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Words that you don't want to hear when music is described


GerateWohl

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As I recently again for the hundredth time heard the Star Wars main title described as an "iconic theme" I thought, please don't use that word "iconic" anymore. It is so overused and lost its flavour. And there are so many other words, that could be used for such a context like"famous" or "divine" or "brillant". The english language has so many words. No need to stick to the same 3 adjectives all the time.

So, I react a little allergic on that term "iconic".

Are there words that you don't like (anymore) to be used at describing music?

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Indy Five:

 

A fresh and surprisingly experimental JW score with ear-splitting brass statements of the iconic Raiders March and epic new Villian theme, a theme for the central macguffin utilizing extreme dissonance and oppressive choir, droning didgeridoo for the Australia sequence, and abstract orchestral sound effects for the opera sequence.

7 hours ago, Edmilson said:

If I'm reading a film music review, these are some of the adjetives that make sure I'll never listen to the reviewed album:

 

"experimental"

 

"fresh"

 

"droning"

 

"oppressive"

 

"extreme dissonance"

 

"abstract sound effects"

 

"ear-splitting"

 

AKA: Every contemporary horror score for the past 10 years or so.

 

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Essential

 

Orchestral

 

52 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

If I'm reading a film music review, these are some of the adjetives that make sure I'll never listen to the reviewed album:

 

....

 

AKA: Every contemporary horror score for the past 10 years or so.

 

Mine and your tastes have some difererences.... :lol:

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8 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Mine and your tastes have some difererences.... :lol:

Believe me, I'm not talking about Zimmer, but rather about those extremely harsh horror scores that have become the norm in Hollywood. Stuff like Hereditary, Midsommar, A Quiet Place, everything written by Joseph Bishara, etc. 

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I wasn't talking about Zimmer either :)

 

I have Bishara's two Annabelle scores plus another one of his and over a dozen other horror scores that definitely fit exactly the category you mean. There's also bigger stuff like Gravity, the Purge scores and the two most recent Alien scores that I really like.

 

Didn't get into Beltrami's Quiet Place scores... might give them another go.

 

Pretty much, if there's a found footage or horror movie that primarily uses drones or textural music, chances are I'm going to like it. Hence I innocently meant that mine and your tastes (and let's be honest, most of JWFan's) just aren't really the same.

 

If you want a horror score that'll really piss you off, take a peek at Wallfish's The Invisible Man. Even I get a little turned off by the harshness occassionally.

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36 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

If you want a horror score that'll really piss you off, take a peek at Wallfish's The Invisible Man. Even I get a little turned off by the harshness occassionally.

I like parts of Wallfisch's It 1 and 2 scores. They definetly have some of the characteristics that I described, but also include some pretty good themes, moments of gothic horror with Chris Young-like choir (The Ritual of Chüd), cool action tracks (Welcome To The Losers Club) and touching emotional moments (Stan's Letter).

 

The very very long albums are a problem, though, so the best thing to do is to create a playlist of the best cues of each score.

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On 19/10/2022 at 8:47 PM, Marian Schedenig said:

EPIC!!!111

 

To clarify: I like good epic music. But the word is frequently used as a measure of quality these days, when it really isn't - worse than that, music that's supposed to be epic but isn't good also implicitly fails to be epic.

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23 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

You don't like bands, do you?

 

In non-soundtrack terms I'm primarily talking about when one artist collaborates with another (i.e. feat. ABC) and you're only a fan of the primary artist or you don't like the featured one. Dua Lipa does a lot of this, and in one case ('No Lie') I edited her vocals into an instrumental as I couldn't stand the guy who sang the other bits.

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1 hour ago, Holko said:

Listening experience

The Mattessino expanded Star Wars prequels are a great listening experience

1 hour ago, Holko said:

Listening experience

OST

is

Enough

 

 

;)

On a serious note:

 

"Electronics"

 

Not because hearing it makes me not want to hear the music, but because it is inaccurate.

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Thread should be retitled to specify film scores - there's nothing wrong with calling a song a song if it is indeed a song. But I agree that the word epic has lost all meaning in score discussion. It used to mean something, and it was the only way to describe something like "Duel of the Fates" or a large portion of Shore's LOTR.

 

How about some words that we should hear more of when describing film music? I'll start:

 

Sublime

Incandescent

Luminous

Rhapsodic

Sonorous

 

Feeble

Turgid

Guileless

 

Or how about some from Williams' own sesquipedalian vocabulary? I've always loved his use of cornucopia in interviews, it's a word that perfectly describes some of his most ambitious scores with themes aplenty.

 

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48 minutes ago, Docteur Qui said:

 

 

How about some words that we should hear more of when describing film music? I'll start:

 

Sublime

 

 

I swear I have heard it before.

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