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THE BFG SOUNDTRACK SAMPLES!


Sandor

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WOW! John Williams is back in superform. Its probably the most colorfully orchestrated and happening score since HOOK! I think we have a winner here boys! Thanks for the link!

 

PS. The Witching Hour sounds like The Fury to me ;)

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I know they're radically different scores but does anyone else find Williams' orchestral colours and orchestration here vastly more dynamic and layered than much of TFA, notably the underscore? And I say that as a big fan of his TFA score, but there's no denying that he was far more restrained than previous Star Wars scores.

 

This score feels truly "fresh" like War Horse did to my ears, despite the comfortable familiarity of this writing. Maybe I'm just a bit Star Wars'd out after 7 scores!

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"Fleshlumpeater" reminds me of Horner's CASPER.

 

1 hour ago, azahid said:

PS. The Witching Hour sounds like The Fury to me ;)

 

Wow! Good ear! All the same pitches.

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4 hours ago, TownerFan said:

Even if it's just small 30 sec morcels, it's already thrilling. Williams' music almost doesn't sound like film music anymore (at least the current notion of it).

 

That was my reaction after TFA. Williams has long put a stronger focus on set pieces and standalone cues than most other film composers (and than is appropriate for many modern films, perhaps). But it seems to me that recently, his film writing has started to transcend even that, and entire scores now on that level.

 

I'm not listening to the samples - in fact, I plan to not listen to any of the score until the film opens here in mid July. But from the comments here, it seems Williams is really having a stronger decade than anyone could have hoped for.

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2 hours ago, azahid said:

PS. The Witching Hour sounds like The Fury to me ;)

 

Shit I was afraid to write that... I got the same impression.

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Tintin too lol. I think it showed up in TFA as well, didn't it?

 

8 hours ago, Incanus said:

Also woodwinds are always such a lovely thing to hear in a film score in this day and age of endless string ostinati and drums.

 

Yeah, "Holy woodwinds!" was my overall thought. Love the flutes in "Dream Jars" and the wind ensemble in "Blowing Dreams". Also really like the general texture of "Dream Country", still think that could be a really special cue.

 

And I agree that the "classical" dance-like feeling of some of the tunes is really entertaining. I always love it when he writes stuff like "Frolic." Nobody channels the Russians quite like Johnny.

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Quote

To prove your point about memorability, "Overture" has been stuck in my head for the last 15 minutes!

 

Make that a couple hours! 

 

For some reason on my first couple listens to "Overture" I wasn't hearing the incredible strings and woodwinds under the main melody. Great orchestration, such a sense of excitement! 

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3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Oh sure, I think many of his scores are masterpieces as well.  For me, I have to have listened to the full OST all the way through many times over many months before I feel comfortable enough in that opinion. Guess I'm just cautious!

 

Understandable. And a good practice generally to give the score a little time to simmer before passing judgement. I now consider TFA a masterpiece, but I didn't think it was quite that good on my first listen. 

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4 minutes ago, Will said:

 

Understandable. And a good practice generally to give the score a little time to simmer before passing judgement. I now consider TFA a masterpiece, but I didn't think it was quite that good on my first listen. 

 

Me too. That one was a real grower for a lot of us.

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7 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Me too. That one was a real grower for a lot of us.

 

Now it might be my all-time favorite Williams score! 

 

Dream Country sort of reminds me of Empire of the Sun in the first few seconds of the sample.

3 hours ago, Jilal said:

 

Slightly, yes. Listen closely to the harmonies from 0:16 - end.

 

I particularly love those last couple seconds, the melody that gets cut off.

3 hours ago, crumbs said:

I know they're radically different scores but does anyone else find Williams' orchestral colours and orchestration here vastly more dynamic and layered than much of TFA, notably the underscore? And I say that as a big fan of his TFA score, but there's no denying that he was far more restrained than previous Star Wars scores.

 

This score feels truly "fresh" like War Horse did to my ears, despite the comfortable familiarity of this writing. Maybe I'm just a bit Star Wars'd out after 7 scores!

 

TFA felt more new and fresh to me compared to his previous 2010s output. The BFG sounds terrific and I've already called it a masterpiece, but it does seem to keep the general sound from many parts of TintinWar Horse, Lincoln, and The Book Thief. TFA really felt like, "Woah! I didn't know JW could still write like this!"

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1 hour ago, mrbellamy said:

Tintin too lol. I think it showed up in TFA as well, didn't it?

 

What are your referring to here?

1 hour ago, mrbellamy said:

I always love it when he writes stuff like "Frolic." 

 

That cue has actually grown on me with later listens. Initially I wasn't a huge fan, but now I'm starting to really enjoy it. 

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48 minutes ago, Will said:

 

Now it might be my all-time favorite Williams score! 

 

Dream Country sort of reminds me of Empire of the Sun in the first few seconds of the sample.

 

I particularly love those last couple seconds, the melody that gets cut off.

 

TFA felt more new and fresh to me compared to his previous 2010s output. The BFG sounds terrific and I've already called it a masterpiece, but it does seem to keep the general sound from many parts of TintinWar Horse, Lincoln, and The Book Thief. TFA really felt like, "Woah! I didn't know JW could still write like this!"

 

I think a lot of this is just bias due to the nature of the recording. TFA sounds a lot more in line with the OT in terms of microphone setup, reverb and equalization, and purposefully so (Shawn Murphy mentioned this himself in a Reddit Q&A). I believe this drastically alters one's perception of a score's orchestration and textures, but I could be wrong, of course. To me, TFA doesn't sound all too different from most of his post-2000 repertoire.

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It certainly sounds more engaging than I had feared, but I'll await further comments untill I've heard the whole thing.

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2 minutes ago, Thor said:

It certainly sounds more engaging than I had feared, but I'll await further comments untill I've heard the whole thing.

 

But...is it too whimsical???

 

1 minute ago, Jilal said:

 

By a beer or two you'll have given in!

Nooooooo!!?

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Just now, hornist said:

 

But...is it too whimsical???

,

A little bit, yes. Not as much as I expected, though. But I disagree with those who claim this will be on the same level as masterpieces like HOOK or HOME ALONE. I can hear some references to earlier works, of course, but nothing with the same thematic scope and -- in a lack of a better word -- "vivacity". But yeah; it's far too early to tell, really.

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The first bit of Building Trust somewhat strongly resembles a theme from Lincoln.

 

And Fleshlumpeater has a definite Home Alone vibe.

 

I'm thinking a lot of temp-tracking was at work here. Certainly I don't get the feeling we're getting anything very new here.

 

Edit - and there's a War Horse and Potter reference. These samples are chock full of references to other scores! Could this be the least original score JW has ever written?

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I sympathize with Pub on the "shopworn" feeling - how could anyone earnestly argue that it isn't? - but that's a bad thing only if, like me, this isn't at all your preferred Williams mode.  Naturally I'd take an A.I. retread much more in stride, so....

 

It doesn't dazzle and blind me to all else happening in film music at the moment like it seems to some folks.  There's room enough for this and the other things without needing the usual snarky comments deifying Williams and proclaiming all else trash, and the present and future of film music unspeakably bleak (all of this just cheapens the actual skill and legacy of the man).  As long as folks do that, I will do this contrarian thing to balance it out.  No apologies.

 

Of course, it's nice music.

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9 hours ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

Definite Harry Pottee vibe. 

well, it is a British story about an orphan who unexpectedly enters a magical world.

 

As for the shopworn critiques, sure, the man is 84, anything he writes is going to resemble in some way music from the 1000 hours he has already written.  I will say this, there is a classical vibe here that I do not hear in HP, HA, or even WH. 

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1 hour ago, hornist said:

Why on earth I still visit this site to see these idiotic posts?

 

I'm wondering the same thing pal.  Please, please, tell me what about my post was idiotic.  Please.

 

1 hour ago, Tom said:

As for the shopworn critiques, sure, the man is 84, anything he writes is going to resemble in some way music from the 1000 hours he has already written.

 

Yep.  Is it ok that some of us feel this way, and aren't as taken with the music as a result? 

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Jay said:

Come on KM, give us more feedback than that!

 

 

This is the type of Williams score I enjoy the most, and we get them rarely

 

E.T., Spacecamp,Hook,Harry Potter

 

So I've been waiting for Williams to return to that since 2004

 

I just hope the full cues are really cohesive and thematic. I was a bit letdown by Tintin

 

I'm also a bit worried the Overture is only 1 minute long. I was hoping for a full concert version of that theme

 

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42 minutes ago, Not Mr. Big said:

:huh:

 

Spacecamp is one of Williams' worst scores!

 

Disgusting comment to see on a JOHN WILLIAMS site.  Everything the man does is a masterwork, much better than Zimmer drums and BRARRHHHMs lol!

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6 hours ago, Will said:

What are your referring to here?

 

I don't know. I just thought I remembered something from TFA being compared to the scrolls theme.

 

4 hours ago, TheWhiteRider said:

I sympathize with Pub on the "shopworn" feeling - how could anyone earnestly argue that it isn't? - but that's a bad thing only if, like me, this isn't at all your preferred Williams mode.  Naturally I'd take an A.I. retread much more in stride, so....

 

It doesn't dazzle and blind me to all else happening in film music at the moment like it seems to some folks.  There's room enough for this and the other things without needing the usual snarky comments deifying Williams and proclaiming all else trash, and the present and future of film music unspeakably bleak (all of this just cheapens the actual skill and legacy of the man).  As long as folks do that, I will do this contrarian thing to balance it out.  No apologies.

 

Of course, it's nice music.

 

I would say your first paragraph is accurate. For me, these kinds of scores got me into Williams so I naturally have a soft spot for it. Hearing him go back to this 12 years after Azkaban is a happy pill for me, absolutely.

 

As far as the "state of film music" stuff goes, the only thing that a new Williams score reflects poorly on to me is the big canvas writing. There's neat stuff going on in film music, but to me it's been projects like Mica Levi's Under the Skin or composer-director collaborations like Jonny Greenwood/Paul Thomas Anderson or Johann Johannsson/Denis Villeneuve or *gasp* Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross/David Fincher. Loved Hisaishi's Wind Rises, I like what Mychael Danna and Carter Burwell have been up to lately. These things do appeal to me.

 

Big, splashy wall-to-wall thematic writing for full orchestra brought me to this site, though, and there's little doing it for me lately apart from Williams. I love Shore's Hobbits, Powell's Dragons. Giacchino and Desplat have taken some solid swings, some of it's great on a track-by-track basis but they tend to inspire me more on a slightly smaller scale. A lot of this is a symptom of the new Hollywood process and of course my own changing interests play into it as well, but it's just rare that I love entire scores of this type anymore, aside from old Goldsmiths, Horners etc that I'm still discovering. 

 

If we're talking self-retreads, Zimmer, Elfman, Silvestri, Doyle, JNH are all about as guilty as Williams and I think only Zimmer can say he's done something on the level of his best work in the last few years. But Interstellar is a different kind of epic, anyway, and the rest of those guys are not recycling themselves with the same panache and grace as Williams IMO.....and he's 20 years older. Horner was still holding up well with me too, but he's gone.

 

So yeah, for now I listen to TFA and these BFG snippets and I do feel like I'd been missing something in this realm with Williams not around so much.

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Well sure.  If you say "in this realm," then naturally a Williams score is going to fill a void.  But I wasn't saying otherwise, was I?  Only that I disagree with people who seem to feel that "this realm" has some objectively greater worth than anything else happening in film music at the moment and that anyone who doesn't toe the line should get the usual vilification.

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Is BFG really the kind of movie that is going to break new ground in the ways being discussed?  You may want him to score other pictures, but that is an odd principle to employ when talking about the actual movie we have.

 

If you want more experimental contemporary Williams, you have his concert music.  I think the Scherzo for Piano offers something in that regard. 

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This isn't about breaking ground though, you've misinterpreted what I said.  I don't think Pub was expecting that either.  As I mentioned, if this were a retread of one of his styles that I'm more into, then I'd definitely find more to like here.  It's simply not one of the styles that I'm into, though.  And, as always, it's quite silly to not be able to let fly that kind of opinion without someone jumping to the extreme interpretation of "Williams hate."  That's getting very, very old.

 

I'm not an absolute fan of anyone or anything in the universe - ok, maybe one or four people.  But a composer isn't among them.  John Williams is not among them.  I don't get worked up over everything he does, and it seems like it should be ok to admit when it's one of those times.  That doesn't mean I hate him or his music.  It doesn't mean I'm a downer.  It means that this time, he didn't do it for me. 

 

I find this sort of honest appraisal far more respectful of the man and his work than the attitude that many are intent on having.  An attitude that every note is placed with sheer genius, that Williams is an untouchable standard for every other living and yet-to-be-born composer, someone whose work will never be matched, and whose every new work is to be viewed with nothing less than effusive praise, because it has the virtue of being by John Williams. 

 

These sentiments are not exaggerated, although they may not be present, in full force anyway, here at JWFan specifically.  They're definitely not healthy for the art of film music at all, and I don't think they're the kind of thing that Williams would like to hear about himself.

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1 hour ago, TheWhiteRider said:

Well sure.  If you say "in this realm," then naturally a Williams score is going to fill a void.  But I wasn't saying otherwise, was I?  Only that I disagree with people who seem to feel that "this realm" has some objectively greater worth than anything else happening in film music at the moment and that anyone who doesn't toe the line should get the usual vilification.

 

Oh yeah, definitely. Most of what I was saying was not directly addressed to you but just about the broader argument. 

 

The idea of "absolute fandom," it's tricky because frankly I think we all can't help getting extra sentimental about the man in his old age. Most of us have been listening to John Williams our entire lives and we want to embrace him while he's giving us things. I know I'm still thoroughly enjoying the music and I don't particularly mind if it's not the best thing he's ever written in a particular genre...sometimes it's hard not to hope or pretend it is, honestly, but I do think he's certainly still writing at characteristically high standards. I agree there can be a tendency to take it personally and be over sensitive to even the lightest criticism or musing from obviously proven JW fans, but I get the feeling a lot of that as well as the effusive praise is just coming from some kind of effort not to take him for granted.

 

But I mean, we're all pretty much on the same side here, I think.

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I've been a fan for more than three decades now.  I guess I'm just not worried about squeezing every bit of enjoyment, artificially, if necessary, out of what is likely his last stretch of works.  His masterpieces aren't going anywhere.  I know he's getting old, but it's not as if these are the last chances to experience his music.  Yes, eventually the charm of "new" Williams music will no longer be something we have.  But it's just a personal hangup I have: it feels like I'm doing him a disservice if I try to sugarcoat how I react to a score just because it's this sunset period.  Oh well!

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Does anyone really care what someone else thinks about a fucking film score? It's not a world shattering event like a shadow government regulating the size of cucumbers or something. 

 

The pure musicianship Williams brings to the table is certainly a plus, the idiom used is less of an asset. But then, after a while it all bleeds together anyway. 

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The samples sound good. Definitely hearing the same Harry Potter/Home Alone vibes others are noting. In terms of melodies some stuff sounds similar to War Horse and even a bit like Lincoln. 

But I'm more interested in finding out what gives this score its own identity. Once I listen to the full album, something will emerge. Orchestration sounds really good so far. 

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5 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

:huh:

 

Spacecamp is one of Williams' worst scores!

 

Spacecamp is a very good score which i really enjoy. It is in no way one of JW worst scores.

 

The BFG samples sound great. I'm really looking forward to this surely magical score. I also love the colorful orchestration.

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