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


Ollie

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I listened to the score for Horizons at EPCOT Center and then I couldn't stop listening to this:

I typically don't enjoy electronic music, but this is one of the best Disney music loops ever. The best part is 23:47 when they incorporate the Sherman Brothers' second theme for the Carousel of Progress, AKA "The Best Time of Your Life". I never liked this theme in the actual show. It replaced "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow", one of the greatest songs of all time, when they moved the Carousel of Progress to Walt Disney World. I only remember the original song and it was a travesty to replace it. Anyway, long story short, they reverted back to the original song in the 90s.

When the Sherman Brothers composed "The Best Time of Your Life", there was no question it would be completely inferior to "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow". What they didn't know was that decades later, an electronic rendition would finally do their crappy 70s Carousel of Progress theme complete and utter justice. You see, they were meant to compose it specifically so it could be re-purposed for this loop. Its destiny is complete. And it is glorious.

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The Reivers by John Williams: It is as colorful and sprightly as ever and one doesn't have to wonder why Spielberg took note of this score. The rustic Americana of the score is so disarmingly enthusiastic and goes through some fun variations from comedic saloon can-can to harmonica led blue grass, big band and good old fashioned banjo led hoe down chase scoring while still remaining predominantly orchestral. There is something prototypically American about the in turn gently swaying and leapingly energetic Main Title/First Instruction which sets things in motion and the score seems to have a good natured slightly humorous feel going on for most of its running time that just brings a smile to my face every time I hear it. A true small gem from the time JWs career was truly picking up. :)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeFWRYnfz4g

WOLF TOTEM - James Horner

WOLF TOTEM sees James Horner reunited with Jean-Jacques Annaud, meaning that cinemagoers around the world should be afraid, very afraid: miles and miles of breathtaking scenery (the mongolian steppe, in this case) roundly defeated by a ham-fisted screenplay...premonitions, really, but if you hear Horner’s ripe and rearing 100 piece-orchestra you can just imagine how it translates into images of wolf packs frolicking in the snow.

The score follows best-practice rules established many moons ago: an expansive, long-lined horn theme opens in grand fashion (it seems familiar less due to some outright lift but more by association to several recent harmonic conventions, i. e. by JNH). It’s instantly clear who wrote this, but having prettified ethnic instruments playing (or playing along) the tune is hardly new territory for Horner (the whole ethnic angle sounds a bit dickless here, surprisingly). It’s a pleasant concoction, though, and flirts with variation enough that you will not be rolling your eyes by the end of the album’s surprisingly brisk running time - two facts worth mentioning in Horner’s case .

Still, writing expressive dramatic music is Horner’s forte and he manages to come up with several memorable moments that return us to the colorful days of BALTO & Co., say in ‘Discovering Hidden Dangers’ and ‘Little Wolf’ - operatic adventure music that actually uses the orchestral registers from piano to fortissimo. It bears mention that there is fluid musical development throughout that seems to be elusive for a lot of other composers these days, conventional as it may sound.

The short but curious nod to Daft Punk’s TRON, namely the string glissandi in ‘Rectifier’, in ‘Wolves stalking Gazelles’ and the following 9 minute-cue is a welcome change of pace for Horner, whose action writing with its endless sea of square meters became a bit long in the tooth, anyway.

After that, returning to the hallowed grounds of old, ‘Wolves attack the Horses’ welcomes ‘Battle on the Ice’ and Apollo 13’s ‘Master Alarm’ before a full-blown attack of long-time absentee WOLFEN (ALIENS) take over: this is less a fiery condemnation than a just-for-the-record. Sadly none of this surpasses its predecessors (though it's a nice nod to the species).

So, for fans of Horner’s busy epic scores of the past this one gets a wholehearted recommendation - be warned, though: while the mostly behaved WOLF TOTEM comes without the self-plagiarism bordering on parodistical mockery of the recent FOR GREATER GLORY, it also lacks the baroque excess that elevated parts of that score to a higher sphere….after so many similar scores from Horner’s pen, it’s easy to drift away while listening - like watching reruns of DYNASTY: cozy but not especially pulse-racing.

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Such a joyous occasion to hear something new by the Horner, and something extremely good. He once again was able to 'write his soul' for Wolf Totem. It's deeply moving !

Despite what he may think about the current Hollywood system of film scoring, if projects like this keep coming his way, we can remain confident that the man delivers the goods.

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Hollow Man

Along Came a Spider

The Last Castle

The Sum of All Fears

Star Trek: Nemesis

Timeline

Looney Tunes: Back In Action

Doing Jerry Goldsmith's final run?

:thumbup:

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The River Wild. The new Intrada edition. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, but I remember a lot of cues showcased in the Film Music Masters documentary, so it's cool hearing all of that material on this CD uninterrupted. I still haven't listened to the Maurice Jarre version.

Batman & Robin (album edit). Wow! Nicely rounded presentation that would have satisfied me if it was released in 1997. Still some moments from the complete score I miss. Why would they hold this album back because the movie got such bad reception? I've seen other films from the 1990s that were terrible and had poor feedback, but were still treated to a satisfying score album release. Apparently the same thing happened with Godzilla a year later, but I don't buy it. Film score listeners will generally buy the album if the music was good, regardless of the film's widely perceived quality.

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A Dangerous Method by Howard Shore. Completely missed this when it first came out. It's actually pretty good stuff. Very good even, nice take on Wagner material.

:music:Dead Ringers (Shore). This is even better. Thank god for that recent release.

Karol

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A Dangerous Method by Howard Shore. Completely missed this when it first came out. It's actually pretty good stuff. Very good even, nice take on Wagner material.

I've only heard this in the film so far. Was surprised by all the Wagner at first, before it became clear that he's actually a plot element. And yes, I was surprised how well Shore's take on Wagner's music works.

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John Williams - Jaws (The Original Edition, MCA, 1992) :cheer:

Don't you mean "1975"?

John Williams - Empire of the Sun (Original album)

Wha'??!!! You mean that you have the original master disc???!!!!

The Long Goodbye is terrific.

As is CINDERELLA LIBERTY. As is the BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE...Horner's more classical stuff, say LISTEN TO THE WIND, is also good. But you have to wallow through a lot of mud to find the pearls.

As nice as Nice to Be Around is Paul Williams's shall we say unique crooning makes mince meat out of it and Wednesday Special. But his voice is inarguably fitting for the story.

Did PW have toothache when he sang "Wednesday Special"? He sounds in a lot of pain.

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Now that I have a 16 Gb SDHC card just for the Soundtracks (JW just got his own 32 Gb), I'm encoding some very dusty stuff from my collection:

Danny Elfman - Batman Return

Marc Shaiman - The Addams Family

Marc Shaiman - Addams Family Values

William Ross - The Evening Star

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Now that I've installed a plugin for last.fm scrobbling through the new iTunes, you can see, at the moment, that the last score I listened to was The Rocketeer. Personal favorite Horner.

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:music:Liar, Liar. Typical John Debney, though it worked better in those early days. Some interesting connections with ancient cartoon music and orchestrations, very fitting for the movie (and lead actor, of course).

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Just found "Maurice Jarre - Ghost" soundtrack in my CD collection... I wonder who put that there!!! It cannot be me... Well, I think? :sarcasm:

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Final Fantasy Distant Worlds 3

Thank you for making me aware this exists. I wondered when a third would appear. I own the previous two and they're great !

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Dark Void - Bear McCreary

30 minutes of this is about all I can take. At first, it has a nice enough theme and the percussion is very BSG like. But after half an hour boredom and sameness sets in and I wonder who in their right mind can sit through 80 minutes of this. I do like the nods to his mentor Elmer with the use of the ondes martenot in a couple of calmer cues, but this game score is too much of the same thing for me. If you have a hard on for the action music from BSG this could be all you need.

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I can't wait for that new LSO Final Fantasy album. Could be good!

One of the tracks is already available, and it's awesome:

I listened to live recordings of the FFVII Symphonic Poem and it's not as great, though.

EDIT: Well, turns out it's not the LSO recording. But the album will feature the same arrangement, though.

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Young Sherlock Holmes - Broughton

I recently saw the film for the first time, which is actually good fun.

I do like its complete presentation by Intrada. Even though many tracks in the middle aren't all that interesting they have plenty of moments that are.

The themes and finale cues are excellent and are worth to buy it for IMO.

If I had to choose between Silverado and this, I'd pick this any day as the more enjoyable listen.

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John Williams - War Horse

Love the score and all its themes

Alan Silvestri - Contact

One of his greats, a nice mix of emotional themes and intense (but not bombastic) action music

Danny Elfman - Wanted

Also a good main theme, love Danny's song

Jerry Goldsmith - Congo (Intrada)

Wow, what a score! Really fun stuff! Not a fan of the villager's chant though!


:music:Jupiter Ascending

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