Where Are Today's Impact Scores?

By Jason Foster

1M1: 9/22/99

In the 1960s, there were PSYCHO and PLANET OF THE APES. In the 70s, there were JAWS and STAR WARS. In the 80s, there were RAIN MAN and BLACK RAIN. All of these scores had the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on how you want to look at it) distinction of being works that had both an immediate and lasting impact on the film music industry. They broke new ground, or at least rediscovered certain ground -- they set a standard. But where are the impact scores of the 1990s? Did they ever exist to begin with? Or is everything today still playing off the scores of yesteryear?

One could make a very solid argument that there hasn't been a single impact score written this decade. Could this be because there isn't any more ground for film music to break? Or could it be that composers today have just been greatly limited? Maybe a better question would be whether the potential impact scores of this decade have had the chance to even have any kind of impact at all.

If you look at the popular scores from this decade, many of them are, shall we say, "influenced" by other scores - stuff we're already highly familiar with. Even though some of the impact scores of the past may have been grounded in pre-existing scoring styles, it had at least been a while since we had heard that style used effectively.

This decade has showcased the work of some very talented composers. Elliot Goldenthal, Thomas Newman, Mychael Danna, and a couple of others have produced some very refreshing, interesting, and non-traditional scores. But have these scores had the impact they probably should have? While they may be discussed and appreciated by a relatively small number of fans, the filmmaking world seems to have refused to allow this type of inventiveness and experimentation to spill over onto the rest of the industry. Studios remain content to ask for a score as close to the temp track as possible because that's the "safe" thing to do. They seem to think that anything too inventive or perhaps too "non-musical" might, for some reason, hurt ticket sales. This type of thing leads to a ton of scores sounding the same and leaves no room for any one score to stand apart from the rest. If I go on much more with this point it will get into another column I did a while back about whether today's film music is interesting - so I'll get off this particular soap box.

A valid argument could be made that it's not actually the music that determines a score's impact, but rather the film it was written for. Would the score for STAR WARS have been as influential if the film had flopped? Do the people in charge ask for a certain sound in hopes that it will help their film achieve similar success as the last film to use it? If that's the case, then perhaps we should be talking about which films have impacted scoring in this decade.

Since 1989, there really hasn't been a score that you can point to as having ushered in something new or brought out the best in an existing idea. Arguably, the last two scores to do either were Danny Elfman's BATMAN and Hans Zimmer's BLACK RAIN. Again, there may have been some inventive scores written, but they've had little or no impact at all.

But then again, maybe I'm totally wrong. Maybe there been impact scores this decade. But if so, what was their impact? Also, how does their impact rank among the "classic" impact score mentioned earlier?

I realize that one could argue that it takes time to accurately assess something's impact, but as far as this decade goes, with all things considered, nothing really stands out as a possible contender.

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