The Official Jerry Goldsmith Thread

[Thor 7,465]

10 minutes ago, publicist said:

There's enough of that, I want my re-recording of:

 

What's wrong with it?

 

I have this version, which is all I ever need:

 

[publicist 4,643]

4 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

What's wrong with it?

 

I have this version, which is all I ever need:

 

It’s not well played and I don’t care if *you* don’t hear it.

[Thor 7,465]

Hmmm. Could your version have a different performance than mine? Mine sounds top notch.

[publicist 4,643]

[Thor 7,465]

Alright, just curious, since we clearly have such a different evaluation of the performance. I faintly remember something about my version being a re-recording, while the one you linked to earlier looked like the original recording. Either that, or my version consists of material from the "Vol. 1" and "Vol. 2" albums. Or something like that. The LIONHEART release history is a little confusing, and I'm not generally into such things. Perhaps you can clear things up, Yavar?

[publicist 4,643]

You just don't hear the flubs. Between 00:58 - 01:10 is a typical example, the brass just breaks apart and the score is full of that, ie either brass or percussion stumbling along. Goldsmith dubbed his awful synth trumpets over some other mistakes. It's no big shakes in a simplistic score but scores like this require immense preciseness and the Hungarians could not provide that. Why could he have the National Philharmonic for 'Link', but not this...

 

 

[Jay 37,287]

Wow, those trumpet squeaks from 0:58-1:10 are noticeably bad, they had no time to fix that?

[Thor 7,465]

That's funny. I've always taken that brass statement to be intentionally weird; which wouldn't be that unusual in JG's bag of tricks. But even if it wasn't, I don't mind. I've always considered this a fine performance without any noticeable issues, so after having listened to and enjoyed it for 25 years, this is the first time I've encountered anyone having any!

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

The only Goldsmith score I'm aware of that has a worse performance is Rambo 3, and that's probably only because it's rhythmically more complex. I've long had the impression that Lionheart only has such prominent, goofy synths because it was the only way to somewhat salvage the orchestral recording.

[Bespin 8,480]

I love Goldsmith, but the Rambo scores... Too much testosterone, I pass.

[Wojo 2,453]

The only one I like is First Blood. 

[bruce marshall 1,315]

I liked it.

Had it.

Traded it.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

8 hours ago, Thor said:

 

What's wrong with it?

 

I have this version, which is all I ever need:

 

 

What's wrong with it is it's too long.

 

You'd be better off with Vol. 1.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Amen.

 

And Awomen.

[Bespin 8,480]

I'm discovereing Timeline.

 

Oh do I hear some Chinatown? Wow!

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

 

Belatedly sharing of this super tribute to Jerry for his 92nd birthday last week... Really terrific suite (almost a mashup) of most of his major scores and plenty of less well known ones. My only (really minor) criticism would be that an uneducated audience could easily mix them up without having the sheet music and also, no Gremlins! Surely that must be his best known movie theme outside of Star Trek?! But still, really fun and a largely great performance. Be good if this made its way to CD one day.

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

https://nerdist.com/article/legend-movie-movie-scores-tangerine-dream/

 

Moderately interesting article comparing Jerry's Legend score with that by Tangerine Dream. Not sure I've ever seen the film with either score but some interesting points. Perhaps (with depressing inevitability) they end up preferring TD's effort, although I can't help thinking it's more due to era specific aesthetics. Certainly interesting comparing the approach taken to the same scene they use as an example, notably the Dress Waltz scene. TD's music is appropriate enough and definitely gives it the 80s music video vibe they reference elsewhere, but Jerry's feels more like actual underscore, with dramatic ebb and flow.

 

I have to admit that I've never quite loved Legend as much of some of his other scores of the period, the ringle-rangle song (which sounds like a spoof of the Oompa Loompa song from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and some of the synths aren't to my taste, trampling a bit over all that wonderful Ravel-esque orchestral writing. Still, a fine companion to Secret of NIMH from the same period (and which I prefer, save for the rather cloying songs), with which it shares a lot of stylistic musical fingerprints, mainly Ravel through Jerry's own style.

[Thor 7,465]

It's been an eternal debate. I like both scores, although I've never seen the film with the TD score in it. Could be without JG's 'synth farts', though.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I love the atmospheric synthy orchestral impressionism of it all.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

4 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Still, a fine companion to Secret of NIMH from the same period (and which I prefer, save for the rather cloying songs)

 

Disco Stu or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love "Flying Dreams"

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

46 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Disco Stu or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love "Flying Dreams"

It’s a lovely melody but the song version I find quite grating. But I’ll let it slide as clearly the producers wanted a song and the score is bloody marvellous.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

7 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

It’s a lovely melody but the song version I find quite grating. But I’ll let it slide as clearly the producers wanted a song and the score is bloody marvellous.

 

I'm comfortable being in the minority on this one among score fans.  I love Paul Williams' voice.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

 

I'm comfortable being in the minority on this one among score fans.  I love Paul Williams' voice.

 

There's a duet version performed by Kenny Loggins and Olivia Newton John out there somewhere.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

14 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

 

There's a duet version performed by Kenny Loggins and Olivia Newton John out there somewhere.

 

We do not speak of this

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I like it

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

3 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

I like it

 

Let this recording be stricken from every book and tablet... stricken from all pylons and obelisks, stricken from every monument of JWFan. Let this recording of Flying Dreams be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of men... for all time.

 

So let it written, so let it be done.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Too late

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

Poo corner. They got that right!

[publicist 4,643]

4 hours ago, The Big Man said:

I like it

 

 

 

I now have to delete every cue featuring this melody from my AAC collection.

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

You guys are terrible. It's lovely.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

On 1/11/2021 at 7:50 PM, publicist said:

Why could he have the National Philharmonic for 'Link', but not this...

I am always wondering why they were able to afford Goldsmith for Star Trek V and Warlock, but maybe that's why there wasn't any money left for the special effects.

 

On 1/12/2021 at 12:17 AM, Marian Schedenig said:

The only Goldsmith score I'm aware of that has a worse performance is Rambo 3, and that's probably only because it's rhythmically more complex.

That is a score, where I've never had any issues with the performance. Could you provide a link to a specific example?

[bruce marshall 1,315]

On 4/19/2021 at 1:12 AM, Thor said:

It's been an eternal debate. I like both scores, although I've never seen the film with the TD score in it. Could be without JG's 'synth farts', though.

Jerry wrote a wonderful score for a terrible movie;

actually more boring than terrible. TD score might be more effective in that it"s electronic throbbing is  More effective in keeping the audience from falling asleep. 

[publicist 4,643]

 

The score is full of these imprecisions. That's just not how it was written, and it's easy to pinpoint the same issues (and more) in his other hungarian ventures, Lionheart, Hoosiers and Extreme Prejudice. The NPO have occasional flubs, but here it's almost any demanding brass part or transition form one group to another. The quiet bits are fine.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Especially the completely silent ones.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

Agreed, @publicist.

Great score; sub-par playing.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

10 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

That is a score, where I've never had any issues with the performance. Could you provide a link to a specific example?

 

3:17-5:00+. There are moments where you can hear individual percussion players notice they're out of sync and trying to catch up with everyone else, but since everyone is slightly off from the get go, they never come together.

 

It has a similar effect to what Nyman does here, only unintentionally in Goldsmith's case:

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

16 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

3:17-5:00+. There are moments where you can hear individual percussion players notice they're out of sync and trying to catch up with everyone else, but since everyone is slightly off from the get go, they never come together.

 

Apparently I forgot to post the link and left my timestamps dangling without context… I meant 3:17-5:00+ in this cue:

 

 

[Thor 7,465]

Sigbjørn Vindenes Egge pocket reviews the new release of Jerry Goldsmith's ALONG CAME A SPIDER:

 

http://celluloidtunes.no/along-came-a-spider-jerry-goldsmith/

[Anthony 572]

As someone with an embarassingly small Goldsmith collection (Star Trek, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Air Force One and The Mummy), could anyone with a 'definitive' Jerry Goldsmith playlist please share it?

 

I'm using Jerry Goldsmith Online as a resource for finding which albums I should add to my collection, but I'd certainly find a playlist of best tracks more digestible to begin with. The amount that Goldsmith has written is rather daunting!

 

Unlike a lot of composers, I can count on one hand the number of Goldsmith scored films I've seen, so I don't feel as if I've even got a good starting point!

[Yavar Moradi 2,590]

18 minutes ago, Anthony said:

As someone with an embarassingly small Goldsmith collection (Star Trek, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Air Force One and The Mummy), could anyone with a 'definitive' Jerry Goldsmith playlist please share it?

 

The guy was so insanely prolific (and fairly consistent) that I'm not sure a "definitive" Jerry Goldsmith playlist exists or is possible/practical; I totally understand his output being daunting. I'm daunted by it and I've been producing a podcast about his music for over three years now! (www.goldsmithodyssey.com) I have thought about compiling an iTunes playlist with every action cue he ever wrote (that I can get, anyway) and another one with every pretty cue he ever wrote...but I've never gotten around to doing it. Are you looking for a Spotify playlist of highlights, or something? I'm sure that would be possible, at least of his 90s output since all or most of his Varese albums are on Spotify, I think.

 

The best I can do, as a huge Goldsmith obsessive, is offer you suggestions of next scores to explore, based on things you like. Do you have favorites among the Goldsmith scores you have, or do you just like them all? Are you more initially drawn to his melodies, or his action writing?

 

If you love The Mummy, The 13th Warrior (written the same year) is probably the most similar to it...but I'd also encourage you to explore earlier, back to 1975's The Wind and the Lion which is a favorite for many.

 

Do you have one Star Trek score of his, or multiple/all of them?

 

If you like Total Recall, I'd personally recommend The Shadow, which also has great soundscapes but IMO better thematic material.

 

If you like Basic Instinct, there are other 90s thrillers he did which might be up your alley, like Malice.

 

If you like Air Force One, there are other streamlined 90s action flicks he did in the same "family": Executive Decision, Chain Reaction, and US Marshals. But the man's been writing kickass action music since the 50s...

 

(And that's not even composed for a film, just a library cue designed to be dropped into various TV programs like The Twilight Zone.)

 

Yavar

[Thor 7,465]

I don't know about 'definitive', but years ago, I made this playlist about Jerry Goldsmith "setpieces" which I think is pretty neat. And, as it happens, I made another one more recently which is more or less the same, with some differences. Either of these are great:

 

1. Old version: http://celluloidtunes.no/_oldsite/non-website/goldsmithsetpieces.jpg (sorry, it won't embed)

 

2. New version:

 

[Jay 37,287]

A set piece playlist without Klingon Attack?

[Anthony 572]

35 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Are you looking for a Spotify playlist of highlights, or something? I'm sure that would be possible, at least of his 90s output since all or most of his Varese albums are on Spotify, I think.

 

No, just a list of "must have" tracks would be sufficient to start with. See what I did in the Zimmer thread here. The equivalent of this but for Goldsmith - but I imagine it's going to be much larger!

 

Imagine that if I were never to own a Goldsmith album, what individual tracks should I hunt down and make sure I have in my collection?

 

[Thor 7,465]

4 minutes ago, Jay said:

A set piece playlist without Klingon Attack?

He, he, yeah, that never did much for me. The docking sequence, on the other hand...

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Anybody else find that score overrated?

[Edmilson 7,392]

No.

[Yavar Moradi 2,590]

13 minutes ago, Anthony said:

 

No, just a list of "must have" tracks would be sufficient to start with. See what I did in the Zimmer thread here. The equivalent of this but for Goldsmith - but I imagine it's going to be much larger!

 

Imagine that if I were never to own a Goldsmith album, what individual tracks should I hunt down and make sure I have in my collection?

 

How do you hunt down individual tracks, though? Just get 'em for 99 cents on iTunes? Many of his best tracks won't be available except on CD soundtrack albums for each film. Also... one of the things that makes Jerry Goldsmith the greatest film composer (in my opinion) is his musical architecture and the way he develops his thematic material throughout a score. If one just pulls out set pieces out of context, that is an aspect of his work that you'll unfortunately totally miss.

 

I don't think Thor's playlist picks are a bad place to start given your parameters, especially since you're more familiar with more recent scores (and he does throw in a few older things too, like "The Hunt" from Planet of the Apes). I can just post some YouTube links for things like Bajo Fuego from Under Fire, if that would be helpful...

Yavar

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

38 minutes ago, Anthony said:

See what I did in the Zimmer thread here.

 

I'd rather not, if it's all the same, to you.

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

 

If you want a compilation with a fairly good range and generally decent performances, Silva’s 4CD set isn’t bad at all and features a number of performances conducted by the composer as well as others by the City of Prague Philharmonic.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

I'm not falling for this!