Animation scoring: Powell vs. Horner vs. Giacchino

[WampaRat 1,105]

These guys have certainly done their share of animated films. Given their animation scores as a whole (all or nothin’!) which composers work do you prefer?

 

[Thor 7,506]

Horner. Easiest poll in a while!

 

Although if Menken was on there, he would win easily. But choosing 'Other' is rather boring.

[Bilbo 3,709]

1. Horner

2. Powell

3. Other

4. Giacchino 

[WampaRat 1,105]

Oooh. Good point @Thor. Can’t believe I blanked on Menken. 
 

I guess I’ve always associated him with the songs more than the score. But he’s obviously written some killer scores to accompany those animated films (Hunchback and Pocahontas being my top two favorites of his)

[Jay 37,364]

I think I haven't listened to enough of these to be able to vote

 

Horner will obviously win

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

John Powell 

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

I'd probably tie James Horner and John Powell, but their animation scoring styles are very different so it's almost impossible to pick between them. However, James Horner by the tiniest margin (and because I vote for JP in everything otherwise!). Alan Menken would join the three way tie, but again, for totally different reasons. They kinda represent the three sides to animated scoring:

 

• James Horner - classical (sometimes literally), live action style with long lined melodies.
• John Powell - either live action styled scoring for more dramatic efforts (HTTYD, Happy Feet etc.) or more cartoon Mickey Mouse style for the less serious ones (Ice Age etc.)
• Alan Menken - Broadway comes to animation...

[WampaRat 1,105]

Thats a great summation of their approaches.  
 

I guess there’s now a fourth quadrant in animation scoring with the minimalist approach ala Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross work on “Soul.” 

[Jurassic Shark 12,078]

Tough poll, but I think I'll go for Powell. However, if Harry Gregson-Williams was included in the poll, I would have chosen him due to the masterpieces that are Chicken Run and Sinbad.

[Edmilson 7,457]

Tough to decide between Powell and Horner. I like his HTTYD trilogy, but aside from that nothing comes close of Horner's animated masterpieces. 

[Bilbo 3,709]

Damn, I was hoping Gia would stay on 0

[Jurassic Shark 12,078]

Who could that be? Jay?

[Bilbo 3,709]

I hate when you can’t see who voted for what. 

[Bespin 8,483]

Animations? 

 

 

Why'd it have to be animations?

[Jay 37,364]

9 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

I hate when you can’t see who voted for what. 

 

Yea I always click the checkbox to show who voted for what

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

I like enjoying more than one composer’s music. 

[publicist 4,643]

Horner, by a wide margin. As for Alan Menken, please don’t be facetious.

[Thor 7,506]

1 minute ago, publicist said:

Horner, by a wide margin. As for Alan Menken, please don’t be facetious.

 

How so? He's the greatest composer for animated movies in all of film history.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

When it comes to brillant animation scores I immediately must think of the old Disney classics like The Jungle Book, The Rescuers, Peter Pan, The Fox and the Hound, Aristocats etc. None of the three above can keep  up with these. Menken is there really an exception. 

[Thor 7,506]

Sure, there are a number of individual animation films that hold a standard higher than any of the three in the poll, but when considering a composer's body of work, it's a different story.

[publicist 4,643]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

 

How so? He's the greatest composer for animated movies in all of film history.

He‘s a Broadway composer with a style to match, which naturally involves heavy orchestrator duties. The numerous Oscars should be enough of a warning sign. Except for a handful cues in Hunchback, there’s just nothing there.

[Arpy 4,145]

I couldn't vote on this one - I love both Powell and Giacchino's animated scores for different reasons. Powell's Dragon trilogy is unsurpassed, but I'm sure if Giacchino had a chance at something like that - the right project, at the right time - he could manage fine. Perhaps there'll be an Incredibles 3 in another fourteen years?

[Thor 7,506]

32 minutes ago, publicist said:

He‘s a Broadway composer with a style to match, which naturally involves heavy orchestrator duties. The numerous Oscars should be enough of a warning sign. Except for a handful cues in Hunchback, there’s just nothing there.

 

We're obviously on different planets in our evaluation there. The Oscars are all deserved. My attraction isn't actually the songs (great as they are), but the lush, consonant, dynamic scores. No composer has as impressive a body of work in animation as Menken.

[Jurassic Shark 12,078]

He's just too mainstream for Pubs.

[saulocf 79]

Powell HTTYD is obviously the winner here, but take that out of Powell and you got a bunch of 3 star scores with as many highlights as extremely annoying bits, and a bunch of those scores don't do nothing for me (Rio, Ice Age 3 and 4, Happy Feet 2...). Horner has done great on Land Before Time, Balto and my favorites An American Tail duo. But its Giacchino for me.. in the animated movies is where he shows how great of a composer he can be. Incredibles 2, Up and Inside Out are great, Ratatouille and The Incredibles are awesome. Coco is extremely underrated (a very mature score!) and I even find Cars 2 fun (leaving only Zootopia as his sole weak animated scores)., so yeah, he gets my vote for quantity and consistency. 

[GerateWohl 4,370]

Probably in that context it would also be worth mentioning Joe Hisaishi. When I look at my CD shelf, then then most scores for animated movies of a single composer are from him and that for good reasons. 

[Romão 2,274]

Horner, by far

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

17 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Probably in that context it would also be worth mentioning Joe Hisaishi. When I look at my CD shelf, then then most scores for animated movies of a single composer are from him and that for good reasons. 

I knew there was someone missing and Hisaishi should definitely be mentioned alongside the others! I'd still go for Horner (marginally) but to be fair, all of these composers have produced great work (some of their best) for animated movies.

[Romão 2,274]

1 hour ago, publicist said:

He‘s a Broadway composer with a style to match, which naturally involves heavy orchestrator duties. The numerous Oscars should be enough of a warning sign. Except for a handful cues in Hunchback, there’s just nothing there.

 

I think he's pretty fantastic tunesmith. Some of his Disney songs are just too good to completely disregard them . And I particularly like what he did with songs in Hercules (except Go the Distance, which I find insuferable). Even his Captain American song was great

[Jay 37,364]

Oh dip, I chose Hisaishi too, easily!

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

Powell brought something very fresh to the table, I remember seeing Ice Age 2 and thinking how different and fun it sounded. Even if it's nothing ground-breaking, there's a sense of joy in his animated scores that I don't think I've heard since the olden days with Carl Stalling and a bit later with George Bruns.

 

My vote goes for Powell in terms of the overall picture. Horner excelled with drama but not so much with mickey-mousing and the more silly side of western animation. Cues like Heritage of the Wolf, Grand Demon Parade or Whispering Winds really showed where Horner's heart was at.  

 

Powell, on the contrary, seems to put his whole energy into every single type of cue. Be it mickey-mousing, drama or whatever and he excels at everything. But when Horner does drama, he's unmatched. 

[GerateWohl 4,370]

Powell really writes great themes, but at his scoring I often think, less would be more.

When I look at the whole work, Horner always was too repetetive to give him a top ranking. 

Giacchino is best, I think, when he doesn't do classic scoring. My favourite animation score of his is Inside Out.

[mstrox 6,651]

I voted "other" for Menken.  If stuck with the three presented options, I probably would have picked Giacchino on the strength of his Pixar work, and then Powell based on Chicken Run alone, with Horner in last place.

[WampaRat 1,105]

I for SURE should have listed Joe Hisaishi by name here. Just Plum blanked for some reason. I even went on an odyssey of all his Studio Ghibli scores. Princess Mononoke was one of my first film score discoveries in my early teens (checked it out at my local library:)

 

There’s a man who has the drama chops of Horner and the fun sprightly enthusiasm of Powell.

[Fabulin 3,513]

.

[Jurassic Shark 12,078]

What about John Williams? After all, he's scored Tintin, The BFG, Dear Basketball, the animation sequence in Jurassic Park, and the SW prequels.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

2 hours ago, WampaRat said:

I for SURE should have listed Joe Hisaishi by name here. Just Plum blanked for some reason. I even went on an odyssey of all his Studio Ghibli scores. Princess Mononoke was one of my first film score discoveries in my early teens (checked it out at my local library:)

 

There’s a man who has the drama chops of Horner and the fun sprightly enthusiasm of Powell.

 

Hisaishi is in a completely different league.

[Edmilson 7,457]

I love Menken's score for Pocahontas, it's his masterpiece in my opinion. Others may prefer Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin, but Pocahontas has a big, melodramatic orchestral score filled with great themes and a real sense of loss and tragedy.

 

This cue here always leave me with tears in the eyes. The choir and orchestra version of Colors of the Wind at the end are film music heaven:

 

ir

[GerateWohl 4,370]

And Randy Newman. What about Randy Newman? My kids just watched Toy Story 4. In the end credits I read that Don Davis did the orchestrations for the score. 

I would actually be interested in a Pixar score by Don Davis.

[SilverTrumpet 638]

11 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

And Randy Newman. What about Randy Newman? My kids just watched Toy Story 4. In the end credits I read that Don Davis did the orchestrations for the score. 

I would actually be interested in a Pixar score by Don Davis.

 

I noticed that too when we watched it last year. Poor Don Davis is just orchestrating for other people now...

[Koray Savas 2,251]

47 minutes ago, SilverTrumpet said:

I noticed that too when we watched it last year. Poor Don Davis is just orchestrating for other people now...

Don Davis is primarily an orchestrator... been doing it since the 80s. 

[Ricard 2,245]

Yep. Randy fucking Newman is the best man for the job.

 

And it's too bad Williams didn't score an animated movie in the 1980s.

[Jurassic Shark 12,078]

Is that really his middle name?

[Ricard 2,245]

It is.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

1 hour ago, Koray Savas said:

Don Davis is primarily an orchestrator... been doing it since the 80s. 

 

Yeah but it's been rumored that he ghost-wrote a couple of cues for Toy Story 3 and I'd pressume that's the same for Toy Story 4. 

 

He also -allegedly- used to ghost-write for Horner.

[Edmilson 7,457]

Yeah, I've read somewhere that the action music for Toy Story 3's climax was done by Davis. 

 

He's a great composer, and deserves better than just orchestrate and ghost-write for Randy Newman.

[SilverTrumpet 638]

4 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

Don Davis is primarily an orchestrator... been doing it since the 80s. 

 

Well, sure, but his scores were ace. Films today would do well with music like his. It's enough of that style most movies use today but with the depth and range of the best stuff from the 90s and early 2000s.

 

Guy with his talent deserves to be front and center in the music credit. Not hid 8 minutes into the credits as an orchestrator. 

[Koray Savas 2,251]

4 hours ago, Muad'Dib said:

Yeah but it's been rumored that he ghost-wrote a couple of cues for Toy Story 3 and I'd pressume that's the same for Toy Story 4. 

 

He also -allegedly- used to ghost-write for Horner.

 

3 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Yeah, I've read somewhere that the action music for Toy Story 3's climax was done by Davis. 

 

He's a great composer, and deserves better than just orchestrate and ghost-write for Randy Newman.

That’s because he orchestrated for both of them. The anvil clangs give it away. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Never even heard a John Powell cartoon or even live action OST. Figures this guy, whoever he is, wins in a modern JWFan poll.

[Jay 37,364]

You might like the How To Train Your Dragon and Solo OSTs