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THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE - LLL Music Discussion


Jay

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The thread for the box set as a whole will be filled with discussion of ordering, shipping, receiving, delays, excitement, etc etc for a while, so here's a thread to simply discuss the musical content (and liner notes) of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE without all that clutter. 

 

Discuss away!! 

 

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THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

 

THE FILM SCORE 36:43
1 Main Title ++ 2:16
2 Rogo And Linda 1:37
3 The Big Wave And The Aftermath ++ 4:05
4 Raising The Christmas Tree 1:32
5 Nonnie And Martin :54
6 Up The Tree 1:12
7 Death’s Door :56
8 The Upturned Galley ++ 1:16
9 The Other Survivors+ 1:37
10 Through The Galley 1:15
11 Search For The Engine Room 2:52
12 Barber Shoppe 1:49
13 Saving Robin 1:26
14 The Death Of Belle 3:28
15 Hold Your Breath 3:09
16 The Red Wheel 1:27
17 Rogo Takes Command 1:40
18 The Rescue And End Title 3:40

 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC 24:47
19 Main Title (Alternate No. 1) 2:02
20 Main Title (Alternate No. 2) 2:10
21 The Morning After (Vocal Version 1) + Performed by Renee Armand 2:10
22 To Love 3:14
23 New Year’s Party No. 1 1:01
24 The Morning After (Vocal Version 2)+ 2:11 Performed by Renee Armand
25 New Year’s Party No. 2 2:13
26 Give Me The Simple Life /
A Certain Smile (Medley) 1:53
27 Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing 1:29
28 The Morning After(Instrumental) + 2:11
29 Auld Lang Syne+ 1:37 Performed by Renee Armand
30 The Morning After (Song From The Poseidon Adventure) 2:24 Performed by Maureen McGovern
Total Disc Time: 61:42
+ monaural source
+ + partial monaural source

 

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In case anybody missed this, here it is again from the FSM thread

 

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I'm looking at the "Poseidon Adventure" track listings and I'm confused as to why the "Alternate End Title" from the last release isn't listed.

 

The alternate was the same recording and was only there last time for sound quality reasons. This time I was able to present one version in better quality.

 

The only thing not included on the new master is the Williams chit-chat and false start to "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing."

 

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Took my first listen to this today - actually, my first listen to this score in any form, other than samples. Definitely dig the main theme, but there's some nice underscoring in there too. It's amazing to hear stylistic through lines from 1972 that you still find in Williams' work now, almost 50 years later.

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6 hours ago, King Mark said:

yeah it's his first amazing movie theme

 

I haven't really listened to anything of his from before '72, but The Cowboys was earlier that year and I prefer its themes. Don't forget about Images, either.

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I’ll continue to sound like a broken record but thanks to Mike Matessino and co for restoring this score. You can notice the slight improvements in the audio. 
 

Never thought I would triple dip for this score. 😄 

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On 12/20/2019 at 9:02 AM, Jay said:

Yea there are much better themes in The Cowboys than this


Agreed, and Jane Eyre too! I do love the Poseidon main theme, but then I also love the main theme from None But the Brave all the way back in 1965...

 

Yavar

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I lit another cigar and listened to The Poseidon Adventure this evening.

 

This was my first acquaintance with the score, and I wasn’t enamoured. It’s a lot of underscore as previously stated, or ‘suspense’ music as one might call it.

 

Certain parts foreshadow Jaws, for sure, and perhaps even CE3K, and that’s interesting.

 

But there’s not really any theme to ‘hook’ you in. It’s the kind of release where the cues outside of the main program, the alternates and the source cues, are the most interesting, if you know what I mean.

 

Sound wise, it sounds good, but old. I wasn’t as blown away as I was with Earthquake.

 

Worth to mention, is that the liner notes are stellar.

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I have to say, I kind of agree.

 

For me, Towering Inferno was a revelation in this set, I hadn't paid much attention to it before, but the new program made me love it

 

Earthquake, I liked the OST, and the new film score is fun too

 

But Poisedon?  I dunno, I guess I'm just not feeling what Williams was doing here.  The old LLL CD didn't do much for me, and this one doesn't much either.  Perhaps finally seeing the film will put it in a new context and I'll appreciate the music more.  I dunno.

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Poseidon is surprisingly the ugly duckling of the three. I've got more playtime out of the other two which also have the benefit of some great restoration. I absolutely love the main theme of Poseidon, though and wish it had more room to stretch its legs throughout the score; it has this remarkable quality (as do the other two) to be solemn, action packed and rousing all in one. 

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Ive always loved Poseidon. It was probably the first score (pre Jaws) were I instantly latched onto the main theme without conscously knowing It was written by that Williams guy.

It was so disappointing finding out there was never a soundtrack album available. To this day Ive always been fascinated what pieces Williams would have included if an album would have been produced at the time. There was certainly some great material there. A wonderful title theme, stirring set pieces, a rousing end credits piece. There was also the hit song from Maureen Mcgovern as well as some other source pieces worthy of mention, ( To Love anyone?). So for me all the releases of Poseidon have been pretty special.

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I'm fairly confident Williams recognized the fact that the score is rather meandering, compared to TOWERING INFERNO or EARTHQUAKE, so it wouldn't hold up very well on album. I'm glad it eventually was released on FSM, just for completist's sake, but I think I can understand his decision (if it was indeed his decision).

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The complete Poseidon score is only 36 minutes long to start.  If you take away the cues JW would consider to be not OST worthy you're probably looking at 25-30 minutes of score.  You'd have to pad that out with The Morning After (which is only 2 1/2 minutes anyway) and the source music JW wrote (of which there's only 10 minutes to choose from) to come up with a 40 minute LP

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Really? What was on it?

 

I still think The Poseidon Adventure is the real masterpiece on this set, the quite brilliant theme fits the film like a glove, the brooding 'meandering' cues are not ideal listening, perhaps, but they really define the atmosphere in the film. And the musical pay-off with The Red Wheel and the ending cue is fantastic.

 

Too bad the source material is in the state it is.

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On 1/8/2020 at 6:49 PM, rough cut said:

Worth to mention, is that the liner notes are stellar.

Agreed. But I kind of missed the tech details, like Mike included on Towering Inferno, as Poseidon here sounds significantly better than the 2010 release (and all past releases). Was it a new source material that was found? I hope he can elucidate it some day.

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4 hours ago, fommes said:

Really? What was on it?

 

I still think The Poseidon Adventure is the real masterpiece on this set, the quite brilliant theme fits the film like a glove, the brooding 'meandering' cues are not ideal listening, perhaps, but they really define the atmosphere in the film. And the musical pay-off with The Red Wheel and the ending cue is fantastic.

 

Too bad the source material is in the state it is.

 

Yes, the score works wonderfully in the film, BY FAR the best of the three disaster pics in this set. But it fails to engage much on album, in any shape or form. That's just how it is sometimes.

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3 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

If this had received an OST at the time, perhaps it would have given JW the opportunity to write some concert suites or revisit the score with listening in mind , a la Jaws, for a re-recorded album. Alas, it wasn't to be.

 

Not to mention the usual crossfades, segues and microedits.:)

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Loving this album. Are these 3 source music pieces John Williams? The notes don't discuss them (unless I'm missing something)

 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC
22 To Love
23 New Year’s Party No. 1
25 New Year’s Party No. 2

 

I also appreciate the detail on this site 

https://chrono-score.blogspot.com/2010/05/poseidon-adventure.html

 

 

Thanks

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...
On 2/21/2020 at 3:24 PM, Jay said:

Here's the alternate main title synced to picture, by FSM user The Mutant

 

https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?pageID=3&forumID=1&threadID=138494&archive=0

 

 

I Love the alternate main title, a very modernist, atonal piece similar to something in images or close encounters. But it does not fit the pictures. JW might have wanted to create an atmosphere of imminent doom, but I think the new title fits better.

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  • 11 months later...

What info do we have about the composer credits for this score? It seems less straightforward than most Williams scores.

 

The booklet mentions that Barber Shoppe and Hold Your Breath both contain the tune of "The Morning After". Are there any other score tracks that cannot be credited to Williams alone?

 

The bonus tracks all seem to have straightforward writing credits, since they're all based on songs that were not written by Williams, except for "To Love", "New Year’s Party No. 1", and "New Year’s Party No. 2". Jay said Williams wrote these, though I'm still interested to know if we have a source for that info.

 

And finally, do we know if Williams arranged any of the bonus tracks that he did not compose?

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37 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

What info do we have about the composer credits for this score? It seems less straightforward than most Williams scores.

 

The booklet mentions that Barber Shoppe and Hold Your Breath both contain the tune of "The Morning After". Are there any other score tracks that cannot be credited to Williams alone?

 

"Nonnie and Martin" interpolates "The Morning After" as well

 

Other than those interpolations, the entire score was composed by JW

 

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The bonus tracks all seem to have straightforward writing credits, since they're all based on songs that were not written by Williams, except for "To Love", "New Year’s Party No. 1", and "New Year’s Party No. 2". Jay said Williams wrote these, though I'm still interested to know if we have a source for that info.

 

The source is the release itself; If those 3 tracks were written by someone else, the booklet would have indicated so.  I'm sure you can see in the booklet that they go out of their way to relay that "Give Me That Simple Life", "A Certain Smile", "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing", and "Auld Lang Syne" were not written by JW.

 

For additional verification, you could search those online GEMA / ASCAP/ BMI type databases thingies, those 3 tracks could be in there.

 

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And finally, do we know if Williams arranged any of the bonus tracks that he did not compose?

 

Hmm, good question.  I don't know the answer to that one!

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1 minute ago, Jay said:

"Nonnie and Martin" interpolates "The Morning After" as well

 

Other than those interpolations, the entire score was composed by JW

 

Thank you!!

 

 

2 minutes ago, Jay said:

The source is the release itself; If those 3 tracks were written by someone else, it would have said so.

 

Maybe they would have said so, but they didn't make it very clear about the interpolations of "The Morning After". I guess we have to assume those three bonus tracks were all Williams until we learn otherwise.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

Hmm, good question.  I don't know the answer to that one!

 

I'm also curious what he conducted, which I guess would include Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, given the studio sounds at the beginning of the previous release.

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Oh for sure he conducted everything on the entire CD except the final track - no reason to think otherwise

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Well, first off, because it's a song and not score, I wouldn't take for granted that he must have conducted it. And second, the liner notes say the song was "pre-recorded under the supervision of Fox music head Lionel Newman" before filming, and later states "As The Poseidon Adventure went into postproduction, Lionel Newman and Allen discussed possible composers..."

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On 1/9/2020 at 6:04 AM, Jay said:

The complete Poseidon score is only 36 minutes long to start.  If you take away the cues JW would consider to be not OST worthy you're probably looking at 25-30 minutes of score.  You'd have to pad that out with The Morning After (which is only 2 1/2 minutes anyway) and the source music JW wrote (of which there's only 10 minutes to choose from) to come up with a 40 minute LP

Many ost Lps are less than forty minutes

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