[Closed] Now Playing ( NON film / game / tv scores ) - Part III

Oh my, i am SO looking forward to the day MARTIJN will finally release a book!

It certainly is!
And it should have stayed there.



I already have a title:
By THUNDER!
Rants and musings to listen to Poledouris by



EXCELLENT choice, Sir.
I have suffered enough pain for the entire western hemisphere.

Wrestling might be best served in its own thread.

That is like saying what I heard in The Day the Earth Stood Still was music. There is music. There is music I don't understand. There is noise.

Well, I wouldn't call them poofy!

*Boris Karloff as Frankenstein* Limbs good goooooood......calling wrestlers poofs...bad baaaaaaad! *Boris Karloff as Frankenstein*

NP : THE KISS ( And Other Movements ) - Michael Nyman



Not the whole album, just Water Dances which along with his MGV is my all time favourite Nyman works, a friend once remarked, without knowing what the music was for, that it sounded like music to a documentary about Steam-Trains such as the Mallard doing it's 1930's record breaking 100mph+ run and that vivid image has always stuck with me while listening to this frantic, joyous and exhilarating work. Coincidentally, MGV is about the high speed French train.

Spartacus - Jeff Wayne

Wayne's 1992 "musical retelling" of the history of Spartacus' slave revolt was intended to make as big an impact as his seminal 1979 album The War Of The Worlds, but in spite of boasting much of the same production team as well as the vocal stylings of Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, this double CD has little memorable to offer.

And that's the main problem.
The production is a mess.

It plays like a (rather poor) musical, with just two or three interesting musical ideas scattered throughout the entire two-hour ordeal.

There are no memorable songs or even choruses.
There is however a truly insepid love song (For All Time, intended to be the 'hit single' much like Forever Autumn was for The War Of The Worlds).

A huge minus are the really, really jarring twists in tone, style, rhythm and sound throughout: as an example, a friend of mine commented on the -supposedly- apotheotic track Last Battle:"he switches from a driving, rhythmic, involving theme to eighties' game show music!".

Technically the project sound incredibly dated.
There are no orchestral parts (at least The War Of the Worlds featured a string section), and everything is done on synthesizer and sampler.
I wouldn't mind if Wayne had actually used a soundbank from later than 1982, but now it's like listening to a two-hour Jan Hammer performance! And unfortunately he's wayyyyyy too happy with his sampler, throwing sampled voices all over the place, appropriate or no.

Anthony Hopkins -sounding eerily like Richard Burton (not too odd: both are Welsh)- does a pretty mean Palpatine impression as Spartacus' Roman antagonist Marcus Crassus. It's not brilliant, but he does have the best lines, and he appears to be having a ball, so tat makes it enjoyable to listen to him.
Catherine Zeta-Jones has a fair singing voice, but her acting capabilities in this venture are rather cringe-inducing (though Wayne's script, having her swoon over every aspect of "her" Spartacus, doesn't help).

Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Fish (from the prog rock band Marillion) drop by for some ineffectual performances.

Ultimately this is very much a waste of talent and opportunity.
Wayne on the album credits thanks the "Wayne train" for all their hard work. Too bad it was pulled by the little engine that couldn't.

An overly generous 2/5 (mainly for the novelty concept.)

If I could have seen her I'm sure I wouldn't have been quite so harsh.
Beautiful woman.

In fact it's one of the best songs I've ever se...heard. With every ima...note, Catherine keeps me spellbound and glued to the scr... speaker. Wonderful performance, beautiful look...voice, splendid movem... rhythm.
Truly.
Life doesn't get better than this.
I just can't find enough nice things to say about her.


(Oh, hey! I just found out there's sound with this video too! )

'Ooooooooonnnnneeee daayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy moooooorrrrrrrrreeee!'

One day more
Another day, another destiny
This never ending road to Calvary
These men who seem to know my crime
Will surely come a second time!

One day more
I never lived until today!
How can I live when we are parted?

Arrrrrggggghhhh! You've started the song in my head again.

I'm glad that my brain doesn't have to become polluted with this stuff. Right now I'm listening to Leif Kayser, a danish composer and loving it.
Thomas

I'm having a listen to the first two symphonies of Beethoven transcribed for piano by Lizst. I like it

NP: These Streets ~ Paolo Nutini

What a voice!!! I love Last Request and Rewind.

...to be honest, I'm playing anything by Tchaikovsky at the moment. As passionate as I am about film music, my passion for Tchaikovsky easily equals it (and perhaps, at times, supersedes it. Perhaps).