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Always (1989) - 2021 Expanded Edition from La-La Land Records


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24 minutes ago, Jay said:

And one of these days the union has to come to their senses about the post-2005 re-use pricing, right!?

 

If they'd even just made it a sliding 10-year window—without having to carve out a special exception for soundtrack expansions—Tintin and War Horse would be on the table for this year. Man...

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58 minutes ago, ATXHusker said:

 

And also Sugarland Express once JW changes his mind on letting that one get released.

 

Wouldn't be surprised if he allows it once every other non-Indy Spielberg score is done. With any luck, the other 4 scores should be out in the next 2.5 years (especially if both LLL and Intrada are licensing the Spielberg scores now).

 

Maybe once the dust has settled on Indy 5, JW/Disney might be interested in expanding those 5 scores too.

 

29 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

 

If they'd even just made it a sliding 10-year window—without having to carve out a special exception for soundtrack expansions—Tintin and War Horse would be on the table for this year. Man...

 

Even just a 5000 quantity limit where anything less doesn't qualify for fees. Such a simple addition... sigh.

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58 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

 

If they'd even just made it a sliding 10-year window—without having to carve out a special exception for soundtrack expansions—Tintin and War Horse would be on the table for this year. Man...

 

This reminds me of the long struggle between exhibitors and studios about the 90-days window between theatrical release and home video/on-demand streaming, which is coming to a drastic end in the post-Covid world. The shape of the industry is changing dramatically as we speak, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of those things will get renegotiated too.

 

Anyway, I sincerely hope soundtrack labels and producers will try to get out as much material as possible the sooner they can--the media landscape is transforming also because of all these acquisitions/mergers between media companies (and I feel it will continue), so music rights also have new owners who might not be interested in putting out stuff on CD.

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2 hours ago, ATXHusker said:

And also Sugarland Express once JW changes his mind on letting that one get released.

I bet he's waiting for the 50th anniversary of the movie in 2024. That would be a great and memorable release.

Imagine the title of the thread:

After half a century we've finnaly got it: John Williams' Sugarland Express 50th anniversary edition by La La Land Records

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I had no idea that the Pere and Dorinda OST track consisted of two versions of the same cue. Is that a first for a Williams compiled album? I think perhaps Leia Breaks the News from the Star Wars Trilogy Boxset does something similiar. 

 

Actually, I also had no idea "Among the Clouds" was from the end of the film. I always assumed it was from the beginnning as it was the first Williams piece on the OST. I just saw the movie once back in the 1990s and didn't pay too much attention to how the score in the film differed from the OST, and after seeing the film once, I decided once was enough. 

 

But once was never enough for the sountrack, and I've "always" enjoyed the suite - my first exposure to the score, plus several tracks from the CD: Among the Clouds, Follow Me, Saying Goodbye, Pete & Dorinda, and Dorinda Solo Flight.

 

And Always is I think the first CD I bought twice. My first CD got scratched somehow, and I double-dipped when I stumbled across another copy in Japan.  I double dipped a few times when scratches and glitches found their way onto CDs. I hated doing it, but I couldn't bear the thought of a Williams track with a glitch.

 

Just rambling to avoid working

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On 6/3/2021 at 11:19 PM, pete said:

I had no idea that the Pere and Dorinda OST track consisted of two versions of the same cue. Is that a first for a Williams compiled album?

 

The OST albums of Minority Report, War of the Worlds, and Munich would later do this, but yea I think Always would be the first time he did it.

 

He's also put two versions of a cue on an OST album in separate tracks, like Close Encounters, Dracula, Always, Schindler's List, Munich, Lincoln, probably others

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Just coincidentally I've been listening to ALWAYS quite a bit lately.  All this talk about how some of the cues are cut and pasted from other bits has be worried that the presentation of "Among the Clouds" will be ruined, as in, IF A SINGLE NOTE IS CHANGED, it will be ruined!  It is easily one of my top ten favorite pieces of John Williams music!  

 

The suite from Spielberg/Williams Collaboration is too cobbled together, seemingly from the best bits, but with none of the structure and breadth.

 

Also, were Spielberg and Williams not on the same page when it came to spotting this film?  

 

The talk from this thread makes it sound as though there are edits, re-tracked bits and alternates all over the place. 

 

For a movie as uncomplicated as ALWAYS, this seems odd.

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9 hours ago, mstrox said:

I’m fairly confident that Williams’ OST edit will be preserved somewhere on this release.

Why? Is there even a single good reason for Mike to include the OST program?

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The LLL flyer didn’t say single disc release, but I was also under the impression that MM liked to include significant album edits in the bonus section of his discs.  Even as a single disc that didn’t include the OST (I’d prefer if it was included, personally) there would be plenty of disc space after the score for alternates.

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2 minutes ago, mstrox said:

The LLL flyer didn’t say single disc release, but I was also under the impression that MM liked to include significant album edits in the bonus section of his discs.

 

He does seem to, yeah. I thought you meant the whole album program though and I personally can't think of a reason that should be included.

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On 6/2/2021 at 9:10 AM, Jay said:

 

Look at the flyer again.  It indicates that AI is 3 discs, but says nothing about number of discs for the other releases - because they are all 1disc releases.  LLL's flyers always reveal how many discs (and number of copies) each release has.


Here you go @mstrox per Jay this is a 1 disc release.

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You don't have to take my word for it, LLL's flyers always state the # of discs for multi disc releases, and say nothing for 1 disc releases.  Proof:

 

On 4/29/2021 at 12:46 PM, Jay said:
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1 hour ago, mstrox said:

The LLL flyer didn’t say single disc release, but I was also under the impression that MM liked to include significant album edits in the bonus section of his discs.  Even as a single disc that didn’t include the OST (I’d prefer if it was included, personally) there would be plenty of disc space after the score for alternates.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any MM expansion that doesn't include the OST but does include album edits.

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CE3K is a special case but yeah, that's right.

 

Abandoned In The Woods is not an album edit, it's the first part of JW's intended credits as recorded.

 

Window to the Past is a half-unique concert piece with its own intro, but sure I guess. And Dementors Converge is whatever the hell it is.

 

Certainly nothing like Whomping Willow and the Snowball Fight or the chopped down Rescuing Sarah or whatever mess is on the AI OST, no duplicated material assembled badly again just to have that bad assembly.

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20 hours ago, crumbs said:

I'm curious to see how they handle it without having too much repetition.


With both versions being so short but also pretty different, I wouldn’t be surprised if the OST combination of ‘Pete and Dorinda’ with the alternate is maintained, maybe with a tiny added gap, as was done with Dracula’s ‘For Mina’ cue combination.

 

My speculation is the main presentation keeps the ‘Above the Clouds’ and ‘Dorinda Survives’ combination, adding ‘Dorinda’s Solo Flight’ afterwards before the End Credits. They’re different enough and interesting enough to both warrant inclusion in the main program, in my opinion, especially when both were included on the OST. Could also be done the other way around, but I think ‘Dorinda Survives’ would feel a little anti-climactic following ‘Dorinda’s Solo Flight’.

 

@crumbs Since you’ve seen the film recently, what would the cue ‘Dorinda’s Flying Entrance’ most likely be? Something from the third act rescue sequence, or potentially something that went unscored near the beginning?

 

In any case, we should know pretty soon!

 

Side note: is the title ‘Dorinda Solo Flight’ a weird typo was just never caught? The cue is registered as ‘Dorinda’s Solo Flight’, which makes a lot more grammatical sense.

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16 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

@crumbs Since you’ve seen the film recently, what would the cue ‘Dorinda’s Flying Entrance’ most likely be? Something from the third act rescue sequence, or potentially something that went unscored near the beginning?

 

Nah, I reckon that would be this:

OST T12 The Return (1:17-end)

 

The entire rescue scene at the end is unscored after Dorinda leaves the airfield. I think this is the only scene in the film Dorinda "enters" anywhere flying a plane... except a lake. :lol:

 

16 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

Side note: is the title ‘Dorinda Solo Flight’ a weird typo was just never caught? The cue is registered as ‘Dorinda’s Solo Flight’, which makes a lot more grammatical sense.

 

I always forget that track title is singular as well. Really weird decision, could be a typo. Isn't that one of the cues with leaked sheet music?

 

I wonder if changing it to "Dorinda's" would be a licensing headache, despite being a simple fix. Mike's mentioned in the past that changing track titles isn't a straightforward process due to studio ownership, etc.

 

16 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

With both versions being so short but also pretty different, I wouldn’t be surprised if the OST combination of ‘Pete and Dorinda’ with the alternate is maintained, maybe with a tiny added gap, as was done with Dracula’s ‘For Mina’ cue combination.

 

Yeah I think that would work effectively, and it's a nice tip of the hat to the OST track (where it combines nicely with the alternate).

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On 6/6/2021 at 10:32 AM, TJH132 said:

Just coincidentally I've been listening to ALWAYS quite a bit lately.  All this talk about how some of the cues are cut and pasted from other bits has be worried that the presentation of "Among the Clouds" will be ruined, as in, IF A SINGLE NOTE IS CHANGED, it will be ruined!  It is easily one of my top ten favorite pieces of John Williams music!  

 

The original OST album from 1989 barely had any tinkering done to it.

 

It only had 12 score tracks, and 8 of those are simply one cue in its own track with no internal edits (the entire album had no internal edits)

  1. 8    Follow Me
  2. 9    Pete In Heaven
  3. 10    Saying Goodbye
  4. 13    The Rescue Operation
  5. 14    Seeing Dorinda
  6. 16    Promise To Hap
  7. 17    The Old Timer’s Shack
  8. 18    Dorinda Solo Flight

1 track contains 2 cues, but they are consecutive cues that were written to overlap anyway

  1. 7    Among The Clouds

1 track contains a revised version of a cue, followed by the original version of the same cue, which sort of results in making a love theme arrangement track in a way

  1. 11    Pete And Dorinda

That leaves only 2 tracks where Williams took music from 2 different scenes in the film and combined them in one track

  1. 15 Intimate Conversation
  2. 12 The Return

 

 

So yea, a very straightforward OST album.

 

 

 

 

Quote

Also, were Spielberg and Williams not on the same page when it came to spotting this film?  

 

The talk from this thread makes it sound as though there are edits, re-tracked bits and alternates all over the place. 

 

No, I wouldn't say that.  The music is not nearly as tinkered with in the final cut as The Lost World, or what Lucas/Abrams would do to his later Star Wars scores, etc.

 

Most music is used as intended.  A few scenes were shortened after scoring so some music went with it.  Some music is dialed out (and smartly so!  Not ever bit of score recorded for a film should necessarily be kept in the final cut - it's an ongoing process).  A few cues were revised (Pete and Dorinda, Dorinda Solo Flight, The Old Timer's Shack, etc), which is completely normal for any film.

 

There is some tracking, but only in 3 spots.  The scene with Pete at the fridge has music tracked in from the previous cue, parts of Pete in Heaven are replaced with music tracked in from Promise to Hap, and parts of The Rescue Operation are replaced with music tracked in from Among The Clouds.

 

That's it!  

 

So yea, not a score that was heavily tinkered with for the final cut, no.

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17 hours ago, Holko said:

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any MM expansion that doesn't include the OST but does include album edits.

 

Here's what MM has done for every Williams score he worked on that had an OST album

 

The original album was a re-recording, so it's included in full

  1. How To Steal  A Million
  2. Earthquake
  3. Jaws
  4. The Fury

The original album had a pretty high percentage of music recorded directly for it, so it's included in full

  1. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
  2. Monsignor
  3. The River

The original album is made up entirely of music recorded at the main scoring sessions, but is included in full anyway

  1. Goodbye, Mr. Chips
  2. Superman
  3. Dracula
  4. 1941
  5. Schindler's List
  6. Rosewood
  7. The Towering Inferno
  8. War of the Worlds
  9. Home Alone (2015)
  10. Saving Private Ryan
  11. War of the Worlds

The original OST album is not directly included as its own section, but you can re-create just by playing tracks in a different order

  1. Stanley & Iris

The original OST album is not included, but all unique album takes/etc are, so one could re-create it with music editing software if desired

  1. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  2. Empire of the Sun
  3. Home Alone (2010)
  4. Far And Away
  5. Home Alone 2: Lost In New York
  6. Jurassic Park
  7. The Lost World
  8. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
  9. Harry Potter 1
  10. Minority Report
  11. Harry Potter 2
  12. Harry Potter 3

 

 

So that's 19 times he included the OST album vs 12 times he didn't, getting close to 2/3 vs 1/3.

 

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"Penelope", "Fitzwilly", "Not With My Wife, You Don't" and "Missouri Break" have re-recorded OSTs that were later reissued with the previously unreleased original scores.

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24 minutes ago, Bespin said:

Penelope, Fitzwilly, Missouri Break

 

Those weren't by Mike Matessino

 

24 minutes ago, Bespin said:

Penelope, Fitzwilly, Not With My Wife, You Don't and Missouri Break have a re-recorded OST that were later reissued with the scores.

 

 

Not With My Wife, You Don't's OST LP was actually released by FSM as a separate release from their film track restoration :)

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3 hours ago, BrotherSound said:

 

@crumbs Since you’ve seen the film recently, what would the cue ‘Dorinda’s Flying Entrance’ most likely be? Something from the third act rescue sequence, or potentially something that went unscored near the beginning?

 

Hey, I just saw the film 3 weeks ago!

 

It's the original title for the cue that makes up the second half of "The Return".  You can see the title of the music that makes up the first part of that track here.

 

3 hours ago, BrotherSound said:

Side note: is the title ‘Dorinda Solo Flight’ a weird typo was just never caught? The cue is registered as ‘Dorinda’s Solo Flight’, which makes a lot more grammatical sense.

 

Yea, it's gotta be a weird typo no one noticed.  "Dorinda's Solo Flight" is a more appropriate name for certain.

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12 hours ago, Holko said:

CE3K is a special case but yeah, that's right.

 

Abandoned In The Woods is not an album edit, it's the first part of JW's intended credits as recorded.

 

Window to the Past is a half-unique concert piece with its own intro, but sure I guess. And Dementors Converge is whatever the hell it is.

 

 

That intro is just that WTTP overlay from the finale though...

 

 

EDIT: er, wait, that's the ending isn't it

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The "A Window To The Past" intro is completely unique and was probably recorded just for the album.  The end of the track is the recorder overlay.

 

From my google doc:

 

2-18
Window to the Past
0:00-1:04 1:04     A unique recorder solo, potentially recorded
just for the album. Cue number and cue name unknown
1:04-2:28 1:24 7M12 End Credits Partial - entire cue available in 2-08
2:28-3:26 0:58 4M3-4NN Woods Walk and Birds Flight Partial - entire cue availabile in 1-10
3:26-end 0:32 7M2 Insert Complete isolated insert - also appears mixed
into 7M2 My Dad Conjured the Patronus in 2-03

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R7JM5QmRNh6PbgqeBH_lbj2C3WLbzxz9px3Z7GKLaAk/

 

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13 minutes ago, Jay said:

Not With My Wife, You Don't OST LP was actually released by FSM as a separate release from their film track restoration :)

 

A strange and hopefully only one case of a "Vol. 1/Vol. 2" release!

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Yes!

 

I for one would not complain if they released a new edition with both in one package

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7 minutes ago, Jay said:

No, that's not right.  The intro is completely unique and was probably recorded just for the album.  A later part of the track is that recorder overlay

Do we know if it's an recorder element that is part of one of the WTTP cues presented isolated?

 

EDITED.

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

What do you mean?

Either recorded seperately, or recorded in a way, that the recorder could be presented isolated

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I think it was recorded to make a de facto concert arrangement for the album, like he did for Jurassic Park and Catch Me If You Can.  I don't think it was recorded for a film cue and then repurposed later.  

 

But who knows anything for certain with this score...

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There's a theme for Peter, for And, and for Dorinda!

 

Com'on, the best part of this score is Smoke gets in your eyes!

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8 hours ago, Jay said:

So what do people think about the themes in this score?

 

To my ears there's:

 

Pete and Dorinda

  • 7 Among The Clouds @ 2:58, 6:27, 7:12
  • 10 Saying Goodbye @ 1:07, 2:17
  • 11 Pete and Dorinda @ 0:00, 2:04
  • 12 The Return @ 1:27, 1:58
  • 13 The Rescue Operation @ 3:34, 4:37
  • 14 Seeing Dorinda @ 1:54
  • 15 Intimate Conversation @ 0:31
  • 17 The Old Timer's Shack @ 1:15
  • Spielberg/Williams track @ 0:09, 2:03, 3:28

Pete

  • 7 Among The Clouds @ 1:58, 4:38, 7:44
  • 12 The Return @ 1:19
  • 13 The Rescue Operation @ 3:23, 4:23, 4:51
  • 18 Dorinda's Solo Flight @ 2:52
  • Spielberg/Williams track @ 4:33

Dorinda

  • 13 The Rescue Operation @ 3:04, 4:06
  • 18 Dorinda's Solo Flight @ 0:40, 2:23
  • Spielberg/Williams track @ 0:58

Epic Jim Thatcher Horn Solo (resolution to Pete and Dorinda's theme)

  • 7 Among The Clouds @ 3:11
  • 18 Dorinda's Solo Flight @ 1:47
  • Spielberg/Williams track @ 2:19

 

Did I miss a theme, or a statement of one of these themes?

Thank you Jay for this thematic break-down. 

 

I have to say I have never really tried very hard to pinpoint the melodies in this particular score. I have always latched more onto the atmosphere on the music rather the the melodies even though I have identified the ones you mention as different thematic elements when listening, perhaps because the score doesn't sport such eminently hummable tunes that are the staple of most of Williams' scores.  Perhaps also partly because I have no connection to this movie, as I saw it once perhaps 20 years ago and wasn't too impressed, and thus I don't have the dramatic context for the themes, which I sometimes need for parts of a score to resonate with me. This is not to denigrate the score, which sports among other things those magnificent Jim Thatcher horn solos, but just a personal view on the matter.

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The movie is... Not anyone involved's best work. I never saw it until a month or so ago, and when it was over I was mostly left feeling like whatever Spielberg was trying to do, he didn't pull it off. 

 

John Goodman and Holly Hunter were great, but Richard Dreyfuss was kind of a jerk, and the guy playing the other mail lead was bland and I've never seen him in anything before or since, which is odd because one of Spielberg's greatest strengths is his eye for casting. 

 

The whole film feels a bit dreamy, like it's behind a wall and you're disconnected from what's happening, it's not visceral at all. This kind of lessens the stakes of the life and death circumstances in the film. I dunno. 

 

The good news is the liner notes for this release completely made me understand the film in a whole new way, and now if I watch it again I know I'll have a newfound respect for it (in fact I'd say I already do). I love when another person's essay can make you reevaluate a piece of media like that. 

 

As for the music and it's themes, I'd say they're a bit nebulous in their meaning. The one I ascribed to Pete and Dorinda is clearly a love theme, and Williams choosing to put two versions of a cue that consists of only that theme back to back in a track and calling it "Pete and Dorinda" kinda solidifies that. But the one I just ascribed to Pete, I dunno. Maybe it's actually considered the main theme? But it's used much less in the score than the love theme is, and I don't know if Pete is present in all the times it's used (I'll have to watch crumbs' videos again!). The theme I just ascribed to Dorinda I think is really like a "Dorinda is ready to move on now" type theme, since it literally only appears at the very end of the movie. 

 

And then it's interesting to note that both the end credits music in the film and the suite he made for the Spielberg/Williams album also feature the love theme more prominently than any other theme, which really makes me think of the love theme as the real main theme of the score. It's definitely the emotional core. I love its piano rendition in "intimate conversation", and the way it's backed by piano playing a countermelody at the start of "Pete and Dorinda"; that one reminds me a bit of A.I.'s piano work

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I think, I said it before, but Always seemed to me like Ghost version 0.1. Whatever Spielberg wanted to achieve with it was achieved better in Ghost. On the plus side, Always was there first and it had a Williams score. 

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