[Closed, Sink] Now Playing XXXVIII

UNEXCEPTABLE!!!!

You wanna know why C&C conversations are boring... the same arguments come up time and time again, personal attacks are then thrown around (it's enevitable) nothing gets resolved and then the topics goes back in hibernation until someone brings it up again and the ugliness begins again.

It's pointless. A never ending loop of Zzzzzzzzz....

-Erik-

Just to comment on your last point... yes, yes I can produce a better album Danny Elfman and/or John Williams. No doubt in my mind I can... and I actually have... not professionally mind you but there are dozens of John Williams and Danny Elfman produced album that I can turn into a much, much better listening experinece while at the same time keep the hard core film music nut happy.

-Erik-

The personal attacks are indeed incredibly annoying, but they should - ideally - be easily weeded out. If that had happened, I think a fruitful debate could be had that wasn't only about the same arguments being phrased over and over again, but rather delving deeper into the matter. If no reconciliation can ever be reached, at least it would make it easier to understand each other's viewpoint.

Yeah, I fixed my own sink too once. I'm convinced no plumber could have done it better.

I did my own Mona Lisa too, much better than the real deal.

Well - cheaper and with less bother might be the more useful ruler there.

But guys, please don't make me read another straw man reference to an album producer as being as essential to life and irreplaceable as your neurosurgeon or baker or financial planner or butcher or valet parker or whatnot. Next time you feel the impulse, recite them to yourselves and find a new argumentative device to flog to death. This is the new Hitler for me -- the first one to mention it loses the point. (Exercises in wit have some license to test this however.)

<insert Thor's horse-flogging argumentative device >

No you didn't. Don't let it!

-Erik-

Funny thing, though.....we never "question" an artist's right to present his artistic raw materials in any fashion he feels best represents his work when it comes to other types of art and reconceptualizations (film, paintings, literature, heck even 'absolute musics'). Yet when it comes to soundtrack presentations, somehow everyone gets to pick and choose and be their own artist out of the man's raw materials.

Album production is an artform. And I let the artist (whether the composer or the album producer) finish his presentation to me before I start evaluating it. I don't rush in, mid-production, to ask if I could please make some changes to it.

Sorry, I just don't buy it. I'll let the artist finish his presentation first. Then I start talking about whether I like it or not.

TABARLY (Yann Tiersen)

Lovely and typical, slightly minimalistic with lots of piano and stuff. I'm convinced that Tiersen is one of the most influential composers in the indie film score scene.

Wit is boring and "easy". Constructive debate is both fun and challenging!

If wit is so easy, I wouldn't mind you boring me with it a little more often. Your copy-pastes of posts might be fun for you, but they don't seem particularly challenging to churn out.

NP: Presumed Innocent (John Williams)

Erotic thrillers are interesting territory for a composer to jump into. While Jerry Goldsmith was summoning keyboard chills in Basic Instinct, and John Barry thrusting with ye olde saxophone in Body Heat, Williams' approach comes across a bit bombastic. Any erotic score where the French horn gets a healthy airing is probably not going for arousal first and foremost. Still there's much to appreciate here, centering on a theme that has to be good because he re-states it 50 times over the album. (In fairness to Willliams, the 'love scene' cue is violin-heavy and comes early -- much of the rest of the score hovers in regret as the affair leads to death and recriminiations. Hence the french horn, I guess.)

Surely a study of eroticism in film music is a must for the Kaplans in their increasingly rare podcasts. There's much to talk about. Horner's Jade. Desplat's Lust, Caution. You could even go back to the Golden Age (and earlier) and look at the films where the orgasm seems to be in the orchestra pit rather than onscreen. (Isham's Black Dahlia nicely references this device a couple of times.) There's a whole genre of Morricone scores devoted to this sort of thing.

Everything you said hit the nail right on the head, Alan. I was very disppointed to read about the thematic to textural score comment as well. And you are right... the score doesn't come to life until the last few tracks. And the comparision to the Lord of the Rings, no offense Mikael, is way off base. Sure, there are thick texture and choral music which could remind you on LOTR but is lacks heavily in the thematic department. This one will be featured on an up coming program so stay tuned... but I was overly impressed.

-Erik-

And yet, with the use of various lead instruments in various tracks it never, to me, feels that repetitive. And yes, it is outrageously beautiful.