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This here thread is for discussing film music and scores in depth, including composers, with a primary focus on new and upcoming film scores and soundtracks. THREAD RULES: 1. All SA/CD rules apply. No  in any shape or form. Links to Youtube clips and legal streams are A-OK, as long as the links are tagged. 2. This is NOT a PYF thread. Try and post about something that's at least relevant to music in new and upcoming films. 3. FILM music only. Don't post about video game music or TV music unless it's somehow relevant. In any case, don't discuss it at length, let's avoid derails. 4. Film MUSIC only. Don't review the movies here, there are other threads for discussing that stuff. For best effect, think of this thread as the music equivalent of the Movie Poster Thread.
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Dec 3, 2012 07:33
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:48 |
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I'll start this off by praising Howard Shore's upcoming score for the new Hobbit film. I was dead set with Zimmer's The Dark Knight Rises score as my choice of best of 2012 but I think Shore's outdoes it by a mile. Dude scored the hell out of the LOTR movies and keeps doing just that with The Hobbit. Some excellent nods to his previous scores in this too. You can listen to it here and I recommend you do. That said, it's taking me a while still to warm up to the Neil Finn song. I'm having a hard time getting over how folksy it sounds. The melody is fantastic though and serves as the "Fellowship" theme of this film. As for worst of the year I'll have to go with James Horner's score for The Amazing Spider-Man. I've said it some other thread, but Horner really is a three-trick pony. He only has a few styles he falls back on every time. His Aliens score, his Braveheart score and his tribal style Apocalypto/Avatar scores. Yet with TASM he provides the film with nothing but generic cues which fall completely flat and fail to be memorable in the least. I know it's Horner, but the source material is pretty ripe for good music; just look at what Danny Elfman did with Raimi's Spider-Man films.
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Dec 3, 2012 07:42
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I agree to a point that Zimmer has a recognizable style which can sound synthesized, but there was some craft to the DKR score just like there was in the score for TDK; in the latter Zimmer created a really unique sound for the Joker character (evident in the opening track, "Why So Serious?") and in DKR he does the same for Bane with the "Basara Deshi" chant. Indeed the highlights of the score are the things to do with Bane, "Imagine the Fire" being the most notable one. It's very bombastic but it works in the context of the film. The points where the score does fall flat a bit are the more quiet and tender moments relating to Bruce Wayne; there are nods to previous scores with the two note theme very evident in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but in TDKR it's played very weakly almost to signify Wayne's physical weakness due to being out of the game for so long. It's pretty blatant and doesn't cause much of an effect. James Newton Howard dropping out worked largely in favor of the film I think. He's a fantastic composer (the things he did with M. Night Shyamalan stand out in particular) and while his contribution certainly shines through in both the Batman scores he worked on, I felt his and Zimmer's styles didn't mesh all that well in the end. ComposerGuy posted:edit: On another note, awesome idea for a thread, OP! I'd thought about making one in the past but didn't know if it would get any traction.  I hope this takes off though. I got Professor Clumsy's permission to post this in CD with the condition that it won't become a PYF thread.
Stare-Out fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 08:11
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ComposerGuy posted:I should mention that I absolutely detest what Zimmer has done with film music over the last 10 years or so, so I immediately approach everything he does with that at the front of my brain. He's much more of a "product" in my mind then anything else, especially when dissecting the work of his disciples, most of whom are completely interchangeable (a notable exception being John Powell, who broke away and starting doing MARVELOUS things). I do agree that a large majority of Zimmer's Media Ventures disciples (Gregson-Williams, Balfe etc.) sound very much like toned down Zimmers. Reznor and Atticus Ross have yet to win me over; The Social Network score was a total bore (not that I cared for the film either) and the score for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo only worked in the context of the film but utterly fails to stand on its own. TrixRabbi posted:I think I've mentioned this on the forums before, but does anyone else see a similarity between the score for Lawrence of Arabia, and the score for Starcrash? 
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Dec 3, 2012 08:25
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ComposerGuy posted:I actually liked Zimmer's first Sherlock Holmes score, if that helps. Thought it was creative. On another note, I noticed recently that there was a new release of Elliot Goldenthal's Alien 3 score, dubbed "The Complete Score" with 40+ tracks. Being my favorite Alien score of all time, I only own the 14 track version and I'd love to get my hands on the complete one, but Amazon isn't helping. I think there was also a complete version of Basil Poledouris' Starship Troopers score but I haven't been able to track that one down either, anyone know where I might get those?
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Dec 3, 2012 09:21
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Found Goldenthal's Alien 3 Complete Score on eBay but it's gone.  I'm giving it a listen on Last.fm and it's pretty spectacular. I can't believe it's not in iTunes or something. Also how has he not done anything since The Tempest? How was that score?
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Dec 3, 2012 14:35
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Shore tends to shine in whatever movie he composes for (the scores for both Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs are amazing and easily some of my favorite film music of all time) but when he does stuff for anything Tolkien it's pretty much out of this world, mostly because he loves scoring Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and it comes through. Whatever you think of Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, the scores do more than just stand on their own out of context and if you enjoy orchestrated classical music or film music it's highly recommended you check them out. Shore's score for Cosmopolis, and any Cronenberg movie he scores, is very appropriate but feels really subdued though that's probably intentional. With The Hobbit there's a real sense of him being allowed total freedom to score the hell out of that movie and that's exactly what he does, as he did with the LotR trilogy.
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Dec 3, 2012 15:02
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While I agree to a point that the "Williams" style scoring might very well be dying out, we still have John Williams.  And on that note, his Lincoln score is really good; it's like the scores for Saving Private Ryan and Amistad had a secret lovechild. It's Williams largely in his comfort zone apart from a couple of notable tracks which feature period tunes with fiddles and spoons(!). I haven't experienced it in the context of the movie but it's Williams so I doubt there'll be many surprises as to whether or not it works with the movie. Still, it's kind of a bummer that he hasn't done anything particularly out of character for a while now; Catch Me If You Can had a score which was light, jazzy and awesome and Munich's "Encounter in London and Bomb Malfunctions" is goddamn masterful and I'd hardly recognize it as Williams if it weren't for a few brief moments I'm sure are easy to pick out. Whenever this track plays on my iPod I get an urge to look over my shoulder in case someone's following me or something.  Darko posted:Poledouris is awesome because
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Dec 4, 2012 08:20
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haakman posted:James Horner's 'danger cue!' fucks me off so much. You know the one. Four quick notes, usually brass. It's played lots in Troy (probably due to time constraints, I understand he was drafted in pretty late after the previous score, despite being quite beautiful in places, was scrapped) and makes an appearance in Avatar, specifically "the destruction of Hometree". Lazy, lazy writing.
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Dec 4, 2012 13:44
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Fatkraken posted:The movie I saw most recently where the soundtrack REALLY stuck in my mind was Sunshine, the Danny Boyle sci-fi/horror movie. The sound design overall was really special, with the creaks, groans and murmurings of the space ship forming a constant ambient backdrop and often incorporated into the score. You can hear a bit of that at the start of this piece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFvX1a7Yxh4. The scoring in Sunshine reminds me a bit of how the Truman Show was scored, where they used a lot of pre-existing Philip Glass pieces and only had new original music for a few scenes. The music is more standalone and is chosen to match the mood rather than being a beat for beat match to an action scene.
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Dec 4, 2012 16:08
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Maxwell Lord posted:I really want to track down a version of the Fellowship score with the actual opening cue. It always bugs me when soundtracks on CD are "off" from what's in the movie- they'll often miss out my favorite part. And speaking of things left out of the actual albums, there's a cue in King Kong which plays during the whole giant insect scene that's incredibly haunting and creepy, but completely absent from the album, which sucks.
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Dec 7, 2012 07:08
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Darko posted:I'm going to admit that I don't really like the LOTR scores at all.
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Dec 7, 2012 16:32
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 2013 OSCAR NOMINEES FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Anna Karenina - Dario Marianelli Argo - Alexandre Desplat Life of Pi - Mychael Danna Lincoln - John Williams Skyfall - Thomas Newman Nothing for Howard Shore's The Hobbit. gently caress me.
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Jan 10, 2013 14:49
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The only nominee on that list I've listened through is Williams' Lincoln score and I felt it was a tad underwhelming, frankly. Granted, I haven't seen... actually any of the films on that list (I know, I know) but out of context Lincoln's score felt slightly boring. Then again I felt the same way about Amistad's score and that one really works with the film. Does Newman's Skyfall score have his trademark "quirky banjo" bit?
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Jan 10, 2013 16:26
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So Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" score won a Grammy yesterday, beating such scores as Williams' "Tintin" score, Zimmer's "The Dark Knight Rises" and Austin Wintory's "Journey" score (the first video game score ever to be nominated in the category) but aside from my personal views on the particular score, what puzzles me is how a score from 2011 won or was indeed even nominated when every other entry was from 2012 as one might expect, seeing as how it was the 2013 Grammy awards. Any reasoning behind that?
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Feb 11, 2013 21:45
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The score came out in December 2011. I forgot Tintin was a 2011 movie, but the score for that was released in October of 2011. Guess the Grammys do have some weird rules or something.
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Feb 12, 2013 02:51
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ComposerGuy posted:My rage was actually physically manifest. You could touch it, it was so vivid.  I so wanted Journey to win. But this isn't the video game score thread. Earlier I heard something about a complete version of Zimmer/Gerrard's score for "Gladiator" floating around. Is that official and if so, how can I get my hands on it? I've been listening to the original score today and it's still really good.
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Feb 12, 2013 05:33
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The Cameo posted:The Grammys have a very weird eligibility period for their years - it's stuff between October 1st and September 30th for whatever reason. ComposerGuy posted:There's some unofficial bootlegs of the whole shebang floating about on the net, but I haven't heard of any "official" offerings.
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Feb 12, 2013 05:45
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Hewlett posted:Goldenthal's work is always fantastic - he locks down that amazing Gothic sound so well. It really makes me wish he did more scores nowadays, rather than just for his partner Julie Taymor. His score for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is actually one of my favorite scores ever:
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Feb 12, 2013 14:35
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I do enjoy the TAOJJBTCRF score as its own entity, but slightly less so in the context of the film, it feels a little bit too on the nose at times. As for The Road, despite having watched it again not even a week ago, I still can't remember a single thing about the music in it, which I suppose is a good thing and the complete opposite of "Jesse James" because apparently it works well enough to give a tangible sense of dread and foreboding about the whole package.
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Feb 19, 2013 06:02
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The thing I like about Ottman is that he has a very recognizable style that's been evolving a lot over the years. Though personally I don't think he's yet surpassed what he did in The Usual Suspects, his take on the late Michael Kamen's X-Men theme was fantastic in X2.
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Mar 7, 2013 12:01
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Apparently Ottman is editing Days of the Future Past which makes sense as it's a Singer flick but there's no word whether or not he's scoring it too. I hope that's the case; First Class had a pretty by-the-numbers score by Henry Jackman and it would be nice to get some of that X2 style back. That said, the score was probably the best part of X-Men 3 by a mile so I wouldn't mind getting John Powell back either. On another note, I finally had the chance to see Lincoln the other day and while Williams' score works well for it, in the end I felt it was slightly lackluster. A lot of his scores work remarkably well out of the context of the film in the sense that you can just sit down and listen to them, but I didn't get that vibe with Lincoln. I don't think that's happened to me with a Williams score since Amistad.
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Mar 16, 2013 00:10
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Out of the blue, the 20th anniversary edition of the Jurassic Park soundtrack has 4 unreleased tracks! (iTunes link) Even the Mr. DNA theme. 
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Mar 27, 2013 09:41
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Hewlett posted:The Oblivion soundtrack is now streaming in full here: http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/04/listen-to-m83s-soundtrack-for-tom-cruise-sci-fi-film-oblivion/ E: I had this on a loop while doing some housework today and it's definitely growing on me. At its worst it drops to generic Two Steps from Hell territory of "epic" but it's more atmospheric than I first thought, especially towards the end when it slows down significantly. It's quite uneven in that sense but carries its weight nonetheless. I like it. Stare-Out fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Apr 12, 2013 |
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Apr 6, 2013 23:43
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Mansell is a bit of a strange fish to me; I can't stand the Requiem for a Dream score (for which he's probably the most known) and Smoking Aces was really hit/miss but his Moon score is excellent and The Fountain is up there as one of my favorite scores of all time. His work on Mass Effect 3 was pretty decent as well. I can't remember anything about the music in The Black Swan though.
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May 3, 2013 21:32
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Now that I think about it, I don't think I've particularly cared for any Williams scores since... Munich? I mean that score was terrific but ever since that it hasn't been quite as great. I've listened to everything he's done since but I honestly can't remember anything about Tintin or Crystal Skull for instance. I'm sure they were good and all but clearly lacked something.
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May 9, 2013 19:51
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Darko posted:'You are the Pan' is one of my top-played Williams tracks: One composer I tend to bring up a lot whose work has been steadily excellent and very varied is Howard Shore. Everything from the stuff he did with Cronenberg to Silence of the Lambs and Seven, all the way to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit has been superb. That he can do stuff like this in Seven and go on to score the gently caress out of a movie in The Return of the King always amazes me. It always seems to me that he comes very close but never loses his style despite his range.
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May 9, 2013 21:43
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Darko posted:I refuse to ever put any Horner on anything anymore, but actually, "War" from Avatar doesn't sound that bad.
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May 10, 2013 17:39
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Hewlett posted:I'm falling more in love with Brian Tyler, who's quickly turning into the new Lalo Schifrin:
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Jun 3, 2013 20:55
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Fatkraken posted:I really liked the soundtrack to the new Star Trek movie, and looking it up it seems Michael Giacchino has done a shitload of work that I really liked, including a bunch of JJ Abrams TV shows and a handful of Pixar movies including Up and Ratatouille. Seems pretty versatile, I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the future.
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Jun 7, 2013 19:59
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I have yet to listen to the Iron Man 3 and Star Trek scores, but I did go through Clint Mansell's "Stoker" score, Zimmer's "The Man Of Steel" score and the Zimmer/Balfe/Gerard score for "The Bible". "Stoker" felt very subdued and didn't really build up to anything as its own thing, generally Mansell's scores have had some kind of intense and climactic ending to them but not this one. "The Man Of Steel" is tremendously by-the-numbers and generic and the main theme completely failed to grab me while "The Bible" was, unsurprisingly, like "Gladiator" with all the good bits removed and replaced with just soulless (hah) fluff. And this is coming from someone who digs the hell out of Zimmer.
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Jun 11, 2013 14:02
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ComposerGuy posted:I was thinking about 80s movie themes the other day and realized that my favorite isn't actually a Williams theme...its Silvestri. I don't know what it is, but something about the theme from Back to the Future just makes it the definitive "80's Film" theme in my mind. He really nailed that one.
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Jun 11, 2013 15:10
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Vegetable posted:If anyone is looking for a new soundtrack, Cloud Atlas is gorgeous. The Atlas March and its reprise in the final two tracks (Finale and End Title) are two of the best tracks I've heard in a while.
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Jul 4, 2013 15:03
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Boy, Zimmer's disappointing me something fierce lately. First the remarkably bland "Gladiator-lite" of "The Bible", the utterly unforgettable "Man of Steel" and now "The Lone Ranger" which is like "PotC: The Dead Man's Chest" without the charm. It tries to be interesting towards the end by taking the William Tell Overture and doing some "things" with it but kinda fails at that. Guess I'll just wait and see if he returns to form with "Interstellar", whenever that comes out.
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Jul 6, 2013 16:01
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I have to agree with pretty much all of that, despite never having the chance to check out the extended score. I recently got some Williams compilation album that has some of his most famous work on it and there are two tracks from the Home Alone movies which reminded me how awesome those scores are. Also helps that I used to watch both movies every Christmas as a kid so the music very much encapsulates the whole season for me, even more so than actual Christmas songs.
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Jul 11, 2013 02:14
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Honestly, the only works of Michael Kamen I'm familiar with are Band of Brothers, the first X-Men movie and the orchestrated concert he did with Metallica. Band of Brothers has great music in it and Kamen is responsible for the X-Men "theme" that John Ottman did some great things with in X2. I can't for the life of me remember the music from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood or From The Earth to the Moon though.
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Aug 12, 2013 14:10
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Darko posted:The Robin Hood theme was used in, like, 50% of trailers in the 90s (with Shawshank being the other half), so you should know it, actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Edkb2Qo9c And thanks to the link you posted, I now remember I have heard the Robin Hood theme in a few trailers but I think the most-used theme in trailers goes hands-down to Zimmer's "Backdraft" theme (2:55 onwards). That poo poo was everywhere in the 90's.
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Aug 12, 2013 14:53
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Darko posted:Yeah, I phrased that completely wrong, hah. I meant, "in later years" and meant to compare it to people that fell off a cliff. Kamen was weird in that he only did a couple of good scores, but the ones he did stood out greatly.
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Aug 12, 2013 15:33
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That's kind of surprising. Aside from Carmina Burana and Aliens, I honestly can't really remember any of those in any trailers I've seen. I'm sure I've come across them but still can't think of any. "Sea of Love" is a bit of a puzzle too, yeah.
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Aug 12, 2013 15:55
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:48 |
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It seems like more and more trailers for films are using music from their own scores now, which is nice. I mean, when it's not Immediate Music or Two Steps From Hell or something. Seven Years in Tibet has a terrific Williams score and man, what a missed opportunity to not use that for the trailers. 20th Century Fox, funnily enough, has recently used John Murphy's music from "Sunshine" a whole bunch in its trailers. It's funny because Murphy had to fight like hell to get the Sunshine score released and even released a "private" version of the score on his own. I think it took like two or three years for the score to get an "official" release.
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Aug 12, 2013 16:40
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