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Talking of Vangelis...


NP : ANTARCTICA - Vangelis

The reason why is that I don't totally see why people end up getting off to his music, really. I can't agree for the utter praise he is getting all over the world for something ANYONE with decent education could do, really. There is nothing special and clever to his music. It's pure noise with no substance at all. The guy is treated like the next best thing and he has very underachieving scores for dramas and low-key thrillers (Brake was nice, but it totally slid over what ambient music can REALLY do and that after I got more into things like Brian Eno or Desiderii Marginis or even early Vangelis), The Killing Room was pretty decent. Columbus Circle is quite nice, but goes into the pitfalls of noisy action music in the long track (Exit Strategy? Exit something).

Clever use of melodies AND Rambo in one sentence. Which melodies do you mean? His faux-anthem for the action music? The ethnic dramatic Beyond Rangoon rip-off theme? Or the totally mishandled Goldsmith material? Clever use of melodies isn't really Tyler's forte, because structurally he is more like Goldsmith, who used one thematic center for the whole score than something really clever like what John Williams tends to do or Giacchino does today (in fact there is a hilarious Tyler vs. Giacchino opposition on our Polish forum). So he took the Goldsmithian structure without Goldsmith's ferocious understanding of the movie. Here's another thing that I have against Tyler and it's ironic to me that those same arguments hurled against Zimmer, which is true for his output only in last few years and that except Inception:

Brian Tyler does NOTHING at all to differ the movies he scores from each other. He stopped, with exceptions (you mentioned some of them - Brake, The Killing Room, but you missed out Columbus Circle, a movie which he actually produced), his fully-fledged development somewhere around Eagle Eye (my favorite Brian Tyler score, BTW). All the love for Modern Warfare 3 is so funny for me, because it is so derivative of his OWN work (especilly the aforementioned Eagle Eye) that I can't take it fully seriously. Also in that score (MW3) Tyler managed something I deemed impossible, his theme is much worse than the crap Hans wrote for part two. Yes, he did. His thematic material for MW3 is awful with the exception of the Russian Deliberations track. But, his scores sound the same and have sounded all the same for years. It's not just being self-derivative, it's just making things the lowest common denominators.

And if you ever wondered when did my hatred for Tyler's body of work start, it was a score you are in love with, actually. AVP: Requiem. To me it's utter shite and I'd have Tyler very fired from that one after hearing a single demo. Because it has NO substance at all. It's a nicely orchestrated nothing. That's what his music is for me and, really, the man himself. I think film music would be way better off without ever appearing Brian Tyler in it.

Pawel no amount of huge essay-like posts will save this dead-rotten argument Seems like he did something to you and you're getting it down to personal level, can't justify all this differently.

He didn't do anything personally wrong to me. I think he is a talentless hack who shouldn't get a job in the industry, that's all. And seeing all the love for him all over the world just drives me crazy. To me his music is dog shit struggling to smell better than what it really is. I love that Southall phrase, which was about Transformers: Prime (one of two-three cases where I didn't finish listening to an album in my whole life).

It did come from knowledge of 99% of his output and analysing it for a few reviews.

His what?

What are you onto? Your reaction only justifies my initial thoughts

Absolutely! Still, I wish I could drum like that! Looks fun to say the least.

I just went through basically all his career with some exceptions (Six-String Samurai, Final Destination scores, the fourth Fast and Furious) and I see total ripping off of whoever is in the temp-track (from Horner through Newman to Zimmer and Goldsmith), lack of any subtlety, no thought put into actually intelligently scoring a movie (resorting to the same tricks, not fully going into potential psychological details - I haven't seen the films, but even a Tyler fanboy reviewer on my site said that both Columbus Circle and Brake could have sounded better in their particular contexts, no intellectual construct at all, just banging his way into and out of the movie), nice orchestrations, but with endlessly messy construction that may be precise in a technical sense (his proficiency in orchestral writing is very pronounced, but there is no air to breathe and his soft reflective music refers to quite tired progression and electric guitar ramblings), but is completely NOT precise in any narrative sense, inabilty to create any sense of emotional intensity changes, it's all very extreme.

Then I get to forums and see that people are all over his material, maybe some are critical about his recent body of work. What changed? From ripping off Goldsmith he went to rip off Zimmer (not just his early anthems, Battle: LA is LARGELY a Batman Begins redux in terms of the general construct, all the ostinati are there). Tyler as a person did nothing to me, I actually exchanged messages with him after Eagle Eye and he was a very nice guy, but if film music is about people who are nice, love their job and can write for an orchestra, then sorry, I prefer the sole piano player and asshole Bernard Herrmann over him any time. The guy can't write a decent theme if his ass depended on it (yes, I know I am quoting Alfred Newman's assessment of Herrmann here), he can't play with the intensity of the music, but constantly bangs at the highest possible, can't actually intelligently use his homages and references, proven by his total misunderstanding of the Goldsmith material in Rambo (pity I didn't write my review of the score AFTER I intimately analyzed the Goldsmith scores about a year ago). And he is heralded as one of the biggest talents in the industry. No, he is not one of the biggest talents in the industry. He is a hack who is a nice guy and his only redeeming quality except his character and orchestrations is that he looks pretty.

So yes. I think that film music would be much better without Brian Tyler being a part of this beautiful genre of music.

Way too much to even bother reading.

This whole notion of Tyler not having any talent is utterly ridiculous. I personally don't like a lot of his music and he's far from being a good melodist but he's not devoid of talent. And that's a fact!

-Erik-

I don't think anyone, and i mean it, ANYONE working in film music worldwide is there without talent and without working their asses off to get where they are, each in his area. That we like their work or is a wholly different and completely irrelevant matter. A personal opinion and our own exclusive view.

Who said Djawadi or Jablonsky don't have talents? Or anyone else for the matter? Read my above post. And it's not a matter who's best than the 'x' composer etc, that's totally fanboyish and irrelevant as a debate. Everyone is there for a reason and because obviously they are good at what they do whether you or me or anyone else likes it or not.

And because some douche calls your favorite composer (and his camp) talentless hacks you have to fall on their level and call exactly the same someone else? It's pathetic. Stop it my friend. End of discussion of my part...

Did you know the "Hawaii 5-0" theme had lyrics?


I'm listen to, at this very moment, the syndicated national radio show Handel on the Law and an older-sounding lady named Hermine (my guess at spelling) says she wrote lyrics for the theme (which I guess were never used in the show, as I never recall hearing it) and just found out not too long ago it's been recorded and been a big seller overseas, but she never got paid for it.

She said the lyrics were owned by EMI, and that Columbia owned the music.

The name of the the song, according ot her, is: "Hawaii 5-0 Theme - You Can Count on Me"

She specifically says Sammy Davis sings a version using her lyrics, so I went hunting and found it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn06KJNbVEs


You can hunt around, various stations play it at different times, and many reply the show on Sunday's, too -- so you can still get to hear it.