Reflecting on 2009's scores

A brief list of scores I've particularly enjoyed in 2009:

Assassin's Creed II - Jesper Kyd
Desert Flower - Martin Todsharow
Drag Me To Hell - Christopher Young
Home - Armand Amar
Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times - Earl Rose
Knowing - Marco Beltrami
Men Who Hate Women - Jacob Groth
No-Do - Alfons Corde
Quelque Chose à Te Dire - Jacques Davidovici
Red Riding - Adrian Johnston / Dickon Hinchliffe / Barrington Pheloung
A Single Man - Abel Korzeniowski
Star Trek - Michael Giacchino
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - Mychael Danna & Jeff Danna
The Triumphant General Rouge - Naoki Sato
Torchwood: Children of Earth - Ben Foster
Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen - Steve Jablonsky

...with maybe one or two more.

And re-releases out in 2009:

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad - Bernard Herrmann (Prometheus Records)
Dr. Kildare - Jerry Goldsmith / Harry Sukman / et al (FSM)
Freud - Jerry Goldsmith (Varese Sarabande CD Club)
Vladimir Cosma Box Set (Larghetto Music)
Défense de Savoir - Bruno Coulais (Digitmovies)
Nightwing - Henry Mancini (Varese Sarabande CD Club)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - James Horner (Retrograde/FSM)
Thérèse: The Story of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux - Sister Marie Thérèse Sokol (Luke Films)
True Blood - Nathan Barr

Biggest re-release disappointments (not meeting my expectations):

A Girl Named Tamiko - Elmer Bernstein
Winterhawk - Lee Holdridge
The China Syndrome - Michael Small
Life On Earth - Edward Williams

I'm interested in RED RIDING, but other than that it looks like you and I are polar opposites in this film music thing at the moment!

Also, a lot of scores from your list, Michael, feature music where you need to "immerse" yourself in in order to get the full effect of what the composer is trying to do.

A criticism that could be (justifiably) aimed at me is that I can't possibly appreciate a lot of what's written because of the volume of music that I accummulate over the year. A lot of what I like has an immediate impact on me (basic melodic lines, unusual orchestrations, "favourite" instruments, etc) and I'm sure that I miss a lot of the compositions that "smoulder" rather than "burn".

I'm happy with this at the moment - there's certainly a lot of music around that feeds this craving. But there will come a time when I'm looking for the more intellectual(?) scores that require intense listening to fully appreciate what the composer is trying to do.

And it's the listening habits of the likes of Michael (and numerous others) that are providing the listening lists for when I get to that stage!

Does this make any sense?

A very good question!

A lot of what there is to listen to is limited edition releases and these need to be snapped up - unless I decide to not have them. And even with some download titles there seems to be a limited lifetime for some of them in stores.

I'm just a sucker for a good tune and want to listen to them.

I also need to move on from the "favourites list" mentality I've been in for the recent past: I'm enjoying listening to current and historical favourite tracks. This is probably as a result of the huge amount of music I have to choose from.

It's just difficult getting the balance right.

I sometimes wonder if I need to isolate myself from the film music forum world so that I'm not tempted by anything new.

Maybe it didn't come across in my original post. I do need some sort of a connection with a score before I'll buy it - it's only occasionally that I'll "blind buy" and then these could be limited or not (depends on a number of things, including blind buying a title by a favourite composer or whether it's an "iconic" title in film music history, etc). I'm not a limited edition completist who snaps them up because they are limited.

I had one of those years myself where I was pretty assiduous in what I bought and sat down and listened to. But the things that I did listen to, I listened to a lot. Which is probably why there's a lot of those 'immersive' types on my list. Still, a bit of immediate impact is a good thing too! Maybe I should seek out a bit more of it!