[Closed] Now Playing XLVII

It's an Erik Woods score because it's good... that's all.

-Erik-

Yesh, well, you would say that, wouldn't you.

NP: INHERENT VICE (Jonny Greenwood)

Not quite as challenging as his other works -- which is understandable, given it's a comedy -- but it still has some mindblowing harmonic writing, at times influenced by Debussy, I think (like "Shasta Fay").

You just sold in Ant's playlist even more!

Jupiter Ascending - Michael Giacchino

"Flying Dinosaur Fight" is my favorite action cue of the year so far.

I'm not usually a fan of doing things like that, but in this case it works!

With the couple of minor edits I did, I've brought the score down to 1:18:49 so it perfectly fits onto one disc. Even though I keep everything in digital format, I'm still quite OCD in keeping things to CD length.



I prefer the "with Guts" version but both are very good.

I'm going to top your long Jupiter Ascending post with an even longer Jupiter Ascending post.



I want to expand on this, as I shrugged off giving a proper explanation originally as I needed to go out, and actually a lot of thought went into this.

Not many people know, but I love making my own albums. Or my own interpretations of albums. One of my favourite things is listening to a score that paints a really good story in my head. I don’t mean all the little details in a story, but a general idea of what could be going on in each scene or cue. Maybe others of you do this too - I hope you do, as it’s so much fun!

I find this works best with action adventure scores, especially when I haven’t seen the movie and I have no preconceived ideas of how the music fits together. But the important thing is it feels like I’m being told a story from beginning through the middle to the end. Really strong music in the case of Jupiter Ascending makes this easy.

I’m all for special editions and complete scores - not so I can listen to the whole thing every time - but so I have as many options as possible when making my own albums. Sometimes this is just a simple re-ordering of tracks, but most of the time I’ll have a go at editing - joining bits together (or sometimes taking them apart), removing uninteresting sections, and generally keeping the flow (and story) moving. (I’ve got a kick-ass version of Cutthroat Island that requires no editing at all.)

I know there are a lot of people out on the internet that do a similar thing and end up with amateur sounding results, but I’m genuinely putting a lot of effort in to do it properly and to a high standard. I’ve done this to probably over 100 albums and I’d happily do this as a job.

I realise that last paragraph may make me sound douchey, so I thought I’d give a brief “why” behind this playlist and my thought process when putting it together. In this case, the music is incredibly strong, and my album only has very minor edits and mostly just involved re-ordering the tracks.

Maybe even just make a quick playlist of the following tracks and read about each one as you listen to it. See if it paints a similar picture in your head.

01. Commitment - I always like starting albums by presenting the main theme(s) so there’s something to build on throughout the rest of the album. I know in this case we have the 4 suites, but as I’ll write later, these work much better at the end. I also like getting into some action quickly. I wouldn’t generally put a finale track right at the beginning, but this one ticks both of the previous boxes. It also introduces the big heroic theme at the end, which otherwise appears suddenly about 3/4 of the way through the regular album. You can imagine this track working as a main title cue and a prologue with some kind of voiceover - something along the lines of what the the opening track in Lord of The Rings did.

02. Flying Dinosaur Fight - I’d generally not put two action cues so close together, especially at the start of an album, but this score is so action heavy I needed to fit this somewhere. This track is exciting but not too dramatic. It also only features the main theme which has already been established (instead of introducing more themes), so works great as a standalone track. It could also be a great foreshadow of the more ballsy “with Guts” version heard at the end of the album. I’d put this in the “fun” action category opposed to the “big epic finale” category. If the previous track served as a prologue, this could be an action scene taking place in the present. Think of how The Last Crusade has it’s train prologue, then heads straight into the boat scene.

03. The Titus Clipper - By this point I’m in dire need of something quieter. The track suggests all is well before turning sinister at the end. It serves a similar purpose as “Elena and Esperanza” in Horner’s Zorro score. I cut the quiet part at the end out to speed up the pace a little. As the key doesn’t change, I moved the very last note to 5:27 so the ending still sounds very natural.

04. The Abrasax Family Tree - Evil! Baddies! Act 2! I cut the loud intro out as we hear it later in the cue, and it’s a lot more fun hearing the creepy version of the theme first. This track introduces the bad-guy theme which appears several times later throughout the score.

05. It’s A Hellava Chase - Due to the length of the previous track, I again wanted to change to something completely different. Cue another long action scene. This one feels like it would be later on in a score when you’re already a bit into the story. I don’t know why - it just does. The themes we’ve heard previously get a good workout too and it’s fun to start hearing them mix together.

06. Digging Up The Flirt - This is a very loud album, and this track really serves as a breather. It’s got another nice interpretation of the main theme, plus the ending suggests there is some kind of twist. Maybe the heroes get captured.

07. Scrambled Eggs and 08. Dinosaur To New Heights - I do live creepy dissonant music like this. The heroes are held captive. They don't know where they are. They’re at a low point. The baddie gives a monologue before leaving them to be tortured.

09. The Houses Of Abrasax - Nearing defeat, the goodies escape or get rescued. Making their way through the baddies stronghold, they learn of their evil plans and make some kind of discovery.

10. The Shadow Chase - The baddies discover the escaped heroes. An epic chase ensues, but by the end the baddies haven’t been outrun.

11. Abdicate This! - Time is running out. The heroes know what they have to do to defeat evil, but the baddies appear sure of their victory. A fight ensues. One of the protagonists does something unexpectedly heroic - cue return of the epic theme in the first track.

12. Family Jeopardy - The hero arrives wherever it is where they need to do whatever it is to save the world. The baddies still haven’t been defeated and show up just in time to put a stop to things. The epic theme returns and the heroes save the day.

13. Flying Dinosaur Fight with Guts - The world is saved, but the baddies still need to be defeated or the goodies need to escape. A final fight or chase sees victory.

14. 1st Movement - Triumph! But all is not well. Maybe a hero is gravely injured. They appear to die a heroic death. Mourning.

15. 2nd Movement - Life carries on, but with the absence of one of the heroes, things feel different.

16. 3rd Movement - Sadness continues, but a revelation occurs - the thought-to-be-dead hero is alive! Roll end credits!

17. 4th Movement - A great run through of the main themes again before ending on a mysterious and unsettling note. Jurassic Parks ends on the raptor theme…how creepy is that! Cue the inevitable sequel.

I like how I wrote less and less as each track went on. It would be interesting to find out if anybody else hears a similar story in the music when put in this order. Maybe you even have your own playlist which tells another story?

NP: GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (John Scott)

My favourite Tarzan film. Scott's score is excellent too -- from the broad, "English" elegance to the primal dissonance of the beast within -- especially that weird percussive effect in the 'pygmyes' track. A serpent?

Shut up, Meg.

Great score.

An old friend of mine who is from Switzerland Got down to the last five people out of hundreds to be picked to play the lead, physically he'd have been better than Lambert but you could see what the producers were looking for as my friend Werner had similar qualities to Lambert.

It seems so. But Ihave been in the same position before. Guess everyone here has.

PS: I'll read Anthony's post some time tomorrow.

Amen to that!

Seems that way. I'll wait patiently untill more members have heard it. Surely, there "must be another".

NP: Lost Themes - John Carpenter

Unfortunately, I didn't really like everything on this album. But there's a few tracks on this that are keepers. "Vortex" does a good job of summing up all that I find so great in the old John Carpenter synths sound. Reminds me a lot of Halloween III: Season of the Witch - which is an excellent property to have in a piece of music! (Has a touch of Christine in it too.)