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John Williams' DISASTER MOVIE SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION (Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno, Earthquake) 4CD Box Set from La-La Land Records


Chewy

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Nice. I've never owned Towering Inferno and Earthquake, and I only have the old FSM release of Poseidon. This will shrink the gaps in my Williams soundtrack collection (not counting scores that have never been released, obviously) to Fiddler on the Roof, Yes, Giorgo, and Always (only on CDR).

3 hours ago, crumbs said:

The idea of a "Williams Disaster Score Box," never occurred to me but it seems like the Williams camp must be reasonably fond of the concept of bundling similar scores in deluxe sets. 

 

Or perhaps it's their way of making sure the less appealing scores in the set pay for themselves. If they released all 3 individually and one of them sold considerably less than the others, it might be a financial loss, and the decision could have been either release only two of them or bundle all three together.

2 hours ago, Thor said:

But the sound quality has never been an issue on any of those previous releases

 

Is has been on the FSM Poseidon Adventure. (I haven't heard the later release)

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7 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Or perhaps it's their way of making sure the less appealing scores in the set pay for themselves. If they released all 3 individually and one of them sold considerably less than the others, it might be a financial loss, and the decision could have been either release only two of them or bundle all three together.

 

Apparently Williams himself wanted the 3 scores bundled together but your theory is sound. I guess we had similar discussions around a potential Potter box, considering two of those three scores were widely available for years via session leaks (so it was questionable whether 1/2 would ever sell as well as 3, which was largely unreleased).

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So happy right now, especially with all the source music from Towering Inferno included. I remember a few years ago Mike inferred that any forthcoming releases of these scores would not include source music because at that time JW wasn’t as open to including it. Worth the wait! 
 

I’m also curious to hear if Inferno’s mix still has all the strings together in the left channel. 
 

:woop:

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Personal story: the Main Titles of The Towering Inferno is my dad's favorite John Williams theme.

 

That's because this is the first movie he watched by himself on the theaters when he was a kid, and Williams' music left a great mark on it. 

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1 hour ago, crumbs said:

Probably the worst spotting in JW's career is this moment going unscored. What was he thinking?

 

 

That blood splatter needed a xylophone hit or two!

If you read the original LP notes, you'll know that there was a conscious decision not to have music playing over the earthquake sequences. IMO, this was a wise decision for two reasons: 1/ it allowed the sequences to "breathe", and to create their own impact, and 2/ it's unlikely that any music would be heard over the Sensurround effects.

 

 

@TownerFan, are there any samples?

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13 minutes ago, aescalle said:

Great new!!!

 

I really love the "Poseidon" and "Earthquake" cover album,

but I really don't like the "Towering inferno" one.

Very cheap illustration image for this great movie.


Well it’s way better than the FSM cover IMO. ;)

 

Yavar

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

Guys this is the real deal.  It is utterly amazing how much better Mike was able to get The Towering Inferno to sound compared to the FSM CD.  The years of improvements in both technology and his own experience really have created a final album I never would have thought possible.  It's quite remarkable.  You'll notice as soon as the samples go up.

Nice to know about this. Curious to know how MM worked with the damaged tracks from the bonus section of the FSM release.

 

And what about Poseidon? Did he gave any details in advance as to how they sound compared to the 2010 LLL release?

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Is has been on the FSM Poseidon Adventure. (I haven't heard the later release)

 

I have no issues with the FSM, sound or otherwise. Then again, I don't like the score very much; it's meandering for the most part. So I very rarely play it in the first place. The film is very good, though!

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So it's STILL fetching those prices? I've contemplated selling it a few times since I got the FSM back in '98 (just to make a few quick bucks), but I didn't, thankfully. It's a great score, and the FSM will be the one and only soundtrack album of this that I will own untill the day I die. Even if it's worth $1 by then. :)

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Just now, Thor said:

So it's STILL fetching those places? I've contemplated selling it a few times since I got the FSM back in '98 (just to make a few quick bucks), but I didn't, thankfully. It's a great score, and the FSM will be the one and only soundtrack album of this that I will own untill the day I die. Even it's worth $1 by then. :)


But Thor! The FSM was a clunky expanded presentation with poor sound quality (and some cues presented *damaged*, even!) — and it was done without Williams’s approval, which I know you care a lot about!

 

This set on the other hand will have much better sound, is approved by Williams and done the way he wanted it done, and it includes the CD premiere of his abbreviated *original album program* — I thought that these (and improved sound quality) were what you lived for! ;)

 

Yavar

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The 'original album program' thing is tempting, yes, Yavar. I never owned the LP. But presumably, I could re-arrange the FSM into something more or less similar if I wanted to (I've never tried). As I've said before, I don't have any issues with the sound on any of these original CDs, even if these new releases are the Second Coming of ultimate HiFi remastering. The approval thing is of no significance.

 

But even if the TOWERING INFERO was the original album program, and only that, and perfectly remastered, I still wouldn't buy this set just for that. 

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6 minutes ago, Thor said:

So it's STILL fetching those prices? I've contemplated selling it a few times since I got the FSM back in '98 (just to make a few quick bucks), but I didn't, thankfully. It's a great score, and the FSM will be the one and only soundtrack album of this that I will own untill the day I die. Even if it's worth $1 by then. :)


The only time I’ve ever paid over $100 for a single score was for this back around 2007. I sold it in 2015 because I was sure an expansion/reissue would be coming down the pipeline soon. 

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Just now, MikeH said:


The only time I’ve ever paid over $100 for a single score was for this back around 2007. I sold it in 2015 because I was sure an expansion/reissue would be coming down the pipeline soon. 

 

Smart!

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The Rescue Of Angela And The Blocked Door+ hopefully contains the small bit of underscoring missing from the FSM where Robert Vaughn and Bill Holden look around for an alternate exit. Some nice moody low strings and mysterioso flute from 70’s JW. 

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

Guys this is the real deal.  It is utterly amazing how much better Mike was able to get The Towering Inferno to sound compared to the FSM CD.  The years of improvements in both technology and his own experience really have created a final album I never would have thought possible.  It's quite remarkable.  You'll notice as soon as the samples go up.

 

Is the sq improvement similar to LLL's Superman? If so can't wait to get this.

 

Now I can retire my FSM Towering Inferno. Just hope my box doesn't get f'ed up en route like my Potter box did.

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4 minutes ago, Datameister said:

I own none of these three in any form, so this'll probably be an easy buy for me. I'll take a listen to the samples first to be sure.

 

Same.  Love to be able to knock off all 3 at once, to add to the collection.

 

Oliver Stone Collection definitely seems like it will happen if they are doing 'Disaster' box sets.

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1 hour ago, JTWfan77 said:

Is the sq improvement similar to LLL's Superman? If so can't wait to get this.

 

I wouldn't say it's comparable to that because of soooo many different factors. 

 

Superman already sounded good in the Rhino and FSM, but then it was still remarkable just how much better the LLL came out, proving that going back to perfectly vaulted first gen elements from that era can yield results dramatically different than all the nth generation analog dubs used before. The final result sounds as good as any great recording from any era.

 

The Towering Inferno never sounded good, the FSM is kinda cruddy sounding with a lot of damaged material and entire cues omitted either because they weren't found or were heavily damaged.  The LLL sounds amazingly better, but it's not like original 1st gen elements were perfectly vaulted and recently uncovered in pristine condition or anything. And the orchestra, room, and recording were all quite different from Superman anyway, so it's not like even under ideal conditions it was capable of sounding like that. 

 

It's a much better comparison to make to Jaws, which was similarly damaged and non ideal elements, yet still sounds so different from the 2000 Decca to the 2015 Intrada. This isn't the kind of hugely drastic change as that (which is probably the biggest sonic upgrade I can think of ever happening to any score, I don't think it will ever be bested), but it is a quite remarkable upgrade! 

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The Jaws 2015 is especially remarkable because, because of the 2008 fire, it reportedly uses the exact same digital scan that was used for the Decca, I think. Is that the same case with Inferno or does it come from a better element?

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7 hours ago, Holko said:

The Jaws 2015bis especially remarkable because, because of the 2008 fire, it reportedly uses the exact same digital scan that was used for the Decca, I think.

 

The Universal fire had nothing to do with that at all. Universal Music and Universal the film studio are unrelated companies with their own independent and separate archives. The fire destroyed the LP re-recording's original master, which is why it couldn't be rebuilt from scratch, or even remastered in any way, and they had to use a 1992 CD master that was found elsewhere instead. 

 

The original film recordings were not vaulted as well as other scores from the era, and when they were pulled in 2000 to make the new audio mix for the film itself, some cues were even permanently damaged. They did the best they could with the technology available at the time for the film's new mix and the 2000 Decca CD.  The new transfer made of those elements for the 2015 Intrada CD would still have all the same gaps from the damage, but the slew of new and upgraded technology available to be used to work ON those transfers, Mike's expertise with them, and his idea to mix them in a different way resulted in such a drastic sound difference from the 2000 CD its remarkable.  Two CD releases sourced from the same tapes, and wildly different end results!

 

Quote

Is that the same case with Inferno or does it come from a better element?

 

Not for me to say, but I'm sure Maurizio's interview will shed a lot of light on it! 

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34 minutes ago, Jay said:

Superman already sounded good on the Rhino


I beg to differ. The FSM was a huge step up from the Rhino. The LLL was another noticeable step up, but not nearly as much of one.

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49 minutes ago, Jay said:

Superman already sounded good in the Rhino and FSM [...] The final result sounds as good as any great recording from any era.

 

Nah. It's the best it'll ever sound, and mostly it sounds fine on the new release, but it's still in a decidedly different league from CE3K. But that's perhaps just due to recording itself not being a great recording, rather than its preservation.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

The original film recordings were improperly vaulted, and when they were pulled in 2000 to make the new audio mix for the film itself, were falling apart and some cues were permanently damaged. The digital transfer made then is basically now the earliest element to go back to because those tapes are essentially useless.  The fact that Mike made the 2015 Intrada program from those same 2000 digital transfers that resulted in the 2000 Decca CD is astonishing and shows just how much different the person involved in remastering, and what technology they have access to and are proficient in, can make.

 

I could swear I read somewhere that they made a new digital transfer of the tapes for the Intrada release instead of using the raw transfers made in 2000.

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6 hours ago, Jay said:

Guys this is the real deal.  It is utterly amazing how much better Mike was able to get The Towering Inferno to sound compared to the FSM CD.  The years of improvements in both technology and his own experience really have created a final album I never would have thought possible.  It's quite remarkable.  You'll notice as soon as the samples go up.

How not to get over excited reading those words of yours! Can't wait listening to those samples. :drool::drool:

To tell the truth, I have mixed feelings regarding this major release. I couldn't be happier to see The Towering Inferno getting a (splendid) re-issue at last. Needless to say I've been waiting for that for so long (like so many of us around here). Yet there's the heavy price I'll have to pay to (finally) get my hands on that classic score. I own previous releases for The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake, which I've been quite happy with until now. I'll have to get this pricey, yet gorgeous set anyway!

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9 hours ago, Bespin said:

Is that mean that the 1974 album was a re-recording?

I wouldn't exactly call that mean.;)

5 hours ago, Thor said:

The 'original album program' thing is tempting, yes, Yavar. I never owned the LP. But presumably, I could re-arrange the FSM into something more or less similar if I wanted to (I've never tried). As I've said before, I don't have any issues with the sound on any of these original CDs, even if these new releases are the Second Coming of ultimate HiFi remastering. The approval thing is of no significance.

 

But even if the TOWERING INFERO was the original album program, and only that, and perfectly remastered, I still wouldn't buy this set just for that. 

When you sell your old CDs immediately, you may even get the sound upgrade AND earn a few bucks!

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