FILM COMPOSERS - The Good The Bad and The Indifferent

Composer(s) I'll buy without having heard a note:

JOHN WILLIAMS

Composers I still take great interest in with a good possibility that I'll buy:

JAMES HORNER
BRUNO COULAIS
CHRISTOPHER GORDON
CHRISTOPHER YOUNG
THOMAS NEWMAN
MICHAEL GIACCHINO
JOHN POWELL

Composers I still take great interest in but who are becoming increasingly disappointing:

JAMES NEWTON HOWARD (the only composer to have been demoted so many categories in recent years)
ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL
MYCHAEL DANNA
JOHN DEBNEY
MARK ISHAM
TREVOR JONES
DAVID ARNOLD

Composers I barely have interest in but do occasionally produce something I like a lot:

HANS ZIMMER
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT
DANNY ELFMAN
MARCO BELTRAMI
RACHEL PORTMAN
DARIO MARIANELLI
HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS
KLAUS BADELT

Composers I can barely stifle a yawn to at the thought of them:

BRIAN TYLER
TYLER BATES
TREVOR RABIN

To use your own classification system, Tim:

Composer(s) I'll buy without having heard a note

JOHN WILLIAMS
DANNY ELFMAN
ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL

Composers I still take great interest in with a good possibility that I'll buy

JAMES HORNER
HANS ZIMMER
JAMES NEWTON HOWARD
HAROLD FALTERMEYER (and other similar 80's synth stuff)
New, funky and/or ambient scores by the likes of Mansell, Martinez, Isham, Eno, Daft Punk etc.

Composers I still take great interest in but who are becoming increasingly disappointing

Uhm....I don't know. It's a bit of an oxymoron for me. I don't have any great interest in composers who are getting disappointing to me. Maybe you're talking about composers you once really liked, but that you're now pretty indifferent to? I guess in that case, it would have be guys like:

ALAN SILVESTRI
JERRY GOLDSMITH
DAVID ARNOLD
JOHN DEBNEY

Composers I barely have interest in but do occasionally produce something I like a lot

ENNIO MORRICONE
JOHN POWELL

Composers I can barely stifle a yawn to at the thought of them

ALEXANDER DESPLAT
MICHAEL GIACCHINO

There are tons more in each category, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

What do you mean? Isn't Jerry Goldsmith still alive?

Very few really capture my interest these days i am afraid. One disappointing score after another.

I haven't popped in a score by Williams in probably two or more years. I enjoy scores by other composers, far, far more, and after time talking to people in the industry, I've learned a couple things about him that put me really off.


I don't own a single official score release by Brian Tyler. Or Tyler Bates. I used to get their names mixed up, until Bates made a name for himself with uber plagerism on "300". I liked the sample for "Legoland Universe", but there is no planned release I know of.


Folks here went on & on about Gordon; how complex, how amazing, how fantastic his scores and orchestral works are. I went to YouTube and listened to samples from about three or four of them. I have no future plans to sample anymore of his scores.


People go on & on about Powell and "How To Train Your Dragon", and Beltrami and "Soul Surfer". Bland, unmoving works to me.



I don't blind buy on any composer, not even Goldsmith.


I'm becoming increasingly disappointed in efforts from the last five or so years from composers like Silvestri, J.N.H., and Elfman.

Silvestri seems to be taking this boring uninspired route.

J.N.H. watered himself down with far too many Zimmer associates in his pack. He hit a massive golden period during the Shyamalan films, up to "The Village", though "Lady In the Water" and "The Happening" have their moments. A number of composers had a golden period for almost a decade in the '80's. His seems to have fizzled out rather quickly. Maybe it's just a lull.



With a breif thought, I can't name a score (but I'm sure there are some) other than one Bacalov title, for a new film from the last five or mroe years, that I want to own.