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


Ollie

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The Mummy by Jerry Goldsmith

 

The Ghost and the Darkness by Jerry Goldsmith

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Braveheart - James Horner

 

Most likely the greatest score in film history. Certainly Horner's Magnus Opes. Like the film it is both uncompromising and delicate. Horner's music for the courtship of Wallace and Murron speaks volumes of love as the LSO's gorgeous string section weaves through the material with detail and poise. (The strings of the LSO have never sounded better).

The music for Wallace revenge is primal and single minded, like Wallace himself i guess. Horner eschews the fanfaric heroism of his earlier epics and goes for a strongly rhythmic, percussive sound. 

 

The music for Scotland and its revolution feel both deliberately contained and highly uplifting.  In the film Wallace's death is an uplifting, triumphant scene.

 

Horner's penchant for "ethnic" flavouring reach his zenith here. The Ullean pipes feeling almost inseparable from the LSO at times. 

 

All the "world music" parts are very well done actually. And the synth is used very effectively.

 

It must be the greatest score in the world! 

 

Right @Chen G.?

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I'm not sure whether it is the best score in the world but it's a damn well scored movie for sure. In terms of emotional content, spotting and mix this is perfection. Horner was simply born to do this. I would love to attend a live to projection performance of this. :)

 

:music: Call of the Champions compilation on the train to NYC. 

 

Karol

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

Tbh, a soon as the fake bagpipes waft away i'm turned off by it.

 

It’s not a “fake bagpipe”, it’s just a different version of the instrument. Highland Bagpipes (which I believe are used, in Stirling) would have been all wrong for what Horner was going for here.

 

32 minutes ago, crocodile said:

I would love to attend a live to projection performance of this. :)

 

I think I’d implode if I watch this live to projection.

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3 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

It’s not a “fake bagpipe”, it’s just a different version of the instrument. Highland Bagpipes (which I believe are used, in Stirling) would have been all wrong for what Horner was going for here.

 

The Irish pipes are far more expressive.

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More lyrical, yeah.

 

Think about “Wallace Courts Murron” with highland bagpipes. It’d be awful. With Uileann Pipes, it’s wonderfully romantic. That moment at the end is just so sweet.

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2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

It’s not a “fake bagpipe”, it’s just a different version of the instrument. Highland Bagpipes (which I believe are used, in Stirling) would have been all wrong for what Horner was going for here.

 

Horner was going for an Irish Moss commercial, which is what it sounds like.

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8 hours ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

X-Men OST

 

It's my most-listened-to Michael Kamen score, so I guess it's my favorite.

After the Die Hard 3 OST the X-Men OST is my least listened Kamen album. A rather lackluster superhero score.

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Poirot Music from the TV series by Christopher Gunning, Stephen McKeon and Christian Henson: A compilation of music from the later Agatha Christie's Poirot episodes featuring music from the post-Gunning period from 2007 onward (Gunning's main theme opens the album though). While the later episodes of the series, all feature-length, did have some musical highlights, it is evident on this album that neither of the successors wrote as engaging or melodic music as Gunning for the Belgian sleuth.

 

McKeon's music is written for a very modest ensemble enhanced by electronics at times and alas the selection from his episodes is not as complimentary as they could have been, the album producers choosing mostly rather generic suspense pieces for the disc when McKeon actually had some engaging melodic material to choose from. Also some of these subtler episode scores are over-represented (Mrs McGinty Is Dead  and Taken at the Flood for example) while almost half, such as Appointment with Death, The Third Girl and Cat Among the Pidgeons, are entirely missing and those were the more interesting ones music-wise anyway. Curious selection choices to say the least.

 

Henson whose music was more colorful and inventive of the two but receives only three selections and they do spotlight some of his stylistic tendencies nicely, like the almost ever-present muted trumpets, but in my opinion he also wrote more interesting music for the 8 episodes he scored for the show than The Clocks and The Big Four which appear here. While Henson's scores for the shows had obvious temp-track bleeds (Desplat was a big stylistic influence at the time and in Henson scored episodes) his music usually had a good balance between the suspense and the melodic main themes featured in each episode. So it is a bit of a missed chance to choose a nearly 9 minute denouement cue from The Clocks and exclude selections from e.g. Murder on the Orient Express, The Halloween Party, Three Act Tragedy or Dead Man's Folly or even the final episode The Curtain.

 

And the album is capped by a chamber orchestra variation on the main theme named Adieu Poirot (as the series ended in 2013 when this album was released) with saxophone solos by the talented Amy Dickson which is indeed a nice homage and a fitting ending for the disc.

 

This is a frustrating album as it does feature a few interesting musical moments from the show's later seasons but for the most part the selection of material seems haphazard and curiously lazily curated. With a little more care the producers could have created a really engaging and fun album and a souvenir from the TV series showing off the elegant and great music these murder mysteries can yield. As it is, this album is perhaps only for the  die-hard fans of the show or fans of the composers involved but on the whole I would recommend seeking out Christopher Gunning's album instead as it is in every way more worthy of the great Belgian's detective's name and class.

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - I was itching to get the LLL set and after the first few weeks I had it, for some strange reason it just dropped off my radar and I never really felt like listening to it all that often. 

 

Slowly, I'm getting back into listening to the score and it's brilliant, some lovely passages and cues that were excised from the OST that are quiet and contemplative and really fill out the soundscape of the film and bring back many memories watching the film on VHS at my grandparents. The score still shone through the static.

 

 

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Flesh+Blood by Basil Poledouris

 

Damien: Omen II by Jerry Goldsmith

 

Sleepers by John Williams

 

Hard Rain by Christopher Young

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19 hours ago, Arpy said:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - I was itching to get the LLL set and after the first few weeks I had it, for some strange reason it just dropped off my radar and I never really felt like listening to it all that often. 

 

Slowly, I'm getting back into listening to the score and it's brilliant, some lovely passages and cues that were excised from the OST that are quiet and contemplative and really fill out the soundscape of the film and bring back many memories watching the film on VHS at my grandparents. The score still shone through the static.

 

 

That's why it's the best HP score, for the best HP film.

 

 

8 hours ago, Incanus said:

Flesh+Blood by Basil Poledouris

 

Damien: Omen II by Jerry Goldsmith

 

Sleepers by John Williams

 

Hard Rain by Christopher Young

There's a certain symmetry, in that selection.

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Pemberton is usually a reliable guy when it comes to offering at least one or two elements of interest, and the Netflix 'Dark Crystal' is no exception - beware, though, of the landfill that the 2.5 hours Volume 1+2 release is. Long stretches of virtually nothing musically happening, this practice is giving film music a worse name than Leroy Holmes. 

 

That being said, the mixture of ethereal textures and folksy elements makes it one of 2019's stronger entries, though thematically the few glimpses of Jones' theme make you aware of how mousy our current melodic stuff is. Pemberton still manages to wring out some pretty good sequences - the ultimate cue of Volume One probably will be in rotation in quite a few players - and you can probably make a good album out of both releases ('Outside Podling Wayhouse' seems to be copied from Morricone's 'Two Mules for Sister Sara', as the connaisseur will notice). You can always ask for a one-month refund from Spotify for the meticulous work involved, which, frankly, is the producer's job.

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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace by John Williams: One of those complete edits which showcases how fun, colorful and varied this lengthy score is. I still love it to bits. Williams poured a lot into this entry of the saga after 17 year hiatus between this and RotJ and it feels much more rollicking action/adventure ride compared to its gloomier (still great) sequels.

 

God of War by Bear McCreary: This one is a strange combination of the current action scoring trends (read blunt as a sledge hammer to the head) and very engaging melodic thematic writing with genuine nuance, emotion and fine use of the Icelandic chorus and Norse specialty instruments. I usually just end up skipping the unisono horn-led percussively plodding action material and listen to a shorter playlist of the lyrical thematic material.

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The film is utter garbage, with Fry proving, time and time again, that he couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag, that had a large tear, at one end, with a big, red neon sign pointing to it, and saying <- THIS WAY OUT.

The score is nice, though.

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Calling Captain Editorializer! Another Spotify session dump, this time 101 minutes for a horror thriller sequel and the result is just as satisfying as you might imagine. Wallfisch again rattles around a very conventional Hollywood sound, ca. 90's Chris Young and JNH with lots of fateful piano/string (it's rather reminiscent of 'The Sixth Sense'), bred with, also very Young, musique concrète ideas (Verfremdungseffects, voice manipulations) that are unfortunately often just used for effect and seldom end up being more than glorified stingers (though in all fairness, there are some inventive sequences harmstrung by being too glued to on-screen action, i. e. cues 34-40)).

 

The lack of a more gripping thematic base haunts the thing, though, and in the end, it just recalls Howard's infinitely better Shymalayan work and can't even begin to wrestle with Young's ballsy efforts (from 'Nightmare on Elm Street 2' to 'Bless the Child'). Add the fact that no time was spent on editing/re-conceptualizing of what might be enough for a 40-minute release and you're left with another messy release that is musically unsatisfying .

 

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I dutifully listened to this much-touted new Williams release and while re-arrangements of famous Williams tunes for virtuoso solo performers is low on my agenda, i will say that JW put a lot of effort in the new arrangements. Some of them just not work ('Cinderella Liberty'), some others (Potter, Sabrina, Dracula) really shine. Recording quality is also very good!

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The Mummy Returns by Alan Silvestri

 

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas by Harry Gregson-Williams

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13 hours ago, publicist said:

Calling Captain Editorializer! Another Spotify session dump, this time 101 minutes for a horror thriller sequel and the result is just as satisfying as you might imagine. Wallfisch again rattles around a very conventional Hollywood sound, ca. 90's Chris Young and JNH with lots of fateful piano/string (it's rather reminiscent of 'The Sixth Sense'), bred with, also very Young, musique concrète ideas (Verfremdungseffects, voice manipulations) that are unfortunately often just used for effect and seldom end up being more than glorified stingers (though in all fairness, there are some inventive sequences harmstrung by being too glued to on-screen action, i. e. cues 34-40)).

 

The lack of a more gripping thematic base haunts the thing, though, and in the end, it just recalls Howard's infinitely better Shymalayan work and can't even begin to wrestle with Young's ballsy efforts (from 'Nightmare on Elm Street 2' to 'Bless the Child'). Add the fact that no time was spent on editing/re-conceptualizing of what might be enough for a 40-minute release and you're left with another messy release that is musically unsatisfying .

 

Just be glad it's not the complete score!

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