quirky fantasy genres. That's a bit tired.

Karol

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Elmer Bernstein: As beautiful and gentle score as I remembered. I should listen to this more often since it is surely one of Bernstein's finest.

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Raiders of the Lost Ark by John Williams: Still as exhilarating and visceral as ever. :)

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GoldenEye

This has actually aged pretty well, and I prefer it to some (not all) of Arnold's work on the franchise. The electronics employed here are mostly low-key and laidback, instead of the overwrought and unnecessarily aggressive techno heard in Die Another Day (among other Arnold works). The orchestral work here is not that frequent, but when it's there, it's GREAT, closer to the Barry sound than the more ancient Bond fans give it credit for. The Goldeneye Overture and Scale To Hell are my favorite tracks from this one.

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Hugo - Howard Shore

When it's not constantly overstating its France-set location, it's really a nice effort on Shore's part. It's gorgeous whenever it enters pure fantasy realm, something Shore is wildly familiar with. I really like the piano and guitar solos in "Hugo's Father", which give the main theme some mileage. It plays well out of context from the film, but in the film -- it's very magical and trance-like.

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GoldenEye

This has actually aged pretty well, and I prefer it to some (not all) of Arnold's work on the franchise. The electronics employed here are mostly low-key and laidback, instead of the overwrought and unnecessarily aggressive techno heard in Die Another Day (among other Arnold works). The orchestral work here is not that frequent, but when it's there, it's GREAT, closer to the Barry sound than the more ancient Bond fans give it credit for. The Goldeneye Overture and Scale To Hell are my favorite tracks from this one.

What's this? Someone on the board that doesn't trash Serra's score? Outstanding!

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Lost the Final Season (The Last Episodes) by Michael Giacchino

Star Wars Episode II the Attack of the Clones by John Williams

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GoldenEye

This has actually aged pretty well, and I prefer it to some (not all) of Arnold's work on the franchise. The electronics employed here are mostly low-key and laidback, instead of the overwrought and unnecessarily aggressive techno heard in Die Another Day (among other Arnold works). The orchestral work here is not that frequent, but when it's there, it's GREAT, closer to the Barry sound than the more ancient Bond fans give it credit for. The Goldeneye Overture and Scale To Hell are my favorite tracks from this one.

What's this? Someone on the board that doesn't trash Serra's score? Outstanding!

I like it too! I very much agree with what Miles wrote. The Goldeneye Overture is indeed awesome, and I quite often pop in this soundtrack just for this very track! :)

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The Black Beauty by Danny Elfman: As I have said this is something unexpected from Elfman, a small beautiful gem of a score that is simply spellbinding from start to finish. The composer in his typical style develops mainly a single theme throughout the score but he gets a lot of mileage out of it and has interesting secondary material that provides variety to the music. While certainly informed by the Celtic sounds the score is fully symphonic, affording solos to violin, woodwinds and piano and Elfman conjures such tender and lyrical variations on the themes that you wonder at times, is this the same composer who brought us all those quirky, wacky and gothic creations but to his credit I have to admit that his own voice comes through clearly, making me wish he would have more chances at this kind of scoring as he is very versatile and I would love to hear this side of Elfman explored in this phase of his career.

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GoldenEye

This has actually aged pretty well, and I prefer it to some (not all) of Arnold's work on the franchise. The electronics employed here are mostly low-key and laidback, instead of the overwrought and unnecessarily aggressive techno heard in Die Another Day (among other Arnold works). The orchestral work here is not that frequent, but when it's there, it's GREAT, closer to the Barry sound than the more ancient Bond fans give it credit for. The Goldeneye Overture and Scale To Hell are my favorite tracks from this one.

What's this? Someone on the board that doesn't trash Serra's score? Outstanding!

I like it too! I very much agree with what Miles wrote. The Goldeneye Overture is indeed awesome, and I quite often pop in this soundtrack just for this very track! :)

Well said, both of you. "GoldenEye" is fantastic!! One of the best Bond scores ever!

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Batman: The Animated Series Volume 2 (Shirley and friends).

Whoa! I'm just listening to disc 1 and this set is already better than (otherwise very solid) Volume 1. So much good stuff. Surprisingly, the quality is high no matter who's handling a particular episode.

Karol

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I think it contains every single thing I wanted. However, there is probably even more good unreleased stuff in there that I simply just don't remember.

Karol

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I still want Dreams in Darkness, but apart from that there aren't really any highlights left to be released. At least, that I recall

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I took a detailed listen to Williams' effort for the Lost in Space series (as LLL released it in the 40th anniversary set) for the first time in a long long time. While I have always claimed that the scores were boring, I did gain somewhat of a new appreciation for them this time around (of course the main titles were always great, I'm talking about the actual scores for the episodes). "The Reluctant Stowaway" is very lonely and alien, with very sparse instrumentation and unnerving effects. It's main theme (which is used in the next episode and arguably the one after) is very similar to the theme that starts off Rachmaninoff's 1st symphony (aka the Danger Motif). I think it's the most difficult score to listen to. The next two scores are more enjoyable listens--they're very violent and aggressive, but in a very good way I think. The last score ("My Friend Mr Nobody") is probably my favorite. There are tons of moments that foreshadow Williams' later works, moreso in this score than the other three (for instance there's an ostinato that sounds like it could be straight out of Dracula or Empire Strikes Back). It's very gentle and beautiful, an unexpected end to a very cold and aggressive body of work, but a beautiful swan song for Williams' work with the full episode scores (although he would come back to write the season 3 theme).

They're still far from my favorite Williams scores--at times some of them can be very boring listens--but they are much better than I gave them credit for. I'd give the scores a combined rating of 3/5 stars, but the last one is definitely higher and the first one is probably lower.

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Can't remember that episode. What it was about?

Karol

It's the one where Batman gets imprisioned at Arkham and then has a Scarecrow-induced hallucination in the caves under the asylum

I forgot about The Man Who Killed Batman. That's the biggest absence thus far. And it's the only episode featured on the Gotham City Overture that hasn't been released yet

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I took a detailed listen to Williams' effort for the Lost in Space series (as LLL released it in the 40th anniversary set) for the first time in a long long time. While I have always claimed that the scores were boring, I did gain somewhat of a new appreciation for them this time around (of course the main titles were always great, I'm talking about the actual scores for the episodes). "The Reluctant Stowaway" is very lonely and alien, with very sparse instrumentation and unnerving effects. It's main theme (which is used in the next episode and arguably the one after) is very similar to the theme that starts off Rachmaninoff's 1st symphony (aka the Danger Motif). I think it's the most difficult score to listen to. The next two scores are more enjoyable listens--they're very violent and aggressive, but in a very good way I think. The last score ("My Friend Mr Nobody") is probably my favorite. There are tons of moments that foreshadow Williams' later works, moreso in this score than the other three (for instance there's an ostinato that sounds like it could be straight out of Dracula or Empire Strikes Back). It's very gentle and beautiful, an unexpected end to a very cold and aggressive body of work, but a beautiful swan song for Williams' work with the full episode scores (although he would come back to write the season 3 theme).

They're still far from my favorite Williams scores--at times some of them can be very boring listens--but they are much better than I gave them credit for. I'd give the scores a combined rating of 3/5 stars, but the last one is definitely higher and the first one is probably lower.

I have about the same feeling as you for this music...it IS very aggressive, and I admit at first time I listened, I really didn't enjoy it very much. 2nd time, I enjoyed it a bit more, but I think it's time I revisit again!!!

I just listened to James Horner's Honey I Shrunk the Kid. Man, that's a trip down memory lane. It was weird, I grew up watching that movie a million times and I COMPLETELY forgot what the music sounded like until I popped that CD in and hit play...then it all came back! What a quirky score it is! It's got a lovely, gentle soft theme in there, and a zaney sax tune, along with some exciting action writing. Cool score!

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Soul of the Ultimate Nation by Howard Shore

Identical sound-wise to the Korean edition, but because my old copy is lost somewhere I decided to buy the new one. It is one of Howard Shore's strongest works, combining his LOTR sound with something more Cronenberg-like. While LOTR was a bit more ancient, straghtforward and even cumbersome (which was the idea), here you can find a greater attention to nuance and detail (likeThe Avatar-like oboe solos in the second track), which makes it sound a bit more... modern, to my ears at least. Always welcome theremin solos add to the attraction and, as usual with Shore, choral writing is simply gorgeous. Feels more like a concert piece than a score, but then again it actually is that (from what Shore is telling himself in the brief note). I'm surprised that it doesn't get much love. Is it too moody?

Karol

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Soul of the Ultimate Nation by Howard Shore

Identical sound-wise to the Korean edition, but because my old copy is lost somewhere I decided to buy the new one. It is one of Howard Shore's strongest works, combining his LOTR sound with something more Cronenberg-like. While LOTR was a bit more ancient, straghtforward and even cumbersome (which was the idea), here you can find a greater attention to nuance and detail (likeThe Avatar-like oboe solos in the second track), which makes it sound a bit more... modern, to my ears at least. Always welcome theremin solos add to the attraction and, as usual with Shore, choral writing is simply gorgeous. Feels more like a concert piece than a score, but then again it actually is that (from what Shore is telling himself in the brief note). I'm surprised that it doesn't get much love. Is it too moody?

Karol

It is a strong score with vibrant and colorful musical language but I guess the lack of straigthforward and memorable thematic material hampers SUN from becoming everybody's favourite. Shore really writes a compelling work here more akin to a concert suite where he explores these individual ideas but ties them together with subtle themes. It is certainly among my favourite Shore non-LotR scores, a distant cousin to that massive trio of scores. Another companion to this would be Looking for Richard with similar sensibilities orchestra and choir wise if somewhat more ponderous.
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Just finished Batman: The Animated Series Volume 2 set (5 hours of music!). While there are some obvious highlight scores (Catwoman one, Clayface, Batgirl), I find myself to enjoy a lot of the lesser known music. Particularly the last two are a nice surprise. The jazzy noir-like Ventriloquist and the Fire From Olympus, which treats us to Miklos Rozsa like scoring. It's amazing how much energy a 30 pieces orchestra can muster. It certainly sounds more spectacular than many, four times bigger ensembles. Which is, obviously, all down to creative and careful orchestration.

I think the best way to enjoy this set is to create separate tracklists for each episode (or at least some of them), because listening to it all at once might be a bit exhausting. Besides, they are all 13 minute mini-scores anyway.

LLL does it again!

Oh and I love both hidden tracks at the end of discs one and four.

Karol

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I agree with you about the highlights.

The first track of the Catwoman episode is almost like a Catwoman theme concert suite. Such a great theme, the best ever written for the character.

The Ventriloquist episode has a absolutely great score, that was the biggest surprise of the set to me. And it also is one of the very best episodes, makes me wish they eventually use the Ventriloquist in one of the future films.

The second half of Feat of Clay is much stronger than the first (as it uses frequently both Hagen's and Clayface's themes), but the first part has some wonderful Vertigo/Herrmann nods in the very first tracks :)

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Damn, sounds like I'm missing out on this Batman Animated Series music....I must order them.

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Dragonslayer by Alex North

Got this in mail a few days ago with the Batman set, but just now got the time to listen. Quite brilliant, I must say. I can see why so many people hate it, as it sounds nothing like fantasy score of its time. Damn impressive music, very modern (well, by 70's and 80's standards) and probably serves is Medieval setting very well (I've never watched the film). There is something strange about this score: both brutal and yet tender. I guess this is Alex North for you. A difficult work of fascinating depth. If you want something more from film music than just pretty melodies and visceral experience, this is a score for you. The LLL release is very solid indeed, and sounds really good. I'll be revisiting this, definitely.

Karol

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