Composer Threads The Thomas Newman Thread

[Thor 9,323]

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU is an excellent film! The score didn't do much for me at the time, but perhaps I should give it another shot.

 

On 04/10/2024 at 8:16 PM, LSH said:

Second listen based on Thor’s condensed playlist. Liking it a lot more.

 

Cheers, Lee! I'm listening to my programme again, and the score really comes to life now. And I don't say that to tout my own horn - anyone can make decent playlists out of this that will no doubt work just as well. It's just fascinating that what was a rather disappointing first listen, now is rather good.

[Will 2,380]

Just listened to White Bird. Overall, I'll admit it's a bit disappointing--feels like a missed opportunity for a truly great score. Nevertheless, there are some lovely moments. "Vive l’Humanité" is the highlight for me, with the music really soaring at the end:

 

 

[tomsmoviemadness 4,442]

 

 

[ddddeeee 517]

That's an exciting assignment.

[Bespin Copilot 10,076]

Is he still capable of doing other things than Indian music?

[Edmilson 11,007]

He is... He just doesn't want to do it.

[Thor 9,323]

The premise doesn't interest me (some kind of comic murder mystery thingie?), but a Columbus-Newman collaboration is interesting.

[Jurassic Shark 15,573]

I just want his hair.

[Davis 3,953]

37 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I just want his hair.

That’s just what his hairdresser says every time.

 

(and he/she also wants his money.)

[Tom Guernsey 3,456]

I want his body… (obviously not him but the likeness is uncanny).

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 15,573]

That's David.

[Tallguy 6,206]

I'm reading Thursday Murder Club right now. The casting is perfect. It's hilarious (in a verrrry dry, understated way). I'm excited to hear Newman's take.

[Bespin Copilot 10,076]

On 11/10/2024 at 12:31 AM, Will said:

Just listened to White Bird. Overall, I'll admit it's a bit disappointing--feels like a missed opportunity for a truly great score. Nevertheless, there are some lovely moments. "Vive l’Humanité" is the highlight for me, with the music really soaring at the end:

 

 

 

 

James Southall gave this album 4 1/2 stars, saying it's one of the best scores he's listened to this year.

 

I'll give it a try.

 

http://www.movie-wave.net/white-bird/

[Tom Guernsey 3,456]

57 minutes ago, bespinGPT said:

 

 

James Southall gave this album 4 1/2 stars, saying it's one of the best scores he's listened to this year.

 

I'll give it a try.

 

http://www.movie-wave.net/white-bird/

I’ve given it a few listens and didn’t enjoy it nearly so much. It has a few lovely tracks but too many uninteresting ones on an overlong album. I’ll persevere as it’s Thomas Newman but a bit underwhelmed. 

[Bespin Copilot 10,076]

Some albums are just too long, but we can manage to make a playlist easily using this... I think!

[DangerMotif 1,293]

Is there a release of his Ballet Of Mice and men soon? Feel like I saw something but can’t find the source.

[cwg24 9]

https://www.academymuseum.org/en/programs/detail/the-shawshank-redemption-0192980a-d3fa-84d0-c6b5-281a8f1f549e
 

would be an amazing event to attend. You’d hope someone would apologise for not giving him an Oscar as of yet….

[Trope 1,331]

I don't know where his house or studio are located, but I'm hoping Tom is safe given the fire situation in LA. This is going to be disastrous for so many of our beloved composers.

[cwg24 9]

It’s certainly seems to be where he lives. Let’s hope him and his family are safe and well.

[Quppa 362]

I'm finally giving Feud: Capote vs. The Swans and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story - his two collaborations with daughter Julia - a proper listen. Both are fairly subdued and firmly in the (Thomas) Newman mould for the most part, but I really like the melody in Julia's track La Côte Basque (it recurs a few times throughout the score) - it almost sounds like something from Chrono Trigger.

 

Also, A Man Called Otto is very underappreciated - I gather the movie isn't fantastic, but what a joyful little score. Easily one of his most listenable albums in recent years.

 

 

[Quppa 362]

The album 'Hollywood' was mentioned in the David Newman thread but not here - it features a rare non-film/TV commission from Thomas Newman. Very calming, even if the B-roll footage reminds me of karaoke videos.

 

 

[Thor 9,323]

4 hours ago, Quppa said:

Also, A Man Called Otto is very underappreciated - I gather the movie isn't fantastic, but what a joyful little score. Easily one of his most listenable albums in recent years.

 

Gaute Storaas already wrote a far superior score for the far superior Swedish original film, so the Newman version didn't stay long in my collection. It's not bad, but it's not particularly good either. It's just...."there".

 

Of course, I never tried to whittle it down. WHITE BIRD came to me as an overlong, meddling, mediocre score, but after I whittled it down to 40 minutes, it suddenly became a good one. And as such the first Newman score in my digital collection since LET THEM ALL TALK in 2020.

[GerateWohl 6,199]

Thomas Newman wrote a handful of really fine scores, but I personally find his work a little overrated. 

 

I never have and never had this feeling, oh there is a new score by Thomas Newman, this must be something, another big event in the soundtrack world. It's rather like, he is a pro so surely he didn't f*ck this up and it's going to be ok somehow. But no excitement. On my end at least.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,158]

7 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Thomas Newman wrote a handful of really fine scores, but I personally find his work a little overrated. 

Overrated?!

Over-?!

O-?!

[Thor 9,323]

3 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

Thomas Newman wrote a handful of really fine scores, but I personally find his work a little overrated. 

 

I never have and never had this feeling, oh there is a new score by Thomas Newman, this must be something, another big event in the soundtrack world. It's rather like, he is a pro so surely he didn't f*ck this up and it's going to be ok somehow. But no excitement. On my end at least.

 

I was a bit like that in the early days. There was SHAWSHANK, which I adored, but so many other things I didn't care for at all. Got them, then got rid of them (things like THE PLAYER, RED CORNER, MAD CITY....).

 

Then, sometime in the mid 2000s, my taste started to change from the big and melodic and orchestral to the more intimate, textural, non-orchestral. And so my interest in Newman was re-ignited, nay EXPLODED. Discovered his gorgeous, early synth scores, fell in love with many of the things I had discarded in the 90s and followed his subsequent career with great interest.

 

Now, he's a bit hit and miss, I'll admit that. But then these absolute gems pop up with irregular intervals. He's now in my top 10 film composers.

[tomsmoviemadness 4,442]

Thomas Newman’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ Score to Be Released

 

 

Here’s the album track list:

 

1. Bindle Stiffs (2:41)
2. Beans with Ketchup (2:24)
3. Jackson Fork (1:55)
4. Her (2:27)
5. Jerkline Skinner (3:48)
6. Weed (2:40)
7. Bucking Grain (2:27)
8. Punk (2:17)
9. The Swamper (3:09)
10. Bright Cotton Dress (4:40)
11. Roll your Hoop (4:13)
12. Crooks (4:52)
13. Tin Can Shotgun (1:37)
14. Red Mules (4:18)
15. A Real Bad Thing (3:00)
16. Fatta the Lan’ (6:33)

 

 

 

[Trope 1,331]

The released single sounds very promising! I'll say it again, nobody else around writes like Tom does. I adore his music.

[Thor 9,323]

Cue sounds great, classic Newman. Looking forward to this very much!

[Davis 3,953]

Classic Newman, that we’ve heard countless times before. 

[Thor 9,323]

Just now, Davis said:

Classic Newman, that we’ve heard countless times before. 

 

....and that we can't get enough of!

[Davis 3,953]

Well, after decades of hearing the same cue with the same orchestration over and over again, I think I can. 
 

The Shawshank Redemption, Little Women, Scent of a Woman, Meet Joe Black, American Beauty, Angels in America, Road to Perdition, Lemony Snicket, Finding Nemo and Wall-E are all one needs to listen to by Tom Newman. He’s pretty much been repeating himself since.

[Thor 9,323]

It's called a signature style. It's great (for the most part)!

[Davis 3,953]

It was great for the first two decades. Now it’s getting tiresome. 

[Tallguy 6,206]

1 hour ago, Davis said:

It was great for the first two decades. Now it’s getting tiresome. 

 

I could see your point but right now I need to go listen to

 

 

[Thor 9,323]

1 hour ago, Davis said:

It was great for the first two decades. Now it’s getting tiresome. 

 

Nah. What's tiresome is composers with no soul or identity.

 

Newman has, like Williams, managed to retain his finger print style over the years. That's what great composers do. Now if you don't like that particular style, or have grown tired of it, that's fair game. But it's not Newman's fault...he's just being himself.

 

 

[GerateWohl 6,199]

Newman's style heavily depends heavily on the quality of his musical ideas carried by his arrangements.

I find mostly his style a pretty shallow template. When the music is good like in Meet Joe Black, then it's great. If there are no great musical, melodical or harmonical ideas this gets veeery boring.

[Davis 3,953]

13 minutes ago, Thor said:

Now if you don't like that particular style

You yourself said in this very thread that you didn’t use to like his style, but now you do. I’m the other way around, I used to love his music in the 90s and 00s, now I’ve grown tired of his self repeating style. 

[Thor 9,323]

3 hours ago, Davis said:

You yourself said in this very thread that you didn’t use to like his style, but now you do. I’m the other way around, I used to love his music in the 90s and 00s, now I’ve grown tired of his self repeating style. 

 

That's fine. But again -- "self repeating style" is.....well, hard to construe as a criticism. He's a composer. He has a style. Same as you find "self repeating styles" in the works of Mozart, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, John Williams and Nine Inch Nails. Within that style, he does variations and even sometimes pushes his own envelope, just like any other composer with a pronounced identity.

[Davis 3,953]

14 minutes ago, Thor said:

He has a style.

Yes, but that style is very narrow, and after many years it became tiresome and boring. When a composer can’t evolve, and creates the same score over and over again, hearing it the umpth time becomes dull and feels like a self rip-off. There are maybe ten great Tom Newman scores, and there are 20+ scores by him that sound exactly the same.

[Thor 9,323]

I'm sure there are composers who want to reinvent the wheel for every new composition or album they do, but how is interesting is that in the long run? I'd rather listen to those with a defined style, and the slight variations they do within that style.

 

I don't find it particularly "narrow". Sure, there are certainly tracks that I find uninteresting here and there, that kinda noodle around without going anywhere. WHIITE BIRD, for example, required some serious whittling to work, but then it really did.

 

I also love all the Newman "variations on a theme" in recent years, like the Indian "trilogy" HE NAMED ME MALALA, THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL and VICTORIA & ABDUL. The Barry-meets-Newman variations in LET THEM ALL TALK. The airy, magical modulations in TOLKIEN (and WHITE BIRD). The Newman Americana variations in BRIDGE OF SPIES. 

 

I don't hear any more "self rip off" in Newman than other film composers with a defined style, be it Williams, Horner, Elfman, Goldsmith or whoever.

 

I think it's just a matter of you, Davis, tiring of his style.

[Jurassic Shark 15,573]

I also find Newman's style to be quite narrow, although there's a lot of his output I'm not familiar with. 

[Thor 9,323]

If by 'narrow' you mean that he always sounds like himself, then yes, I agree.

 

But by golly, how much pleasure I've derived from that. From the gorgeous synth outings in the 80s, to his pastoral & Americana stylings to his repetitive percussive patterns with these lofty chord modulations on top. And all those fantastic ethnic excursions!

[GerateWohl 6,199]

Did Newman ever compose a score that could be characterized as symphonic or swashbuckling?

All scores of his, that I know, apart from the electronic ones I would rather call ensemble scores. And that includes for me scores like Little Women, Joe Black, Finding Nemo, The Good German or Shawshank Redemption.

I find, even when he uses the orchestra he has some kind of a chamber style.

[Richard P 4,961]

4 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

If there are no great musical, melodical or harmonical ideas this gets veeery boring.

 

It pains me to acknowldge, as I used to be a big fan of his, but I think you're right. There have been lots of Newman scores in the last decade or so where on surface level there's such a lack of obvious themes or melodies, and a concentration on textures and his unusual instrumentation, that I ponder who it is that's finding interest in it. Obviously differing tastes mean someone will, but I can't get into that headspace of appreciating it.

 

I did like 1917, his two Bond scores and parts of Passengers. But most movies he does not aren't overly high profile - certainly not tentpole projects that I can see - that would put him more in public view.

 

Little Women would be the closest he's ever done to a traditional score, I think. Horse Whisperer (my personal favourite) has some of it too, but a lot of that score is diluted a little by some standard Americana material, and the album is all over the place in tone.

[Edmilson 11,007]

While I do love Newman's style, mostly for his 90s and 2000s scores, I admit his output this decade has been rather unimpressive.

 

Stuff like The Little Things, A Man Called Otto and last year's White Bird were pretty disappointing. 

 

Still, he remains one of my favorite composers, even if because of his outstanding 90s/2000s work.

[Thor 9,323]

1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

Did Newman ever compose a score that could be characterized as symphonic or swashbuckling?

 

Not really, but nor does he need to.

 

Bob Dylan hasn't done a trance album either.

[Davis 3,953]

I think you’re taking this a little too personally, Thor. No one is saying that Tom Newman is a bad composer. On the contrary. We all enjoy his 90s and 00s scores a lot. Try to understand what we are saying. We find his musical style a bit narrow and after years and years doing the same thing, boring. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t like his style, no one said that. He composed many great scores in the 90s and 00s that we like. I don’t see the problem with different people having different taste.

[GerateWohl 6,199]

17 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Not really, but nor does he need to.

 

Bob Dylan hasn't done a trance album either.

Nobody said, he should. I was just curious. That might explain why I generally have almost the same musical interest in Thom Newman as in Bob Dillon.

[Jurassic Shark 15,573]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

If by 'narrow' you mean that he always sounds like himself, then yes, I agree.

 

No, that's not what I meant. JW always sounds like himself to me, but I don't find him narrow. I think it's more about what was mentioned further up - it becomes very samey in the cases when TN doesn't have interesting musical ideas to present.

 

34 minutes ago, Thor said:

Bob Dylan hasn't done a trance album either.

 

Didn't he get a Nobel prize for that?

[Thor 9,323]

33 minutes ago, Davis said:

I think you’re taking this a little too personally, Thor. No one is saying that Tom Newman is a bad composer. On the contrary. We all enjoy his 90s and 00s scores a lot. Try to understand what we are saying. We find his musical style a bit narrow and after years and years doing the same thing, boring. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t like his style, no one said that. He composed many great scores in the 90s and 00s that we like. I don’t see the problem with different people having different taste.

 

Nor do I. But I think you're conflating your own interest (or should I say disinterest) in his style these days, with an evaluative judgement of the composer. Newman is as he has always been (more or less), it's you who have lost interest. It's not his fault that you have lost interest in him.