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Composers that you only like one score from.


Kevin

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Joe Hisaishi - I really only like Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea with its upbeat manner. It sometimes speaks to me more than the other scores (plus there's very little action/dark stuff in it, which I don't think that Hisaishi can do very well). I've listened to various other scores by him, like Princess Monomoke (great main theme but terrible action), Spirited Away, I Want to be a Shellfish (alright), Howl's Moving Castle (mono-thematic) and Departures (not bad).

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Top Posters In This Topic

Trevor Jones: The Dark Crystal

Dave Grusin: Goonies

Marco Beltrami: Knowing

Javier Navarrete : Pan's Labyrinth

Christopher Young: The Core

Vangelis: Alexander

David Shire: 2010

Edward Shearmur :Sky Captain

Laurence Rosenthal :clash of the Titans (+ Meteor march)

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Michael Kamen, X-Men

Funny, that's one of the few Kamen scores I don't enjoy. :lol:

Trevor Jones: The Dark Crystal

Try Dark City.

Dave Grusin: Goonies

Edward Shearmur :Sky Captain

Agreed.

And I'll add the following (note that some of these may possibly be because I have not heard enough else from the composers yet):

Nick Glennie-Smith, We Were Soldiers

Mark Mancina, Twister

Carlo Siliotto, The Punisher

Aaron Zigman, The Bridge to Terabithia

Can trilogies count as one score? If so,

Don Davis, The Matrix

Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings

*ducks*

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Michael Kamen, X-Men

Funny, that's one of the few Kamen scores I don't enjoy. :lol:

Lol, oh well. :P

Here's another odd one, in the film, I love randy newman's toy story 3, but on album...well not album, I suppose, but as a separate entity, I didn't enjoy it.

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I have tons because what I like about my collection is that I have a few scores from a large range of composers, rather than being a completist.

Including:

John Murphy - Sunshine

Marc Streitenfeld - Robin Hood

John Du Prez - A Fish Called Wanda (selections from)

Lee Holdridge - Mists of Avalon (although I also have the theme from East of Eden)

Steve Jablonsky - Transformers

Alex Heffes - Touching the Void

Graeme Revell - Tomb Raider

Brian Eno - The Lovely Bones

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It's a nice score and it does work in the film very well, but, I think, its charm mainly has to do with the great performance. The writing is... let's just say it's just bland.

I was trying to think of some scores. ST VI, I guess. I can't think of something else at the moment.

Karol

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It's a nice score and it does work in the film very well, but, I think, its charm mainly has to do with the great performance. The writing is... let's just say it's just bland.

It's still better than most of Hollywood crap these days.

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Is it really? I dunno. It is better performed and recorded, that's true. But, as fas as orchestral music goes, it's rather thin. I wonder how many orchestrators worked on this. I'm not saying I don't enjoy the album at all or that every piece of music should be of Stravinsky quality. But these are friggin Berliner Philkarmoniker who are performing this!

Karol

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Is it really? I dunno. It is better performed and recorded, that's true. But, as fas as orchestral music goes, it's rather thin. I wonder how many orchestrators worked on this. I'm not saying I don't enjoy the album at all or that every piece of music should be of Stravinsky quality. But these are friggin Berliner Philkarmoniker who are performing this!

Karol

You usually need only one talented orchestrator to produce such sounding music in a reasonable short period of time. The composers, none of which is extremely gifted, worked on this for more than a year (or perhaps even years, I don't recall correctly), but it paid off. Performance is important, sure, but it's only one of the factors why I like this. The music is rich, evocative and full of passion and emotions which many soundtrack lack. That includes some of JW's too, no matter how complex his writing is.

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You see, this is a problem when discussing music. The so called "emotional response" is a very vague thing and, while very important for each person, at the same time completely meaningless in a discussion. Most people get this kind of response from, say, Lady Gaga and yet it doesn't say anything about the music's quality as such. So you might say the only sensible way to talk about it is in this "dry" way where you talk about technical stuff. Just a thought.

And, of course, in true JWFan fashion we're off-topic again. ;)

Joel McNeely's Shadows Of The Empire is another example. He didn't write anything interesting beside this one.

Karol

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To be honest, I don't listen to any Alexander Courage outside of Star Trek, or whatever he's orchestrated.

not even Star Trek for me, only Superman 4

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Joel McNeely's Shadows Of The Empire is another example. He didn't write anything interesting beside this one.

I've heard him performing his Variation for Flute and Piano (he played the flute). It was preety good... as far as my emotional reaction is concerned. ;)

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Michael Kamen, X-Men

Funny, that's one of the few Kamen scores I don't enjoy. :lol:

I'm with you on that one. . . .

Craig Safan was a composer who never really got off the ground in the 80's--in part because all his scores sounded exactly the same. As often happens in cases like these, however, his particular voice and approach matched up with one film perfectly: The Last Starfighter, which, I have to concede, is a phenomenal success.

- Uni

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Joel McNeely's Shadows Of The Empire is another example. He didn't write anything interesting beside this one.

Karol

I've always enjoyed his Holes score...but other than SOTE and Holes, meh.

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Joel McNeely's Shadows Of The Empire is another example. He didn't write anything interesting beside this one.

Karol

I've always enjoyed his Holes score...but other than SOTE and Holes, meh.

Even Lover's Prayer?

Michael Kamen, X-Men

I'm not the biggest Kamen fan either. He had a distinctive style and could write a good/great theme, but his scores were usually pretty bland.

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I don't even listen to Superman IV outside of the themes, occasionally. Parts of it are so bizarre and frustrating because it almost sounds like it's a Williams score, but it's just wrong. Certain cues like Lacy's Place. It's like JW may have actually composed it and then Courage put it through some kind of de-Williams-ization process and it comes out sounding all wrong. Ugh.

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It's like JW may have actually composed it and then Courage put it through some kind of de-Williams-ization process and it comes out sounding all wrong. Ugh.

:lol:

i do get the impression although the doesn't totally ruin it, but it really sounds "off" to the actual orchestrations and recording Williams might have made .It's especially true for Jeremy's theme .It's like a Williams theme with a WTF? sound to it

I usually point to this sort of example to picture how CoS would have sounded if William Ross really had composed cues on his own

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Joel McNeely's Shadows Of The Empire is another example. He didn't write anything interesting beside this one.

Karol

I've always enjoyed his Holes score...but other than SOTE and Holes, meh.

Even Lover's Prayer?

Michael Kamen, X-Men

I'm not the biggest Kamen fan either. He had a distinctive style and could write a good/great theme, but his scores were usually pretty bland.

Never heard Lover's Prayer. Agreed on Kamen. :up:

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Damn it, only one? Okay well here it goes, if I had to choose only one...

Jerry Goldsmith

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

David Arnold

Independence Day

Don Davis

The Matrix

Danny Elfman

Batman

Christopher Young

Spider-Man 3

Alan Silvestri

Back To The Future

John Ottman

Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer

John Williams

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

James Newton Howard

Dinosaur

John Powell

X-Men: The Last Stand

Michael Giacchino

Star Trek

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Damn it, only one? Okay well here it goes, if I had to choose only one...

Jerry Goldsmith

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

David Arnold

Independence Day

Don Davis

The Matrix

Danny Elfman

Batman

Christopher Young

Spider-Man 3

Alan Silvestri

Back To The Future

John Ottman

Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer

John Williams

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

James Newton Howard

Dinosaur

John Powell

X-Men: The Last Stand

Michael Giacchino

Star Trek

:blink:

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Everything from him is terrible, to be honest. And this one is actually the least offensive. ;)

Karol

I have selections from 4 scores of his - Frailty, Godsend, Timeline and Rambo. He has a generally good grasp of the orchestra, but his themes don't really work for me.

Children of Dune is unmemorable to me.

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