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What Is The Last Score You Listened To From 2022?


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FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE - JAMES NEWTON HOWARD

 

My second complete run-through and I can now safely say that it's my favourite from the franchise.

 

The more low-key approach entirely works for me (as I mentioned in the main thread, I adore Howard's softer noodly underscore stuff, and there's more than enough here to keep my interest). I can hear echoes of previous Howard fantasy efforts... there's some lovely Maleficent-esque material for instance, and some Raya And The Last Dragon in the opening of Kingdom Of Bhutan (and the closing half of that cue reminds me of Finding The Tail from Alive). Funny.

 

I'm so glad they released so much material from the score (as much as it irks some folk, bizarrely).

 

Solid 4/5 from me.

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Alex Heffes -- one of the most interesting composers of his generation (like his scores for THE FIRST GRADER, EARTH: ONE FINE DAY, HOPE GAP and THE ELEPHANT QUEEN, for example) -- releases this album of solo piano versions of his own themes, performed by himself. As with all solo piano "theme" albums of this kind, it eventually becomes a bit samey (as opposed to a proper solo piano concert work), but in smaller doses, the airy quality of them are very nice indeed. Album is out on Silva Screen May 6th.

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10 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Cool, I'll check it out.

 

I haven't heard a single good score from 2022.

 

I haven't discovered many that have made it into my collection yet either (which is the ultimate "approval" in my sampling process). There are some: THE GREAT - SEASON 2 (Nathan Barr), 1883 and REDEEMING LOVE (Brian Tyler) and OCCHIALI NERI (Arnaud Rebotini). The Tylers don't have a 'secure' place yet (need a few more listens and maybe a down-whittling). Currently writing a review of NERI. Listened to maybe some 50-60 so far, but the big offensive waits further down the road.

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Quote

 

OPERATION MINCEMEAT - THOMAS NEWMAN

 

First listen... it sounds exactly how I expected it would. But it's not bad.

 

Someone over at FSM says it sounds like a sequel to 1917 but I disagree. The music here is slightly more upbeat and hopeful than that one. It has more in common with the modern suspense sound he utilised in his Bond scores I think. Lots of ethereal synth and ticking percussive elements.

 

There's the odd spattering of typical Newman emotions, using his ubiquitous piano (and cello), such as in the rather lovely Last Lovely Golden Day.

 

 

Gave this another run through and it'll probably be the last. As much as I feel it's everything I expected it to be (which wasn't the highest of hopes), I'm disappointed that there isn't even a single cue that could at least be compilation worthy.

 

As is typical for Newman, too often a nice idea will appear that just doesn't develop enough for it to be interesting. The cello / piano-chord thing that first appears 52 secs into Last Lovely Golden Day sounds like the beginning of something lovely but then it's done before it even gets going.

 

Let's go back to his golden period...

 

Angels in America [Soundtrack] | Nonesuch Records - MP3 Downloads, Free  Streaming Music, Lyrics

 

His magnum opus. Please do something like this again, Tom. :(

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1 hour ago, crocodile said:

Quite pleasant. I'd say his most enjoyable in a while.

 

 

Karol

 

Ooh, thanks for the reminder! I've been looking forward to this as I've enjoyed his other DisneyNature scores.

 

EDIT:

 

I'm really enjoying this, it's mostly a very chilled (pun) and relaxing listen. Same sort of vibe as Alex Wurman's March Of The Penguins, which I love.

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My litany against badly curated soundtrack album continues, even if it's for a largely non-narrative, atmospheric affair like 'The Northman'. The music, if we want to call the elaborate soundscapes that, isn't entirely without interest, not unlike James Horner's 'Apocalypto', but 75 minutes of this desperately need a throughline. It's moody and fittingly archaic, though it certainly does nothing to soften my dismissing stance towards recent film music: current directors and Netflix executives might think that it ain't gonna get better than this, but alas, they're entirely wrong.

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Rather surprisingly for a Marvel series, this score with all its sturm and drang choral shouting and vigorous musical gestures could almost pass for a late 90's score.

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I just saw the film. Loved it, I had a very emotional day today, and this film was a small escape from that.
The music, as ways, is incredible. The film has some scenes set in the south of France and the music truly captures that. The ending is quite emotional but so so good.
It probably will be in my top scores of the year, but that's taking into consideration that the series/movies/music overall has meant a lot to me.

 

 

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ab67616d0000b273f6213474590adec7a88b3711

 

Beautiful score for the most part. Love the more laidback, melancholic Zimmer. A couple of tracks, though, that go nowhere, so might weed out those -- despite the very reasonable and laudable running time of 41 minutes. To be exact, it's really only one track - "Welcome to Jaworzno".

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Something that - on paper - should be intriguing, but so far the music just noodles around. Kinda pretty on the surface, but with little momentum. Bisceglia is a new acquaintance to me.

 

On too:

 

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Here's the weird thing with Isham. I didn't care for him much in the 90s and early 2000s. Found him a bit of a one-trick pony. Then around the mid 2000s, I started to like and explore his work in more detail - both old and new, due largely to the brilliance of CRASH. Now I have about 10 soundtracks of his that I enjoy. But ever since IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH in 2007, in my opinion his last fine score, I've been struggling to find noteworthy things. This is no exception, I'm afraid. Completely anonymous rhythmical figures. The film looks kinda fun, though. Heard some good things about it.

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AAARGH! I can't stand this. Endless screaming brass and over-the-top bombasticism for 80 fuckin' minutes! The few downkey moments aren't particularly interesting either. Danny, PLEASE! I'm a completist of yours, and it pains me to have to buy this irritating nonsense, or even put the free promos in my iTunes. For all that is holy, please take a break from mainstream blockbuster stuff and stick to the indies and more elegant, explorative things.

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Wow, I agree with Thor.....I LOVE Elfman for what he is, but the outsourced noisy scoring shit he does now, disappointing.

Which is why we need Nazih kicking the shit out of your Cumberbatches:

 

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gemJuAHPlT8

Welll, shut up, after listening to this

 

 

 

Man, the coolest show.

 

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Disappointing. Not the Son Lux I was hoping for at all (being a big fan of his scores for THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY and PAPER TOWNS). Lots of clanging, sudden bursts of dissonance and bizarro effects.

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I checked it out after reading this tweet (and the continuation in the thread where it's called this decade's Tron Legacy), but I can't see what's so good about it.

 

 

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It's about to start...

 

1904_everything_01.jpg

 

We literally have only one showing of this.

 

Hopefully, this will be stranger, more magical and mad than Multiverse of Madness. 🙂

 

Karol

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I second the praise above for John Lunn's Downton Abbey: A New Era. It's a very "conservative" score, hewing closely to the approach Lunn took for the TV series & first film, but beautifully crafted. A delight to listen to. Two highlight cues:

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Will said:

I second the praise above for John Lunn's Downton Abbey: A New Era. It's a very "conservative" score, hewing closely to the approach Lunn took for the TV series & first film, but beautifully crafted. A delight to listen to. 

 

I really wanted to like it, because I've enjoyed Lunn's music for the actual series (which I've never seen). Alas, it all came off rather empty to me. Quite far removed in quality from the series music, IMO.

 

20 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I checked it out after reading this tweet (and the continuation in the thread where it's called this decade's Tron Legacy), but I can't see what's so good about it.

 

What a ridiculous tweet. It's nothing remotely like TRON: LEGACY, neither in sound nor quality.

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Well, film scoring isn't like what it was. I like the Lunn stuff above, but it feels ephemeral.

 

The only good piece of scoring is, weirdly, from Giacchino - not a fan of the noise of the Jurassics, or the pixar scores, but this actually works

 

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Kinda mesmerizing score. Both the electronic bits and the more exotic instrumentation -- kinda new age, which is a great compliment. Morin impressed me with his score for THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER in 2010, but it's been a while since I heard anything from him. Good comeback!

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le-temps-des-secrets.jpg

 

Gosh, this is so classical, it's almost too much. Waltzes, swirling strings, piano. I know that Rombi has a devoted following, and I can get why. Doesn't get more old-school than this in this day and age, and in many ways that's a source of refreshment. Good score; into my collection it goes.

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I've never been thrilled with Kirkhope's orchestral work on videogames. The STAR WARS stuff and whatever. It's all very pappy and brickwalled. But here he tries his hands on synths, which is surprisingly good. Not sure if it's good enough to get into my collection, but close.

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ab67616d0000b2739af1b949d9db49232aff7a38

 

Yared has always been hit/miss to me, but here he churns out another good one again -- as he last did with A LIFE AHEAD two years ago. Elegant, reflective and a fun deconstruction of Beethoven's 9th to boot. Another one into my collection. Perfectly curated at 35 minutes.

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I've been an Orbital fan for like forever, and love their occasional excursions into film music. But this is nothing like, say, EVENT HORIZON or PUSHER. It's very scatterbrained, with lots of short ideas. Suitable for the skit-like show, I suppose, but doesn't gel very well on album; not as one consistent piece. Despite highlight tracks such as the funky "The Musk". I've watched a bit of the show on Netflix -- it's not very good. Mike Myers' broad and infantile humour (with incessant focus on the netherparts) worked in the 90s, I'm not sure it works that well in 2022. But the occasional smile and giggle here and there.

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:music: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The "chronological" presentation of the album definitely works better than what they released officially. It's interesting that the quotes of Giacchino theme are relegated exclusively to the first act. If you think about it, it does make some sense. The film explores several variants of Strange's darker side and the "superhero" theme doesn't quite fit the bill. Elfman's own material is certainly more fitting to address the character's duality - there's melancholy of the primary melody and the more "horrific" version (somewhat reminiscent of The Wolfman) that speaks to his dangerous arrogance and potential doom. The main phrase is, interestingly, quite similar to the opening of Wanda's theme as well which probably speaks to both characters' struggles with their inner darkness. As someone already pointed out, it is sometimes hard to say which is which and, I believe, this might be entirely intentional. After all, the two characters are linked in the film through their meddling with dark magic. The same segment of Wanda's material, intentionally or not, also echoes the B-section of her Slavic theme in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Finally, we have the lovely theme for America Chavez which is the true heart of the score. Since the two wizards are some consumed by their egos it is probably only natural the third theme is the first thing the listener will pick up.

 

And so everyone knows what I talk about, you can hear all the major themes in the main title (or main on end, to be exact):

 

Dark Strange  - 0:16

Light Strange - 0:39

America Chavez - 1:11

Wanda/Scarlet Witch - 1:55

 

 

Also, listen to one of my favourite tracks on the album which explores Strange's light and dark material nicely:

 

 

We also have some musical cameos, quite nicely done by Elfman. Captain America theme by Alan Silvestri appears twice, there's a nice nod to the animated X-Men theme and, best of all, WandaVision motif brilliantly segues into Wanda's theme in this cue:

 

 

Karol

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I still don't agree on the part 'a different theme was needed for the other versions of Strange'.

 

Elfman could've done a lot with Giacchino's theme. Look at what Karpman did in What If...?. She used his themes and made it darker. Elfman could've completely pulled the theme apart and made something out of that.

 

I truly think it's a brilliant score. But I don't get Elfman's comments when he did Justice League on keeping the original themes etc, and just almost enterily not use a pre-existing theme here.

 

It might of course be Raimi's or the producers choice, but still. I find it weird.

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My favorite score of 2022 is the Obi-Wan theme by John Towner Williams

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fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore.jpeg

 

Now that I've given it another full run through, I can safely say that this is my favourite of the three.

 

I prefer its more downbeat, patient and dramatic approach. Lots of noodly underscore - normally a criticism - but it's something Howard does so well. He has always been able to keep my interest with this shit.

 

Solid 4/5.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 27/05/2022 at 3:48 PM, LSH said:

 

fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore.jpeg

 

Now that I've given it another full run through, I can safely say that this is my favourite of the three.

 

I prefer its more downbeat, patient and dramatic approach. Lots of noodly underscore - normally a criticism - but it's something Howard does so well. He has always been able to keep my interest with this shit.

 

Solid 4/5.

I've been listening JNH's FB scores recently, and the third one is starting to grow on me.

 

The biggest problem with Secrets of Dumbledore is that most of its best moments are reprising themes and cues from the first two scores. This is a problem that also plagued the final Hunger Games score. 

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Michael Giacchino - Lightyear

 

Just had my first listen.  Overall, I liked it!  The themes for Buzz and Zorg are instantly memorable and catchy, and appear frequently with the ending suite giving them a good workout.

 

The album is a bit on the long side at 76 minutes, but there we many tracks that made me sit up and take notice especially around the middle section.

 

It's not really comparable to his other Pixar scores since those are all emotion-based and this is just action and adventure.  It's fun, though!

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Hacks: Season 1 - Carlos Rafael Rivera

 

It's for the 1st season, which released in 2021, but the album was released this friday.

It's only 15 minutes of score, but I really liked what Rivera did on a short album.

The themes for Deborah & Ava really are quite lovely and are but through a number of different variations.

It's nothing mind blowing, but I really liked it

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Charming romantic score, mostly for piano, synths, strings and guitar. It's a nice listen for 50 minutes, despite the short tracks. Recommended for Thomas Newman fans.

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