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Ironic, if you actually listen to Jackman's Captain America without preconceived judgements and for several whole listens, it actually has a LOT in common with Deriviere's Remember Me. I'm only mostly crazy, so I do admit that Deriviere's effort is more creative and technically complex and otherwise "better", but Jackman's new score is surprisingly similar* and entertaining if you give it a chance. There are even several whole themes hiding in there, the discovery of which I found quite pleasurable. Really don't understand all the hatred. IMO it's the 2nd strongest score of the whole Marvel show, behind Doyle's Thor.

This rant brought to you by Scribe being pissed off that someone said "fucking" about one of his favorite composers

*in particular, both composers' skillful use of harmony and phenomenal mixing of live orchestra with synths, particularly the sonically pleasing novel synthetic instruments which densely populate both scores. It's one thing to play around with a synthesizer and come up with weird sound effects to drop into your score, but it takes talent and understanding to do it in such a way that the resulting "fantasy" instruments are organically cohesive with the rest of the score. The paired "Fury" and "The Winter Soldier" tracks, for example, which accompany a particularly thrilling on-screen sequence, use synths in a frankly stunning way, to create a sense of danger and menace that I've scarcely felt in a movie experience since the glory days of Williams and Star Wars. Not that there is any conceivable musical comparison, just comparing the ability to create a palpable sense of dark power around the villain through music alone. The Winter Soldier as a character was as dime-a-dozen as they come, but Jackman's music made him feel truly menacing, and that is a worthy accomplishment for a film score, in my opinion.

I think you are better at writing mean comments on the internet than you are at actually listening to film music, unless it contains the melodic brass lines which are all you ever seem to be able to appreciate.

All I know is you have a predictable pattern of mocking me when I dare to say I like music that you don't approve of. It's not "internet trolling" to be unhappy when an artist I enjoy is insulted, or to say that two scores have intellectual similarities and feel similar to my ears. I come from a family of musicians, my brother is a former child prodigy violinist who was often compared to Perlman as a child, so I'm not completely daft when it comes to these things...again, only mostly! And when you and several other posters to this board consistently demean the efforts of certain composers by making statements that preclude any possibility of actually having listened to the scores you are criticizing, it is hard not to assume said individuals don't actually spend much time listening to the music. It seems like certain people see a name, listen to a few tracks, and construct a concrete conclusion without any willingness to approach the music with an open mind.

Now I shall shut up as this isn't going anywhere good. I will only say I respect your opinion and I certainly understand your desire to see these films scored in more traditional ways. I still stand by my opinion that the modern techniques can be valuable and entertaining as well, especially when used by composers with a deep education like Jackman. His Captain America score has been one of my favorite discoveries of the year and it just pushes my buttons when I see artists like him maligned. I'm sure you don't completely disagree, considering your love for his much more traditional This Is The End. He can deliver the goods when that's what he's hired to do!

Gods, THANK YOU!!!

I´ve been waiting for someone to write this since I´ve seen the damn fucking movie!

So: You´re not alone, I completely agree. It´s not that I find those tracks to be "enjoyable" listening experiences, but hell, did they give me the creep in the actual fucking theatre, which is the only place where it matters whether a film score works or not, despite the blasé opinion of certain film score "experts".

I found the score to be highly effective in creating not only the right mood for the action scenes, but exspecially in creating that sense of things going apocalyptically wrong, with massive changes looming on the horizon for everyone, not only the characters in the movie. The "Captain America" track may be simply structured, but that doesn´t take away the merit of being not only one possible, but, IMHO, the only possible kind of theme fitting to a Captain America movie set today. Like in reality, the glory days of smashing themes of hopes and dreams no longer fit a superhero who finds himself in an era where nothing remains of the values and morals he was so attuned to. To him, it must feel like the end of all days. And that´s exactly what the score is emulating. When I listen to the "Captain America" track, I´m always reminded of Horner´s score for Deep Impact, of those last minutes before impact. The mood - and the sound - are very similar. Don´t know if you can hear that or not, but I hear it. Same mood. Same reaction. Creepy.

All that said, I can only advise you to step down, Scribe. This discussion will achieve nothing. Know that you are not alone in being mad about how things work here, and that the score is understood, loved and appreciated by some people. Just enjoy what you like and try to keep a straight face when things are going the most expected of ways.

I don't really see much of a similarity between CAPTAIN AMERICA and REMEMBER ME beyond some fleeting style stuff. However, I did like the former more than most other people, and the latter less so.

I presume I am one of the "experts" who is the target of this particular barb. I can only say that all of my comments have been about the soundtrack album, which is a separate commercial product. Even Henry Jackman can write something that "works" but that has nothing to do with my enjoyment of the soundtrack album.

On the other topic, I don't hear any similarity between Captain America and Remember Me but accept that everyone takes something different from music and people enjoy different things, so that's fine.

Remember Me and The Winter Soldier may or may not be similar conceptually but all I know is that one of them makes me want to punch my speakers and the other doesn't...

This Way, Mary is just plain fantastic.

I just gave this version a listen, it's a lot better than I remembered. I was just trying to figure out if that missing element from the rerecording is synthesizer? Is there any mention of this in the liner notes Pawel?*

Mary, Queen of Scots ( the original ) is a fantastic score though maybe a bit expensive for less than 30 minutes of score on Intrada's release, a real shame they weren't able to do a complete version.

*Over half my CD's are in storage and I listened to TLIW on Spotify.

Pawel, did you order this album on SAE?

http://www.amazon.de/Soundtrack-Lion-Wi … +in+Winter

NP: The Peacemaker (1997) - Hans Zimmer

I have not listened to this album in a very long time. I just found out why: I don't like it very much. There are some decent moments but not enough to kindle my interest in the upcoming expanded edition.

Volker

I should perhaps add then that while I have only commented on the soundtrack album (since that's what I listen to), I could also have commented on it in the film.

Does it "work"? Yes - in the sense that it doesn't spoil the film.

Does it make the film better? No.

Is it the best score the film could have received? No. It's probably the worst score the film could have received from a professional film composer other than as a joke.

Is it good music? No. It's appallingly limited in its ambition and execution.

Does it have some intellectual purpose that makes it possible to forgive the fact that it's bad music? No.

Of course these are only my opinions and clearly other people have different opinions. The spice of life. But I object most strongly to any suggestion that music on a soundtrack album cannot be judged on its own merits. The reason I like film music on album is because of all the things that can be judged on their own merits and come out so well.

Exactly! One could argue that Zimmer's Joker 'music' isn't very good music, and you probably wouldn't be hard pressed to make a good argument. But its use in the film elevates the scenes it was written for because it captures the psychotic and chaotic nature of the character so well. And, in that sense, it becomes an enjoyable thing to hear in that context (for some of us).

Jackman's music doesn't do this. It's just bad music. Furthermore, comparing it to the brilliance of Deriviere's Remember Me is, well, nuts. But if you enjoy it, fantastic! (And when we say that, we're not being facetious. We really mean it!)

NP: KING OF KINGS (Miklos Rozsa)

What's there to say that hasn't already been said?