MICHAEL GIACCHINO

Did you never see the original series then Ant?

But it's been repeated ad-infinitum even on the terrestrial channels! ( as little as a year ago in fact....age is NOT an excuse )

All I'll say is that the scores for TOS piss all over Next Generation, Deep Space 9, etc etc, though to be fair to the talented composers of those shows they were put under unreasonable restraints by producer Rick Berman who didn't want any militaristic sounds and insisted on "sonic wallpaper".

Not quite comparable, Star Trek TOS were self contained episodes and scored by numerous composers who gave each episode it's own identity ( though many later episodes re-used various score segments ).

As stand alone works many of them are every bit as comparable to LOST, though nothing in LOST compares to Gerard Fried's score for the episode 'Amok Time' IMO.

LOST is NOT the end all and be all of TV scoring, far from it.

Damn right you can count me in !

Nah; i am sure they will play the same game as with 3, release it on CD mid-way down the end of season 5 on tv.

When you start analyzing it bit by bit, it's actually quite insane. I assume you don't keep up with the Lost thread, but check out what I've been doing recently.

It's very strange watching the first two seasons (especially) of Lost again. There's lots of little bits of music I hear that I would put on a soundtrack if I were making one. I'm not too familiar with the first two soundtracks, but lo and behold 90% of the stuff on my wishlist is released. On all previous viewings of the show all these bits of music have just passed me by. Today's surprise was ''Proper Motivation'' from Hearts And Minds.

(And how over the top is the uber-monstery "Run Away! Run Away!"? I love it! )

Yes. Lost is easily the best episodic television music of the current day but compared with some of the stuff written for Star Trek... well, it's child's play.

Yup, but look when most of those scores were composed - at least 5 years ago (no so much the case with Tyler, but especially Powell!). Quite frankly, neither of those composers have written anything close to the standard of these for ages. Look at Giacchino - consistently churning out brilliant, brilliant music.

I think John Powell is pretty much at the top of his game now with the number of gigs he is getting, and Tyler - as good as he is - I don't feel has it in him to be one of the ''greats''.

These two composers are still within my top 5 favourites, but Giacchino takes the top spot. Just look at the amount of insanely good music he has written in a short space of time:

Medal Of Honor, Medal Of Honor Underground, Medal Of Honor Allied Assault, Medal Of Honor Frontline, Call Of Duty, Alias (5 seasons of some of the best action music ever!), Call Of Duty United Offensive, The Incredibles, Call Of Duty Finest Hour, Lost (4 seasons of total perfection so far, and 2 more to come I hope!), MI3, Ratatouille, Medal Of Honor Airborne, Turning Point and Speed Racer.

(And yes, that's simply his best that I've heard. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more.)

But would you say he's reached his peak?

I'd say no. I feel he is still capable of so much more, and we'll just have to wait a little longer to see it.

Exactly.

In all seriousness, when I think about the next Raiders or Empire Strikes Back coming along, I do see Giacchino's name in the credits.

Thus spake Anthony Nostradamus

It's great to see we both agree to put Giacchino, Powell and Tyler in our top 5, but I still feel more excited at the idea of ordering a new Powell CD than Giacchino. And I don't think Powell's standards of quality have gone down, either: "Horton Hears a Who" is just as masterful as any of those listed above, "Hancock" is also up to his actions standards, and "P.S. I Love You" proved he's getting MUCH better with romantic comedies (because I think he really didn't have the hang of it with "Two Weeks Notice" and "Forces of Nature" yet).

I think at this point it's just a matter of personal taste... I mean, I don't think anyone can argue that Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and Ennio Morricone are the true legends of their generations, right? Which one of the three happens to be your favourite is just a personal opinion. Probably the same might end up bring true of Giacchino/Tyler/Powell.

And, I'll have to ask for your eternal indulgence here, but so far, the two "Lost" releases bore me to tears. Maybe it doesn't help that I've never seen much of the show. I don't doubt there's good material in there... I probably just need to listen to it a lot more for the brilliance to sink it.

J-F

Now Anthony, as a Lost music expert, do you know if Matthew Abaddon has a theme / motif / musical identity? As much as I like Lost and its music, I have to admit I have plenty of difficulties identifying themes with characters (so keep doing your Lost episode by episode score analysis in your web ).