[Closed] Now Playing XLV

Strangely, the recording sessions leak sounds way better.

Welldeserved too. One of my own personal JG favourites -- any many others' too, I'm well aware.

It's very good, I would give it 3.5 out of 5. Have you heard Christopher Gunning's WILD AFRICA?

A 5 out of 5 score, without a doubt.

Crikey. I just find it 'okay', kinda pleasant but a bit forgettable. Her synth stuff is very lacking in my opinion, almost could have been composed by Silvestri.

Pacific Rim Ramin Djawadi

This score is oddly addictive. A lot of fun.

NP: Armageddon (1998) - Trevor Rabin

Back when that style of blockbuster action scoring was still fresh and innovative. A fun ride all the way, if a bit monothematic.
But what a rediculous film!

Volker

So we very aptly refer to these as MV/RC scores.

Yeah, it's quite a funny story how Bruckheimer thought HGW (who brought in Jablonsky) just because he thought Rabin (who had two or three scores on his belt at the time) couldn't pull off something of this scope alone.

That said, none of Gregson-Williams cues are present on the official CD (there is a 2-CD bootleg, which got pretty popular, actually). That means it doesn't feature the movie's love theme, which was written by Gregson-Williams.

Another funny story is that Hideo Nakata was looking for an additional bigger name for his second Metal Gear Solid game and got a promo or something of Gregson-Williams somehow, who took the assignment just because the material Nakata based asking him on featured the unknown Armageddon material (while the "additional music" credit is prominent in the film, nobody at that time knew what was his input), but...

The material Nakata got featured a lot of additional arrangements of Steve Jablonsky, so Harry asked him for help with the Metal Gear Solid music even if Steve was no longer his assistant anymore (it was during the short stint Jablonsky had working directly with Zimmer on a few scores, most notably Pearl Harbor and King Arthur later on). Jablonsky did help out.

It could be noted that Armageddon wasn't the first time MV composers were brought in for help with a Rabin score. Rabin, it has to be said, was NEVER part of MV and the fact that Bruckheimer brought in MV composers leads to this massive misconception. One of Rabin's first jobs in Hollywood was playing guitar on Mancina's Twister, then he asked him (they were friends from the Yes band, of course), to co-score (scheduling conflict for Mancina) Con Air. Armageddon brought it Gregson-Williams and so did Enemy of the State. Later, Rabin scored Bay's Bad Boys II, with Jablonsky brought in for additional music.

To finish this useless trivia post - the two latter examples led to composer changes. In both cases the respective directors (Tony Scott and Michael Bay) created working relationships with the additional writers rather than Rabin.

I think that Armageddon is the most theme/motif-rich MV/RC score ever created.

Really? Never heard of it!

gregson-williams co-composed Enemy Of The Sate, because rabin was also scoring Jack Frost at that time. and because both scored already Armageddon successful, bruckheimer thought it would be a great idea to team up both again. and maybe tony scott had also no problem with it, because harry already helped hans out on The Fan.

and Bad Boys 2 was also a difficult situation, because rabin took over at a very late point. and michael bay isn't the most easiest director to work with, so many changes were made at the score. jablonsky rearranged alot of rabins music and most of it in a bad way. rabins music was more thematic than the stuff jablonsky made out of it. best example is the scene, when they decide to go to cuba. rabin composed a really cool piece of music for that scene. especially in the second part. but jablonsky rearranged it and it lost all the power. there was a reason why mancina left the project before it started.

Just listened to it. I can't say I share your enthusiasm. All very symphonic and trumpety to be sure, but it suffers from what I think is exactly the problem you have with Lockington's score; a lack of any real personality. (In fact I quite like Lockington's score.)

To me it seems like someone has fed the instructions "symphonic; adventure; fantasy; action" into a computer and recorded the outcome with a live orchestra. Nothing wrong with it, it serves its purpose... but it doesn't leave much of an impression.

Mark noted in the liner for Bad Boys that Michael Bay was looking for a score that was heavy on percussion and less on thematics, which Mark couldn't agree with. I thought that's why Rabin was brought in (and Steve and RC crew).