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John Powell's CALL OF THE WILD (2020)


PrayodiBA

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Gatekeeping music, Stu - that's a good way to go about things. 

 

Still on my listen through the OST, Buck Takes the Lead is a highlight for sure. And in that track I do hear echos of Evolution and his third Dragon score.

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Middle-of-the-road. Very Dragon (and Kung Fu Panda, especially in its more trailer-ish pop cues). I like the folksiness of it, and, the quieter stuff but i did expect a more...mature, if you don't mind that dirty word...score.

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Definitely doesn't reach the heights of any of his Dragon scores (there are few that do), nor the second Kung-fu Panda score he did with Zimmer.

 

I'd say it's right under Mars Needs Moms, and better than his Evolution score (though I love the action theme from Evolution, and it's one of the better themes he's ever written).

 

If I had a tiered ranking for Powell's works, it'd be like this (in no order with tiers):

 

Tier 1: Dragon (1, 2, 3), Solo, Chicken Run, Kung Fu Panda 2

Tier 2: Hubris, Mars Needs Moms, Call of the Wild, Pan, Evolution

Tier 3: X-Men 3, Kung Fu Panda 1

Tier 4: Everything else

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I definitely forgot he did the Ice Age movies. To be honest, I’ve avoided them because of the ridiculous short track lengths and mickey mousing. 
 

Not a fan of the Bourne scores. 

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1 hour ago, Fargo said:

Definitely doesn't reach the heights of any of his Dragon scores (there are few that do), nor the second Kung-fu Panda score he did with Zimmer.

 

I'd say it's right under Mars Needs Moms, and better than his Evolution score (though I love the action theme from Evolution, and it's one of the better themes he's ever written).

 

If I had a tiered ranking for Powell's works, it'd be like this (in no order with tiers):

 

Tier 1: Dragon (1, 2, 3), Solo, Chicken Run, Kung Fu Panda 2

Tier 2: Hubris, Mars Needs Moms, Call of the Wild, Pan, Evolution

Tier 3: X-Men 3, Kung Fu Panda 1

Tier 4: Everything else

 

So you're implying that Ferdinand is overrated. Can't say I disagree!

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2 hours ago, Fargo said:

I definitely forgot he did the Ice Age movies. To be honest, I’ve avoided them because of the ridiculous short track lengths and mickey mousing. 

 

Ice Age 2 and 3 are much more inventive scores, i remember being quite roused by that 7-minute end title. And they also don't sound as homogenized as CotW.

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53 minutes ago, GiacchinoCues said:

Here's a significantly better cover courtesy of Ant over at FSM.

 

cotw.png

 

I'd just replace the "&" for an "AND". It's just me, but I'm not exactly a fan of that &, lol. Otherwise, great job!

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I'm 2/3 through the album and it's a fun score; albeit not quite on the level of HTTYD.

 

The main theme is rather nice, and it's stuck in my head by this point. Not the most original thing Powell's ever come up with, but I think it does the job. I think there's more than one motif going on, particularly in the first track - either that or the theme is longer form than first meets the ear.

 

Woah, Buck Takes The Lead is awesome :drool:

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Just listened to it for a second time. I guess I prefer the more emotional, moving parts on the second half over the action/adventure material. The choir writing is great, although it took me a little by surprise - wasn't expecting such epic choir on a (theoretically) smaller score (in comparison with Hidden World, for example).

 

But the emotional material is pretty great! Reminded me a little of stuff like As Long As He's Safe and Once There Were Dragons, while the string writing on the (excellent) end titles suite reminded me of JNH, in a good way.

 

 

 

I guess the two of them just wrote their respective pieces on the same rhythm?

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Full credit!

Source: http://hans-zimmer.com/index.php?rub=disco&id=1808

 

  1. Wake The Girls (2:37) 
    John Powell
  2. Train North (4:02) 
    John Powell
  3. Skagway, Alaska (2:31) 
    John Powell
  4. Snowy Climb (1:25) 
    John Powell, Paul Mounsey
  5. First Sledding Attempt (2:27) 
    John Powell
  6. The Ghost Wolf Of Dreams (1:06) 
    John Powell
  7. Joining The Team (2:59) 
    John Powell, Batu Sener
  8. Ice Rescue (2:26) 
    John Powell, Batu Sener
  9. Sometimes Nature's Cruel And Gods Fight (4:57) 
    John Powell
  10. Buck Takes The Lead (4:54) 
    John Powell, Batu Sener
  11. We Carry Love (3:02) 
    John Powell, Batu Sener
  12. Couldn't Find The Words (2:22) 
    John Powell, Paul Mounsey
  13. Overpacked Sled (2:31) 
    John Powell, Paul Mounsey
  14. Newfangled Telegram (2:23) 
    John Powell
  15. In My Bed? (2:54) 
    John Powell
  16. Buck & Thornton's Big Adventure (4:36) 
    John Powell, Batu Sener
  17. Finding Bears And Love In The Woods (2:57) 
    John Powell
  18. They're All Gone (2:51) 
    John Powell
  19. Rewilding (3:48) 
    John Powell
  20. Animal Nature (2:34) 
    John Powell
  21. Come Say Goodbye (2:09) 
    John Powell
  22. What An Adventure (3:02) 
    John Powell
  23. The Call Of The Wild (2:51) 
    John Powell

 

Quite disappointing that the highlight of the score such as "Buck takes the lead" and "joining the team" are not truly solo Powell.

But its understandsable as those two tracks are like a combination of separate little  tracks stitched together. So i guess Powell did the heavy part of the track, and the easy one to Sener.

 

Nonetheless, im happy that this is mostly a solo Powell score

 

 

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What do you mean? It's still Powell! How do we know the cue wasn't 95% Powell and 5% Sener?

I've always seen this as the lead composer writing most of it, with his collaborators helping out and getting credit.

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Saw the film today and have listened to the score almost 2x. I'd say it's a solid 4-star score; like others here seem to feel, I think it's not quite as good as the HTTYD and SOLO scores (and I'd personally put PAN up in that category too)... But still really good. There are a few tracks here that I'd say are instant favorites, which brings me to my next point:

 

I'm really surprised that more people here aren't talking about how great "Sometimes Nature's Cruel and Gods Fight", is. It makes for a great companion piece to SOLO's "Marauders Arrive"; I'm loving this sort of dark choral writing from Powell as of late, and can't wait for more in the future.

 

EDIT: Also, maybe someone else who has also seen the film can help me out, but I seem to recall "Sometimes Nature's Cruel and Gods Fight" being different in the film? I think there was maybe some great material in the film version that is not present on the album...(?)

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12 hours ago, PrayodiBA said:

Nonetheless, im happy that this is mostly a solo Powell score

 

 

Actually, this is the most Solo Powell score:

 

 

Bad jokes aside, I think it's interesting that on this one he apparently relied less o Batu and Mounsey than some of his other, more recent scores (Solo itself included).

 

But, for people who have already watched the film, how much unreleased music does the OST have? I guess not much, because the movie is 100 minutes and the OST is 67 min, so maybe about 15 min of unreleased material?

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18 hours ago, Edmilson said:

But, for people who have already watched the film, how much unreleased music does the OST have? I guess not much, because the movie is 100 minutes and the OST is 67 min, so maybe about 15 min of unreleased material?

 

Minimal. In fact there were a few really short cues that I thought "I hope they don't take up album space".

 

Every highlight I remembered is on the album, some potentially presented even better on it than in the film (the second half of Buck Takes The Lead is mostly inaudible in the movie, buried under SFX).

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On 2/22/2020 at 2:45 PM, Quintus said:

 

This film had a main theme?

It's in the film a lot. 

 

It reminds me of something but I can't quite put a finger on what it is.

 

Karol

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17 minutes ago, crocodile said:

It's in the film a lot. 

 

It reminds me of something but I can't quite out a finger on what it is.

 

Karol

 

I didn't notice a single memorable melody throughout.

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26 minutes ago, crocodile said:

It's in the film a lot. 

 

It reminds me of something but I can't quite out a finger on what it is.

 

Karol

 

Off the top of my head, it sounded like some kind of hybrid of the mother theme from HTTYD 2 and Kung Fu Panda.

 

 

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, GiacchinoCues said:

 

Minimal. In fact there were a few really short cues that I thought "I hope they don't take up album space".

 

Every highlight I remembered is on the album, some potentially presented even better on it than in the film (the second half of Buck Takes The Lead is mostly inaudible in the movie, buried under SFX).

 

This is great. I was having this little fear of some unreleased highlights, but thankfully the OST seems to be a great presentation of the score.

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ANyway, there has been some discussion that this score is like John POwell mixtape, all powellism thrown in , and the themes being so familiar.

 

With that said, this is what i found in regards to the similarity.

 

Buck's theme ( main theme)

 

The first part of the theme(?) does really remind me of a lot of tunes.

------

First heard in the first track:

And scattered in many tracks after that, such as this:

 

The 4-notes start ( well, actually the whole structure tbh) is similar to the beginning of Powell's PAN theme:

 

 

And the next 4 notes heard like this:

 

is also similar to this part from Alexandre Desplat's Lily Theme in Harry POtter

 

------

 

The second part of the theme(?), this is so familiar sounding that some of the statements are almost identical

 

First heard in the first track:

 

then to ( my favourite!) its majestic statement, such as this:

 

Particularly this part

is really similar to this part from Alexandre Desplat's theme from HP again:

 

in fact, before HP, the whole structure of that  theme has been used in Rango:

 

 

which was actually kinda inspired by Powell's evolution theme, so it's full circle!

 

 

Talking about Evolution, 

this part:

and also this part:

 

does really scream Evolution! that somwhow you wish the Evolution theme will eventually come out instead:

 

 

 

This theme: HTTYD Extended Theme

 

Well this is obvious:

 

 

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I hadn't noticed the similarities to Evolution, but you're right! :)

 

That last set of clips (HHTYD extended theme) - it reminds me more of something from Horton Hears A Who or possibly Ice Age.

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I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise if the movie was temped with a load of previous Powell scores.

 

I'm surprised Hancock hasn't been mentioned yet, particularly as its main theme has an Irish tinge to it.

 

 

 

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