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Which original album do you find the least representative of the score?


Bespin

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28 minutes ago, Shatner's Rug said:

As far as the final edited film version of Alien is concerned, did you also include moments from Freud in your analysis? No-one wants to hear Freud in Alien. If they want to hear Freud, they'll buy the Freud CD. They want to hear Goldsmith's intended score and not a patchwork resulting from the director's last minute panic attack because they're enthusiasts for the composer's contribution to the film.

 

Yes, of course I touched on the use of FREUD. Nobody but hardcore film music fans know that those cues are from FREUD, as they are perfectly organic and effective in the film. Plus, it has that extra 'bonus/meta value' for those in the know, since the whole film is permeated by Freudian imagery.

 

But I agree with Jay. On album, I'd like to hear the composer's intentions -- or better yet, the composer's reconceptualization of his material for listening. Which is what the original Silva album was, I believe. No Freud or Hanson there. I did pick up the expanded ALIEN once, but sold it after a few listenings. If I want the musical experience (a harrowing one, so not that often), I'll go for the ol' Silva.

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2 hours ago, Richard said:

I guess that it has to be "Earthquake", because it is a total re-recording. "Jaws", "E.T.", and "The Eiger Sanction" also come to mind. Bespin is right: "ROTJ" was unforgivable, but, in 1983, that's all we had.

 

Earthquake a re-recording too?

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2 minutes ago, Bespin said:

 

Earthquake a re-recording too?

 

Yes, or at least partially. I remember being surprised by how different "Miles on Wheels" was in the film vs. how it is on album.

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I'm fascinated by this moron's notion that a C&C album is unfit for listening outside the film for which it's written. Yes, you can hear all the music in the film, assuming it's not chopped to pieces, and you can hear the recording sessions, but you're not supposed to. You're only supposed to listen to a watered down edited version that is geared towards listenablility. For some people, even though they have zero knowledge of music theory and how to read or play it, but can tell you whether a piece is off pitch or speed or swapped channels, their definition of listenablility mandates they have full lossless access to recording sessions and a C&C album presentation. They're physically ill and petulant if they don't have it. Other people, maybe a hundred, maybe only one a hundred times, get ill and petulant if that's all they have. 

 

It's as if you really like cheesecake, but the only place to enjoy it is at the restaurant. You can eat it there but you cannot take it home. Cheesecake is intended to be enjoyed in the restaurant, never at home. And if you can't finish what you don't eat at the restaurant, well, you can run your toes through it at home but not eat it. 

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46 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Yes, or at least partially. I remember being surprised by how different "Miles on Wheels" was in the film vs. how it is on album.

 

Ok I see the difficulty here... Earthquake has never been reissued as an expanded set - yet -, so we can only compare the original album vs the movie.

 

But can we really call-it a re-recording?  Is it possible that this cue is just an EDIT on the album?

 

Any experts on this please.

___

 

BTW I fell alseep while trying to read the previous posts... What "C&C" means?

 

 

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52 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Yes, or at least partially. I remember being surprised by how different "Miles on Wheels" was in the film vs. how it is on album.

 

That could simply means its an alternate.  It's not proof the entire album was recorded later by a different orchestra after the film's scoring sessions.

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I've never seen the film or have ever compared or anything, and I'm happy to be right or wrong :)

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

That could simply means its an alternate.  It's not proof the entire album was recorded later by a different orchestra after the film's scoring sessions.

 

Does it have to be recorded by a different orchestra to qualify as a re-recording?

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No, just a completely separate set of recording sessions than the sessions used for recording the music used in the film.

 

 

 

Many of the same players played in the Jaws film and album recording sessions, notably Tommy Johnson on tuba.

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For me, the concept of "re-recording" is not really important. Although the specific case of E.T. earn the right to be documented (now it is, in the Wiki disco)

 

I think, we must rather talk about albums that (mainly or totally) features concert arrangements based on the film's music, in comparison to albums that features the film cues (and the few usual 2-3 concert arrangements).

 

 

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17 minutes ago, Bespin said:

For me, the concept of "re-recording" is not really important.

 

I think, we must talk bout albums that (mainly or totally) features concert arrangements based on the film's music, in comparison to albums featuring the film cues with the few usual 2-3 concert arrangements.

 

Well, regarding this, it's more of a fine line actually and it changes from score to score, really.

 

From a technical point of view, Jay is right, an OST re-recording means a specific recording session made for album purposes and usually done after the main recording sessions for the film cues. This also means the music isn't recorded in sync with the picture, so there aren't timing restrictions, hence giving more freedom to the musicians. In many cases, composers used this opportunity to extend, change and/or revise ideas to give their material a form better suited for listening purposes. In the 1960s, given the big success of some soundtrack recordings hitting the pop charts, the studios saw the OST album as an opportunity to make more money out of the film and put out an ancillary product aimed at a bigger audience. Henry Mancini's soundtracks are probably the most successful and well-known examples. In many cases, Mancini did albums that had little similarity to the music as heard in the film itself.

 

In the case of Williams' re-recordings, he usually kept pretty much adherent to the film cues, but also extended and repurposed pieces in pure musical fashion that go well beyond their own filmic nature (the Jaws fugue is probably the prime example).

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22 hours ago, Bespin said:

For me, the concept of "re-recording" is not really important. Although the specific case of E.T. earn the right to be documented (now it is, in the Wiki disco)

 

I think, we must rather talk about albums that (mainly or totally) features concert arrangements based on the film's music, in comparison to albums that features the film cues (and the few usual 2-3 concert arrangements).

 

 

 

No, that doesn't make sense.

 

There's only been two types of Williams albums releases for his film scores:

 

1. Complete re-recordings done at a later date.  This is just Diamond Head, How To Steal A Million, Not With My Wife, You Don't!, Penelope, Fitzwilly, Jaws, Missouri Breaks and The Fury... (and possibly Cinderella Liberty and/or The Eiger Sanction).  That's it.  The idea of doing a unique "album recording" stopped for Williams in 1978, around the time it was stopping for most films in general (a notable late example is Horner's Brainstorm in 1983).

 

2. Film cues mixed with concert arrangements recorded at the same time.  This is every single other OST ever released by him.

 

The "amount" of concert arrangements is totally irrelevant.  ET is exactly the same as Star Wars, Superman, Tintin or Memoirs of a Geisha.  A mix of film cues and concert arrangements, all written and recorded at the same time.

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7 minutes ago, Jay said:

The "amount" of concert arrangements is totally irrelevant.  ET is exactly the same as Star Wars, Superman, Tintin or Memoirs of a Geisha.  A mix of film cues and concert arrangements, all written and recorded at the same time.

 

I think some of the confusion that stems from the E.T. OST, which is often mislabeled as a re-recording, is that Williams did "concertized" versions of a couple of film cues ("Abandoned and Pursued" and "E.T.'s Halloween") in addition to his classic concert versions of the main thematic material (Flying, E.T. and Me).

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Indeed.


But in the end, "Abandoned And Pursused" and "E.T.'s Halloween" are concert arrangements of film cues, much like "The Forest Battle" in ROTJ or "The Adventures of Mutt" in IJKOCS or "Abandoned In The Woods" from A.I. Artificial Intelligence.  Or even "The Asteroid Field" which premiered on the Gerhart re-recording of TESB.

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It's not really about the "amount" of concert arrangements, but more the artistical intention of recording them. To specifically make an album out of them, or just to add some BONUS to the score.

 

The date of recording... the orchestra... that's technical.  I talk about the artistical intention.

 

And if some found that an album that features concert arrangements based on the film's music, is not representative of the score... he have a big problem. Because these kind of albums are recorded to be even more representative of the score, than the score itself ! ;-)

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1 minute ago, Bespin said:

The date of recording... the orchestra... that's technical.  I talk about the artistical intention.

 

So am I.

 

For How To Steal A Million, Not With My Wife, You Don't!, Penelope, Fitzwilly, Jaws, Missouri Breaks and The Fury, he decided to re-conceptualize the album experience as a difference thing from the film cues, and recorded his album plan from scratch, at a later date.

 

For all other films, he decided to write album-versions while he was working on the film, and have the film's session players record those little bits and bobs while recording the cues that would be in the film.

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22 minutes ago, Jay said:

Indeed.


But in the end, "Abandoned And Pursused" and "E.T.'s Halloween" are concert arrangements of film cues, much like "The Forest Battle" in ROTJ or "The Adventures of Mutt" in IJKOCS or "Abandoned In The Woods" from A.I. Artificial Intelligence.  Or even "The Asteroid Field" which premiered on the Gerhart re-recording of TESB.

 

True. However, E.T. was just a 40 minute album and it ended up featuring only 3 film cues (Three Million Light Years from Home, E.T. Phone Home, Adventure on Earth), while all the other tracks are concert arrangements. Probably the thought behind all this was to give the album more the feeling of a symphonic suite than a mere collection of highlights from the actual score.

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3 hours ago, Jay said:

That could simply means its an alternate.  It's not proof the entire album was recorded later by a different orchestra after the film's scoring sessions.

 

It's an extension of the original cue (with inserts).

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21 hours ago, Thor said:

 

Probably the most-used argument from your camp that I've seen in the 15 years I've been fighting the other side. So a few years back, I just made this:

 

http://www.celluloidtunes.no/non-website/faq.jpg

 

:D

Hey, why do you mean "my camp"? If you have been reading any of my posts here,

you might have noticed that I have NOT been advocating for "blind C&C as best possible album presentation".

I've been sticking squarely to "the middle ground". Is there a "middle ground camp" as well? :P

 

One thing that is very, very apparent on this subject is that "best possible presentation" is extremely subjective.

In other words: You cannot make everyone happy with the same presentation.

 

If you have a C&C presentation, you can create your own album from it that is exactly to your liking.

Yet if you have only a truncated album that isn't to your liking, that is impossible.

That is simple logic.

 

Thankfully though it generally isn't an "or" situation. The truncated album is the first release anyway.

A C&C version may follow many years later, if we're lucky and we're patient enough. And in the end, we end up with both. :music:

 

 

All of that being said, there are many album presentations that I cannot help but question.

They may be acceptable, but hardly the best possible presentation even within their truncated time limit.

That is the very subject of this thread here, of course.

 

I do reckon there can be good truncated albums and thankfully Williams' most recent one for The Force Awakens is a pretty good example.

Perfect? Perhaps not. But it certainly gets the point across and manages to so without an excessive amount of "creative edits".

The edits that do remain on there though do indeed serve to enhance the presentation of the music.

Here's to hoping such solid album presentations will continue to grace us for Williams' upcoming works as well. :D

 

4 hours ago, Bespin said:

BTW I fell alseep while trying to read the previous posts... What "C&C" means?

"Complete & Chronological"

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On 21/06/2016 at 10:13 AM, Shatner's Rug said:

ROTJ in its complete form does sag under its own weight, especially in some of those Jabba's Palace spots and the odd moments on Endor. And the whole final battle sequence zigzags from duel music, space battle music, ground battle music, it's all over the place. But the Arista rearranges all that to be more musical and listenable.

 

It's less musical because it excises many key thematic statements and some of its finest cues. Father/Son, Faking the Code, Final Duel, and Yoda's Death. It's a sombre, crepuscular score, but you'd have no idea if you'd just listened to the OST. More listenable? Sure, if you have the attention span of a gnat or can't tolerate long passages of dissonance.

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3 hours ago, Jilal said:

 

It's an extension of the original cue (with inserts).

 

I see you've changed your signature again. What's it now? 

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5 hours ago, Sharkus Malarkus said:

 

It's less musical because it excises many key thematic statements and some of its finest cues. Father/Son, Faking the Code, Final Duel, and Yoda's Death. It's a sombre, crepuscular score, but you'd have no idea if you'd just listened to the OST. More listenable? Sure, if you have the attention span of a gnat or can't tolerate long passages of dissonance.

 

A lot of "wah wah my favourite cues were omitted" doesn't make a presentation "less musical".

 

Let's take ID4 for example. I don't think the '96 album is "less musical" because there's less music. Essentially all the important thematic ideas are there, but they're just streamlined.

 

Back to ROTJ, I think the OST works because it's like if I attended "ROTJ: The Concert". All the important bits are there. Okay not necessarily all the big film scorey moments, but enough to make it a big musical experience.

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18 minutes ago, Shatner's Rug said:

A lot of "wah wah my favourite cues were omitted" doesn't make a presentation "less musical".

 

What the hell does "musical" even mean, in this context? Since when is a cue "non-musical?" You were the one throwing around this bogus term. I was just showing how meaningless it is.

 

Quote

Back to ROTJ, I think the OST works because it's like if I attended "ROTJ: The Concert".

 

You're right. It's almost as safe and middle-of the-road as the actual Williams's ROTJ concert suite.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Sharkus Malarkus said:

 

What the hell does "musical" even mean, in this context? Since when is a cue "non-musical?" You were the one throwing around this bogus term. I was just showing how meaningless it is.

 

 

You're right. It's almost as safe and middle-of the-road as the actual Williams's ROTJ concert suite.

 

 

 

When I say "less musical", I mean the pace and the flow is often interrupted by quick scene changes, abrupt tonal changes, etc. This happens a lot in some C&C presentations, but it was alleviated in the ROTJ Arista.

 

Do people have a personal vendetta against the ROTJ OST? This is what I mean when people get trapped by their own ideology. They can't see past their preference and talk down every other way of sequencing as "bad" or at best with backhanded compliments.

 

For me, I had the '97 SE of ROTJ since it was released but it was always my least listened to out of the three (I listened to the SEs of SW and ESB a lot though). But when I decided to get the OST a couple years ago, that album has become one of my most listened to CDs. It's amazing how a different presentation style can change everything.

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4 hours ago, Shatner's Rug said:

When I say "less musical", I mean the pace and the flow is often interrupted by quick scene changes, abrupt tonal changes, etc. This happens a lot in some C&C presentations, but it was alleviated in the ROTJ Arista.

 

Funny how you're trying to defend your opinion with the most far fetched of arguments. If you prefer the ROTJ OST to the complete score because you think the latter is boring and incohesive, that's fine, but please don't fabricate a pseudo-intellectual argument to justify it.

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16 hours ago, TownerFan said:

 

True. However, E.T. was just a 40 minute album and it ended up featuring only 3 film cues (Three Million Light Years from Home, E.T. Phone Home, Adventure on Earth), while all the other tracks are concert arrangements. Probably the thought behind all this was to give the album more the feeling of a symphonic suite than a mere collection of highlights from the actual score.

This reminds me that Williams to a certain degree tried this "concept album" approach e.g. with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone where majority of the album is indeed film cues but he also sprikled his Children's Suite movements throughout the CD, sometimes even combining them with the film cues. Prologue, Hogwarts Forever and The Moving Stairs, the opening of the Diagon Alley, Fluffy's Harp and of course Hedwig's Theme and Harry's Wondrous World are either fully or partly concertized material from the score, the last two end credits material.

 

Although Williams makes often claims to the contrary in his interviews, he does in a way consider the life of this music after the film and outside it quite carefully even beforehand.

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9 hours ago, Shatner's Rug said:

When I say "less musical", I mean the pace and the flow is often interrupted by quick scene changes, abrupt tonal changes, etc. This happens a lot in some C&C presentations, but it was alleviated in the ROTJ Arista.

 

I know what you mean, and I hate that too, but that doesn't really happen in ROTJ, or most post-77 Williams scores for that matter. An incredible amount of work goes into making every piece of underscore relevant and thematically intertwined ( don't necessarily mean the big themes, but small motivic cells). Bits of underscore that in other composers hands would just be purely functional. I guess that's why I'm so overzealous in Williams's case. I think it does a disservice to his music and the way it operates.

 

Besides, it's no secret that ROTJ is my favourite SW score, so forgive me if I get a little passionate about it.

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Richard said:

So..."Earthquake" may, or may not, be a re-recording, partial, or otherwise. It doesn't matter, because JW said he was entirely satisfied, which makes two of us! :lol:

 

It's simply not a re-recording  It's a mixture of film cues and concert arrangements (/ album extensions) like 95% of all his soundtracks.

 

Only these are complete re-recordings: Diamond Head, How To Steal A Million, Not With My Wife, You Don't!, Penelope, Fitzwilly, Jaws, Missouri Breaks and The Fury... (and possibly Cinderella Liberty and/or The Eiger Sanction).

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

It's simply not a re-recording  It's a mixture of film cues and concert arrangements (/ album extensions) like 95% of all his soundtracks.

 

Only these are complete re-recordings: How To Steal A Million, Not With My Wife, You Don't!, Penelope, Fitzwilly, Jaws, Missouri Breaks and The Fury... (and possibly Cinderella Liberty and/or The Eiger Sanction).

Don't forget Diamond Head. ;)

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5 minutes ago, Bespin said:

Diamond Head... that's totally unkown to me, any confirmations on this?

 

On FSM website:

 

"Like many LPs of the era, the Diamond Head album was a re-recording featuring major score cues, source music, and cover versions of the main title theme (composed by bandleader Hugo Winterhalter, and sung in a vocal version on the record by costar James Darren). Williams adapted Winterhalter's melody for several cues in the underscore, otherwise writing all-new material for supporting characters and situations. Several source cues are more akin to Williams's television work of the time, while dramatic selections anticipate his symphonic glory of years ahead."

 

Okay, I'll add a note on the Wiki disco...

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And what about Valley of the Dolls, while we are there...  Not a re-recording?

 

3 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Sounds lovely.

 

 

 

I will put my Hawaiian shorts this evening and listen to this, thanks.

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6 hours ago, Jay said:

 

It's simply not a re-recording  It's a mixture of film cues and concert arrangements (/ album extensions) like 95% of all his soundtracks.

 

Only these are complete re-recordings: Diamond Head, How To Steal A Million, Not With My Wife, You Don't!, Penelope, Fitzwilly, Jaws, Missouri Breaks and The Fury... (and possibly Cinderella Liberty and/or The Eiger Sanction).

 

Jay, there is not a single track on the Earthquake album that sounds like its equivalent film version.  If the OST album is not a re-rerecording, I will eat my hat.  The same goes for The Eiger Sanction.  I fail to comprehend how anyone who has watched either film could possibly conclude that the soundtrack album and the music heard in the film are the same performances.

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I've never seen either film, so have never heard the score as-heard-in-the-films at all.

 

And I've never claimed The Eiger Sanction was or wasn't a recording, I specifically stated that I don't know.

 

For Earthquake, I know people who have seen the sheet music.  The album extensions were written along with all the film cues.  So they would have recorded everything together and then used the film versions in the film, and edited in the album extensions for the record release.

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To get back to the OP's question, for me it's the original Arista album of CE3K. My first exposure to this score was by way of Charles Gerhardt's magnificent suite of the last reel(s) music, and it became my go-to rendition right up to the release of the expanded set in 1998. There's a ton of fine music missing from the original album, and I really missed the military march apart from the brief quote in one of the album cues. I also hate the edits in the finale, after the beatiful denoument is about to reach its peak, the music jarringly cuts away to repeat part of the travelling music from earlier in the album.

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