[Closed, Sink] Now Playing XXXVIII

It sucks large! Great art work though! Jim Titus is brilliant!

-Erik-

Afrika is indeed the stuff of legend, based on the sound of a legend.

You should check out the 10 minute suite by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra on this album. By the way that whole album is superb.

New score? More details please?

Unbreakable is Shammy's best film by far but I consider Signs to be Howard's crowning achievement and one of the finest scores ever composed!

-Erik-

We seem to have this discussion every few weeks! The Village is my favourite, but I do like all the Shyamalan scores, I really do. I thought Unbreakable was an absolutely awful film.

In my opinion Unbreakable is a great film and Signs is the best score.

Nick Glennie-Smith was hired to do the score, based on the additional work he did for Bad Boys, which Michael Bay loved. He wrote a complete score with a bit of help from Gregson-Williams (who Bruckheimer would become a huge fan of later on), but Bay rejected the themes and was on the verge of rejecting the whole score based on that.

This is where Hans Zimmer comes along. Zimmer wrote two of the main title themes and rearranged some of the score. Zimmer came with Don Harper, Steven M. Stern and with Russ Landau who co-wrote a small cue. Zimmer's direct contribution are the Main Title (first half of Hummell Gets the Rockets, not the action, that's a rare instance of a cue that Glennie-Smith did on his own), The Hummell speech in Alcatraz (right after the beginning of Rock House Jail), officially - the SEAL incursion into Alcatraz (though some rumors say that this might have been ghost-written by James Newton Howard, his assistant has told someone though that Zimmer called Howard if he can rip him off for the cue and Howard agreed), possibly Mason's Walk (until First Launch, that is a solo Harry Gregson-Williams piece, actually using his theme from the action introducing Nicolas Cage's character) and co-arranged Fort Walton-Kansas.

Harry Gregson-Williams is all over the place, starting with parts of In the Tunnels, the First Launch part is his, a part of Rocket Away and actually, about half of The Chase is written by him.

Asked about the score in an interview, Zimmer said that he didn't want the main credit there and that he was credited against his will. "It was always a Nick score", said Zimmer. Another interesting thing is that Harry Gregson-Williams is credited as the only additional composer in the film, he does NOT get a main credit, as he got on the album.

It is closer to Nick's type and style of scoring, from all those you mention.

Bollocks. Who gets an Oscar isn't necessarily indicative of the general quality of film music. I personally think today's film music is all fine and healthy no matter who some film people decide to award.

Peter

Ouch, don't like that one at all. Not that Zimmer's african thing always turns me off, I love the stuff in Tears of the sun for instance, but my ears find nothing pleasing in this album at all.

Peter

I didn't either at first. I actually sold my first copy. It was too much traditional music and too little "Zimmer" in it. But then I got it for free as a gift, I started listening to it again and it grew on me. "Mother Africa" is just pure bliss, and the title song is really good. Not all the source/trad. songs are brilliant listening, but overall it works as a great concept album.

Very interesting Franz. But if I may point out, your post follows another which seems to relate in detail what went on with the scoring of The Rock. Are you blind?

That's Newton Howard's second or third-best (I also really liked King Kong). "The Hand of Fate" alone is worth the price for admission.

I totally agree!

I do love the Vaughan Williamsness of Unbreakable though any time I listen to it makes me want to put on the real deal.