The Official Top 10 Lists Thread

Aaaaaaand we're off!

I would comment, but it's WAY too off topic, even though the irony of completely devastating a thread specifically dedicated to Jordi is VERY appealing to me!

I've got tons about this to say and comment on (the many ways I disagree with all that Stevie has said before ), but, as Martijn said, this indeed isn't the topic to do so

I liked your last signature over at SR

Wood.....paper....pile it on

Yep. Couldn't agree more!

H. L. Mencken: "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."

Oh, and deaths in the Bible:

God - 2,270,365

Satan - 10

Interestingly, I'm finding lists more and more exciting these days -- probably because of the lack of any real MUSICAL discussions in the film music forums on the interwebz. When LISTS are better than most everything else, you know that things have changed!

In any case, since my unaired podcast about film music never got off the ground, I thought I could present the Top 10 soundtrack ALBUMS that were featued in that. It's been a while since we did a good 'ol Top 10, so let's see if things have changed.

Here's mine:

1. JURASSIC PARK (John Williams)
2. STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI (John Williams)
3. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (Danny Elfman)
4. EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (Danny Elfman)
5. BEYOND RANGOON (Hans Zimmer)
6. JANE EYRE (John Williams)
7. THE ABYSS (Alan Silvestri)
8. ALIEN 3 (Elliot Goldenthal)
9. BLADE RUNNER (Vangelis)
10. WATERWORLD (James Newton Howard)

I actually rather like lists...provided they contain some comments on WHY any item is at the rank it is placed at.
Otherwise it's just a summing-up topic that means positively nothing to anyone except the list maker.
Which seems a tad onanistic.

There are quite a few other contenders from the likes of John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Maurice Jarre, more Barry & Goldsmith etc etc, without keeping some kind of supergeeky dweeb chart it's impossible to really know what's been played most.

Here we go (one per franchise; one per composer):

1. Star Wars - Return of the Jedi (John Williams)
2. Star Trek - TMP (Jerry Goldsmith)
3. Chariots of Fire (Vangelis)
4. The Mission (Ennio Morricone)
5. Quo Vadis (Miklos Rozsa)
6. Batman (Danny Elfman)
7. The Black Hole (John Barry)
8. Das Boot (Klaus Doldinger)
9. Dune (ToTo)
10. Titanic (James Horner)
11. Robin of Sherwood (Clannad)
12. Robin Hood (Erich Wolfgang Korngold)
13. Gone With the Wind (Max Steiner)
14. Battlestar Galactica - Saga of a Star World (Stu Phillips)
15. Doctor Zhivago (Maurice Jarre)
16. Murder She Said (Ron Goodwin)
17. Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within (Elliot Goldenthal)
18. Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris)
19. Godzilla (David Arnold)
20. A World Apart (Hans Zimmer)

Sacrilege! You broke the Holy Rule of 10!

I wouldn't say that they are 'flawed', but they're usually dynamic. The list I gave above was one I assembled in November last year. It still more or less holds, but in a while there might be new additions and other titles falling off -- except for the first few, which seem to have a very stable position on top. That's how it should be, IMO.

I do think lists without back-up arguments can have a value in the sense that it's just a matter of charting. But I agree that reasons are always good. The aforementioned unaired podcast gave long reasons for each entry, but damn if I can be bothered to transcribe all of it!

I don't consider favorites lists to mean nothing to readers; lists can offer miniature portraits of members' musical tastes. Patterns can emerge to inform readers of contrasts and commonalities amongst us posters.
We can even "sense" how close an individual's perspective can approach one's own aesthetics, or - conversely - how opposite we can be.

Indeed, if a list is to be deemed as meaning nothing, then its meaninglessness is due more (I think) to all those soundtracks and composers whose music we love being excluded from such a short list of 10 entries.
I wish I could include Toru Takemitsu music plus a Stanley Myers title as well as hundreds of others, but for one reason or another a lot of these folks don't have a proper soundtrack album to represent their fine contributions to cinema.

Here, then, is my Top 10 soundtrack albums - for whatever it's worth.

1. THE ILLUSTRATED MAN - those aspects of Jerry Goldsmith's music which I like most are all present in this score
2. L'IMPRECATEUR - this score comes from Richard Rodney Bennett's 'modernist' facet
3. FANTASTIC VOYAGE - a high concept music score by Leonard Rosenman, judiciously spotted
4. THE MECHANIC - this zenith of Jerry Fielding's contribution to cinema is a distillation of his overall artistic aesthetic
5. AFRICA - a symphony for a continent by Alex North (for a television special program)
6. LADY IN A CAGE - perhaps the finest specimen of dodecaphonic techniques in film, courtesy Paul Glass
7. SUMMER AND SMOKE - Elmer Bernstein's singular impressionistic masterpiece
8. LES BICHES - seductive & intoxicating music by Pierre Jansen, whose collaborations with director Claude Chabrol are my favorite within French cinema
9. IL FARO IN CAPO AL MONDO - Piero Piccioni's enchanting serpentine themes waft along and into each other in this most impressionistic of scores
10. DANTON - Jean Prodromides molds multiple art music movements (sonorism, serial, avant-garde choral effects, etc.) into a cohesive, though dense, whole. Extraordinary.

I don't agree with your 3rd and 7th choices. The rest seems perfectly reasonable.