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

[KK 3,307]

57 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Isnt this just a revenge film? Or is there more too it?

 

The trailer just had shot after shot of Leo in agony or fleeing from something or someone.

 

It's a revenge film with layers of other symbolic imagery and whatnot, I'm sure. Whatever it is, it looks like quite a surreal experience.

[A24 4,331]

In the opening scene of The Sheltering Sky, Sakamoto uses somewhat a similar mood as the first track of The Revenant (main theme). The main characters set foot in Africa while we hear dramatic short string chords with long intervals in between them. Sakamoto breaks up the theme in parts but the effect is incredible. 

 

 

Alex

[crocodile 8,003]

The Bourne Identity (John Powell) and Far From Heaven (Elmer Bernstein). Quite unexpectadly, I found those two CD's in the bargain section while looking for something else entirely. The former is a rougher and less polished version of what will follow later in this franchise. It was never really something I wanted around its release, given its bare-bone sound, but now it's a welcome addition to my collection, given how fond I am of the two sequel scores. And Bernstein's score is something I actually always wanted but never got around to buying. It's a lovely score from a legendary composer and a very fitting swan song.

 

Karol

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I took a break from film scores and have been listening only to binaural ASMR recordings of Disneyland.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Speaking of taking a break from film scores, I've been listening to my Japanese first press release of Michael Jackson's Bad. Pop was awesome in the 80s.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

My favorite track is "Just Good Friends" with Stevie Wonder!

[nightscape94 965]

52 minutes ago, Drax said:

Speaking of taking a break from film scores, I've been listening to my Japanese first press release of Michael Jackson's Bad. Pop was awesome in the 80s.

 

His best album.  Better than Thriller, that is.

[publicist 4,643]

 

LITTLE CHILDREN - Thomas Newman

 

One of Newman's best. The quirkiness is held at bay with a dependable string section that grounds it in film music terms.

[Incanus 5,714]

9 hours ago, crocodile said:

The Bourne Identity (John Powell) and Far From Heaven (Elmer Bernstein). Quite unexpectadly, I found those two CD's in the bargain section while looking for something else entirely. The former is a rougher and less polished version of what will follow later in this franchise. It was never really something I wanted around its release, given its bare-bone sound, but now it's a welcome addition to my collection, given how fond I am of the two sequel scores. And Bernstein's score is something I actually always wanted but never got around to buying. It's a lovely score from a legendary composer and a very fitting swan song.

 

Karol

Far from Heaven is absolutely wonderful. A great find Karol!

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Far from Heaven is great!

[Incanus 5,714]

1 hour ago, publicist said:

LITTLE CHILDREN - Thomas Newman

 

One of Newman's best. The quirkiness is held at bay with a dependable string section that grounds it in film music terms.

The End Title is particularly pleasing (as usual) as Newman can let the music breathe and develop a bit more but the whole score is not too shabby.

 

Jaws 2 (Intrada) by John Williams

 

Family Plot by John Williams

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

6 hours ago, nightscape94 said:

 

His best album.  Better than Thriller, that is.

 

Bad makes me want to grab the old Nintendo and play some old games for whatever reason. Or maybe the Genesis and play Moonwalker.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I loved Michael Jackson when I was 10.

If only I had known at the time that I was his type....

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Not so smooth now, huh?!

[crocodile 8,003]

 Total Recall by Jerry Goldsmith

 

Karol

[Sir Hilary Bray 235]

Return of the Jedi

 

the Imperial theme when Vader dies, fantastic every time.

[crocodile 8,003]

God bless Thomas Newman for that.

 

Karol

[Incanus 5,714]

6 hours ago, crocodile said:

God bless Thomas Newman for that.

 

Karol

Oh he was a glorified copyist on that one!

 

Total Recall by Jerry Goldsmith

 

Star Wars the Force Awakens by John Williams

 

Rosewood by John Williams

 

The Book Thief by John Williams

 

Bless the Child by Christopher Young

 

Drag Me to Hell by Christopher Young

 

Star Trek Nemesis by Jerry Goldsmith

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

An Unexpected Journey (Shore) - Actually, just "Brass Buttons" a bunch of times.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

14 minutes ago, Incanus said:

Star Wars the Force Awakens by John Williams

[Incanus 5,714]

The score has been in steady rotation since December 18th for me but so as not to burn myself out on it I usually listen to a lot of other things between listens of TFA.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

On 2/16/2015 at 1:00 AM, Mr. Big said:

The Phantom Menace

I really love the theme (used to represent the prophecy I'm guessing) explored in "Talk of Podracing" and to a lesser extent "The Queen Confronts Nute and Rune". It's a shame that it wasn't explored in the two subsequent prequel scores.

 

On 2/16/2015 at 10:24 AM, Incanus said:

Yeah that noble little lyrical melody is gorgeous. It is indeed a shame it was not fleshed out further in the subsequent scores.

It is now! 

[Incanus 5,714]

9 hours ago, Mr. Big said:

 

It is now! 

I can't quite grasp what its meaning is subtextually (if any) but I was certainly glad to hear it in TFA. Suitably emotional yet not overblown.

 

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier by Jerry Goldsmith

 

Flesh + Blood by Basil Poledouris

[publicist 4,643]

 

 

PHILIPPE SARDE - La Fille De D' Artagnan

 

A wonderful swashbuckler à la française (and with Sophie, to boot): instead of trowel-thick romanticism, Sarde has cooked up a score that unifies baroque dances, gavottes, liturgical chants and even juggler's percussion into a brilliant little pastiche that is kind of an antidote to the leaden Michael Kamen-try at such synthesis in 'The Three Musketeers', made around the same time.

 

Somber as the mood is (the 'The Musketeers are tired' indeed), there is a wonderful transparency to Sarde's well-sized orchestra (great crystalline solo trumpet) and the clarity of the themes and the effortless writing in very disparate styles show why Sarde and Hollywood weren't made for each other. Still, one of the best of its ilk and heavily recommended.

[karelm 2,913]

On 1/2/2016 at 9:09 AM, publicist said:

 

Just stumbled over the complete SPHERE sessions by Goldenthal and can only say it's a marvel. Hope it gets a legit release soon.

 

I'm a huge fan of this one too.  I wish he would do more of these 1990's sci-fi epics because they were uniformly excellent.  The movie is good too.  Check out this cerebral scene...(also note the excellent camera work and no overacting):

 

I just wish the ending lived up to the build up.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

The Pirates of at World's End 

The Goblet of Fire 

[Brónach 1,302]

This cue

 

 

[nightscape94 965]

4 hours ago, karelm said:

 

I'm a huge fan of this one too.  I wish he would do more of these 1990's sci-fi epics because they were uniformly excellent.  The movie is good too.  Check out this cerebral scene...(also note the excellent camera work and no overacting):

 

 

I was a big fan of the novel, which I read in my early teens before there was a movie.  I was surprised how faithful the movie was to the book; almost scene for scene and in some cases nearly word for word.

 

Curious then that it didn't really work for me as a movie.  Haven't watched it since the theater release with no real desire to see it again, though I've had an incessant kicking desire to re-read the novel for years.

[karelm 2,913]

22 minutes ago, nightscape94 said:

 

I was a big fan of the novel, which I read in my early teens before there was a movie.  I was surprised how faithful the movie was to the book; almost scene for scene and in some cases nearly word for word.

 

Curious then that it didn't really work for me as a movie.  Haven't watched it since the theater release with no real desire to see it again, though I've had an incessant kicking desire to re-read the novel for years.

 

Do you agree with me that the problem with the film lies in the last few minutes?  How could it have been better?  Perhaps a more ambiguous ending without the three holding hands wishing the evil away.  Sort of what I LOVED about "Interview with the Vampire" was that in the end, the story wasn't really a horror story but a tragic love story with a very ambiguous ending.  Perhaps this film needed less of the bow tie ending...leave a bit of mystery behind.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

4 hours ago, Brónach said:

This cue

 

 

Great film/score.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Prometheus main title AKA "Life". I kinda like it!

[Jay 37,351]

Me too

[Incanus 5,714]

12 hours ago, publicist said:

PHILIPPE SARDE - La Fille De D' Artagnan

 

A wonderful swashbuckler à la française (and with Sophie, to boot): instead of trowel-thick romanticism, Sarde has cooked up a score that unifies baroque dances, gavottes, liturgical chants and even juggler's percussion into a brilliant little pastiche that is kind of an antidote to the leaden Michael Kamen-try at such synthesis in 'The Three Musketeers', made around the same time.

 

Somber as the mood is (the 'The Musketeers are tired' indeed), there is a wonderful transparency to Sarde's well-sized orchestra (great crystalline solo trumpet) and the clarity of the themes and the effortless writing in very disparate styles show why Sarde and Hollywood weren't made for each other. Still, one of the best of its ilk and heavily recommended.

Perhaps I went in with quite different expectations but I found the score lacking in dramatism in filmic terms (perhaps in those Hollywood terms). The approach felt slightly detached and tied too much to the disparate styles that evoke the times and place and thus the approach left me emotionally a bit cold. While these pastiches of the classic musical forms might be delightful in their execution and a sort of show of skill at how to do them with panache to me the score never fully gelled into a whole.

 

Still I might pull the CD out of the shelf and give it another spin. It has been a while so I might have been freed of Hollywood swashbuckling preconceptions I had the last time I listened to this one.

 

[publicist 4,643]

Oh, i guess a lot of people just don't get the 'lively elegiac' approach and, especially, the baroque idiom that by its very nature defies modern expectations of emotional release - but honestly, if i had to make a mix of genre scores i sure wouldn't resort to the 50th 'The Musketeer' pastiche or even put in three Korngolds in a row. This is seriously well-conceived stuff (also how it works in the movie) and (conceptionally) probably on of the more outstanding scores from the 90's.

 

THE REVENANT - Sakamoto et al.

 

A hard slog, initially. While i don't mind the textural approach there is so little motion on first sight that i found, apart from a few cues, it was hard to even concentrate on it: never a good sign. Still, needs some time to take in. Normally i'd say hack the damn thing down to half its size but it's tricky to do in scores like this, there's nothing left. 

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Hannibal by Hans Zimmer (OST)

 

Boring and pretentious. It's a serial killer movie, you know. Not the Second Coming.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It fits the tone of the movie though, which is equally pretentious, but more trashy.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

I've only seen the film once and that was probably thirteen years ago, but I figured as much.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The film doesn't seem to think its a serial-killer movie either.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

You still think you're going to walk on some beach and see the birdies? I don't think so. I called Senator Ruth Martin. She never heard of any deal with you. They scammed you, Hannibal.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

 

Halo 5- Kazuma Jinnouchi

 

I'll effuse a bit more about this, now, since I still feel idiotic for having dismissed it so early on.

 

Coming into any established, much-loved franchise or series as a rookie must be daunting whatever your job is, but especially as a composer since you will be defining a huge part of how the thing "feels" in relation to what's already been done, whether or not the audience realizes it consciously.  And in this case, they definitely would, since music is an iconic part of this series.  

 

Marty O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, and a few other "bandmates" crafted a very particular sonic identity for the three core Halo games and two "spinoff" ones, each with its own shading and character that are still parts of the same universe.  Having gone on to other things when Bungie split with 343, they left the task for Halo 4's score to Neil Davidge of Massive Attack.  That music, taken on album, was enjoyable enough.  But it didn't quite seem to gel with the world of Halo or make a lasting impression, and I think that had as much to do with the game as the composer's effort, so it can be forgiven and more or less forgotten.

 

But, I didn't have much enthusiasm for this new score when I learned it was being penned by another new face, who's most recent prior credit was as an "additional composer" on the previous score by Davidge.  I gave it a cursory listen and thought I heard a lot of stuff that I didn't care for: anonymous orchestral blaring, an out-of-place harmonic language, and overbearingly "heavy" electronics.  Another missed opportunity.

 

Then, I played the game, and seconds into the main menu music wondered what the heck I had listened to earlier.  O'Donnell and company had created a musical fingerprint that was part Horner-esque orchestral writing, part quasi-Gregorian/modal stuff, part prog-rock, part 70s/80s/90s electronic and ambient music.  This score, as it turns out, is a very logical and rather awesome evolution of that idea.  The track The Trials is a fantastic example of this, with a classic O'Donnell tune given a ballsy makeover, alongside some of Davidge's material from the preceding score (it's also a great little study of the pleasures of musical tension and release).  The Hornery, Hollywoody echoes (O'Donnell studied with that crowd at USC, after all) of the orchestra are traded for something a little more generic, though no less enjoyable - I don't use the word "generic" here as a negative, I just can't quite place it with any more specificity.  And yet certain mannerisms and choices of modality from the earlier scores creep in, organically, not as grudging acknowledgement or half-assed attempts at stylistic unity.  Woodwinds are absent (which is a bit disappointing and predictable) and yet there's still a great deal of color in the score without them, something that usually only Zimmer can get away with, through skilled handling of what is there: strings, brass, piano, percussion, choir, electronics.  And yes, the electronics are way "beefier" than what O'Donnell did.  But there's a great deal of subtlety to how they're used.  There are still some of those standout mystical electronic moments that one wants from Halo, including this haunting three chord motif (heard prominently in Crypt) whose thematic function I haven't really placed yet, but which I really dig.  It's not necessarily bad that there's more of the heavy "new" stuff in place of such mystical atmospheres that the earlier scores were more replete with.  It works.  

 

And that's because the music does that most important thing I mentioned at the start: it does what it needs to do to define the "feeling" of the game.  This feels like a Halo game, because this is Halo music.  It is, to use the word again, the logical progression of these scores.  After the fairly anonymous game and music of Halo 4, it seems like 343 has found their footing.  I wouldn't mind if Jinnouchi sticks around for future installments at all.

 

As a post-script, it is by design that such a rare "lengthy" post from me has to do with music from a video game, of all things.  I encourage everyone to explore this realm of "media music" if they're only familiar with television and film scores.  There's a lot happening here, it's why I mention it often.  It's worth knowing about.

 

[Koray Savas 2,251]

7 hours ago, Mr. Breathmask said:

Hannibal by Hans Zimmer (OST)

 

Boring and pretentious. It's a serial killer movie, you know. Not the Second Coming.

Mark Olivarez owns this. Therefore your opinion is invalid!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Who?

[publicist 4,643]

 

JERRY GOLDSMITH -  King Solomon's Mines

 

Submerging the post-new year's eve dry days in even more much-maligned Goldsmith's; next up was a score whose fate was less an undeserved obscurity but a wary notoriety, and again for desecrating the holy ground of another Williams 80's blockbuster favourite of divine intervention, that is a wonky, tongue-in-cheek trumpet tune turned into a cultural icon (bringing Ron Goodwin into the 80's) - enclosed into another sprawling not-quite Golden Age adventure score spawning unforgettable musical moments seemingly at will, a big hit. 

 

As usual, the ensuing frenzy for catching the lightning in a bottle, twenty-fold preferably, brought forth the pitiful spawn of freeloaders, of which 'King Solomon's Mines' undoubtedly bears the most shining crown of public embarrassment - for all the seasoned pro's behind it of which Jerry Goldsmith was the lucky one who despite slight bruises still comes out untarnished, always undeterred - even invigorated - by filmic material irredeemably deserted by its makers.

 

Trying to copy a cultural icon that is already walking a tightrope between perfect and foolish may be the greatest folly of them all, thus KSM's biggest misstep is a bow-over to the 'Raider's March' that rightfully is scorned as more clumsy than inspiring: this kind of in-your-face bravado never was Goldsmith's greatest forte, though he could do it on his own terms; here, it's a cartoon re-do of the 'Patton March' done in Williams' high style of the time and it frankly and unjustly overshadows the big pluses of a robust adventure score, a novelty in that it was one of JG's last non-synth works.

 

It was released so often - because it's cheap or due to a growing fanship is hard to say - that it now may enjoy a deserved spot in a Goldsmith Top-50 (well, he did lots of great stuff) earned mainly by an endless stream of kinetic energy. The orchestra alternatingly turns into vengeful battering ram and smirking Stravinsky with a prancing grace, often at the same time, lest we ignore the awkward main theme, so if you're into lean 80's adventure Goldsmith without synthies and a big kitchen sink, cues like 'No Sale', 'Forced Flight' and 'The Crocodiles' will rock your speakers and that is with the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra of a modest 80 players. Take that , Brian Tyler!

 

With it's lively mixture of colourful adventure moments, a broad Wagner caricature ('Ride of the Valkyries', naturally, and of course singled out as classical rip by the eternally unenlightened) and even decidedly non-PC african tribe scoring (ca. 1950's) and a breezy love theme, no fanboy requirement is unmet. So do yourself a favour and get the most recent Prometheus or Quartet release (the old Intrada was sped up by 12%), look beyond the frumpy tune and experience on of the better adventure scores since 'Raiders' that may not be an instant classic - there is almost nothing underneath its hood, no ancient mystery or awe-inspiring artifact - but nevertheless has all the right ingredients for one.

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

The old Intrada had one distinct advantage over the later releases, it had no hiss.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

The hiss really comes alive in the brighter louder remaster.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Whenever I listen to the Quartet or Prometheus, I have to switch off CD Direct and bring the treble down to ease off the hiss.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Well, the Star Wars Ultimate Digital Collection sounds pretty good. The old clunky analog edits are intact. Empire is glorious. Jedi, no improvement there, really, but how could they? A little punchier, I guess. There's dynamic range! You have done well, for once, Sony. This set will get a lot of plays.

 

I did edit the track titles so they don't stupidly have the episode title in front.

[publicist 4,643]

3 hours ago, Drax said:

Whenever I listen to the Quartet or Prometheus, I have to switch off CD Direct and bring the treble down to ease off the hiss.

 

Whatever.

3 hours ago, E.T. and Elliot said:

Well, the Star Wars Ultimate Digital Collection sounds pretty good. The old clunky analog edits are intact. Empire is glorious.

 

While i love the old ESB album, i can't bring myself to triple-dipping. I just don't see myself listening to this in any great capacity and it doesn't sound that different from the anthology, still my gold standard for these scores.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I love the way KSM is used in this Moonwalker TV promo.

 

 

[publicist 4,643]

Those high-pitched trumpets really earned their money back then. Or in KSM's case, forint.