[Closed] Now Playing XLIV

The Touch - Basil Poledouris

By God, I miss this man in the world of soundtrack scoring.
Such a recognisable gift for strong melody lines is so sorely missed these days.

Although I fully realise the Zeitgeist is against anything surpassing ambient support noise, I enjoy this album -one of Poledouris later ones- so much! An utterly winning combination of oriental instruments and occidental sense of melody, this is a beautiful and clearly epic score. Nobody, not even Zimmer, ever created sucha strong rapport between symphonic and synthetic instruments, and in this score he does it so well.

Beautifully thematic with strong melodies and clear emotional impact throughout, powerful and exciting percussion, this is just such a fine work.

NP: ARGO (Alexandre Desplat)

It has some interesting exotic elements here and there, but overall rather disappointing and meandering, like most Desplat (that I've heard).

I guess "African Rundown" isn't a favorite of yours? Cause that's a blockbuster cue for me. It's the perfect (and infinitely better) counterpart to Thomas Newman's "Grand Bazaar"(?) cue.

NP: Casino Royale - David Arnold

Natch.

Powell does it better.

Am I gonna get shot?

I love the entire Casino Royale score.

-Erik-

I have listened to Skyfall to the exclusion of (almost) everything else since November. I can relate.

NP: Jack The Giant Slayer - John Ottman

Goodness this is loud!

I am beginning to wonder whether composers are a bit like modern car designs. With car designs of yesteryear, each design was very easily distinguished - there was a complete disregard for things like aerodynamics...a car was built for the way it looked (maybe drag coefficients, etc hadn't been invented in those days?) But as years went on, designers were more and more constrained by goals such as trying to get the most aerodynamic car possible. And perhaps, all the cars started to look the same because there is only one best design aerodynamically?

It's beginning to seem like the same is happening with film scoring. Years ago, composers had their own voice and each had their own way of dealing with specific genres. But as the years have passed there seems to be only a few ways of doing specific genres and - for the most part - composers have had to fit with the expected sound. At the expense of their own distinct voice. Their "inner voices" may inadvertently surface once in a while, but mostly it's just generic stuff being churned out.

Ottman's Jack The Giant Slayer is a bit like this: it's what you expect for today's action score. Pretty anonymous, by-the-numbers. That's no comment on if it's well done or not, just that there's no real character to it, no real soul. Most people will have examples of this sort of thing already.

As mentioned above, Ottman has expanded his range sure enough. Extended his range up to the VERY LOUD!

I couldn't find that "hook" to bring me back to this anytime soon.

I don't know. Aside from early Goldsmith, I don't go to film music for striking originality and great art. I stick to classical music for that fix. Film music is just written too quickly and under too many restrictions for it to reach that level on a consistent basis (and lately, as you've pointed out, it's just been getting dumbed down more and more, regardless).

Jack The Giant Slayer isn't great art by any means. It's probably not even good but it IS wildly entertaining, for me. It scratches that fix very well. Tomorrow, I'll probably go back to Beethoven or Brahms.

no, no it wouldn't.

That's where we differ then. I tend to be the opposite. I suppose that I've been listening to film music solidly for the last 35+ years over most other types of music as it gives me most of what I need in terms of music.

There's so much "classical music" out there I've never really had the time to explore further afield than the relatively well known composers/pieces. Unless classical music is used in films, then I go off exploring if it's something I might like.

I think my interest in film music is at an all time low, I'm still and always have been listening to new stuff but it interests me less and less. I think I take more notice of what people play in the Off Topic thread than I do here.

Had a gutful of Life of Pi. Semi-ambient, shapeless music. Mostly dull as dishwater.



Onto Desplat's Rise of the Guardians, clearly the pick of his year's output. Love the main theme but it's the colourful, energetic surrounding material that really makes it shine. A top-class adventure score by anyone's definition.

That's less of a fact and more of an opinion. I'm not a big admirer of the music but it works like gangbusters in the film it was written for and that makes it an excellent score.

True Josh, an excellent score, but definitely not an excellent CD - unless you're desperate to get to sleep.

Well, I am still highly interested in film music as such but the bulk of what I purchased these last three years was older material and relatively few new scores. Since all my true Holy Grales have been released I expect my collecting activities to slow down considerably. But I will never stop listening to what I have.