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I come from a period of time when not every film had an instrumental soundtrack that was released. I remember having to record opening and closing credit music with a tape recorder pressed next to the TV speaker. For me, it's less about the format and more about the luxury of availability. I'd rather have some opportunity to hear the music rather than not at all.
I'm still waiting for some holy grails like Stick (deVorzon) and Spider-man (Stu Phillips) but things like Who's Life is it Anyway, Lovesick, Kung Fu (Helms), Good Morning Viet Nam (North) just to name a few have all made me a very happy soundtrack collector as I'd never thought I'd see the day that they would be released.
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BuzzAngle has reports on US and Canada music consumption for 2017.
http://www.buzzanglemusic.com/buzzanglemusic-2017-reports/
Topline: "In the U.S., there was a significant increase in overall consumption, an outstanding 12.8% over 2016 that marks the third year in a row with increasing growth. Audio stream consumption continued its explosive expansion with a 50.3% increase to 377B streams, an amazing 127B more streams than in 2016. Subscription streams are now at an impressive 80% of total audio streams, up from 76% in 2016. Both album sales and song sales continued to decline, 14.6% and 23.2% respectively, but physical sales declined only 7%, while vinyl sales continued its impressive growth with an increase of 20.1% over 2016 and now comprises 10.4% of all physical album sales."
Between my CDs and my iPods and my digital purchases and Spotify, I have more access to music than I've ever had. This listener and collector is happy as a clam, and I don't much care how it comes out just so long as it does.
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Still a pity there won't be a CD release because it's an excellent score. Saw the movie yesterday and the score is refreshing. I thought he did a pretty good job with 'Creed' but this is something else. Didn't expect it and a very nice surprise indeed.
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Agreed. I hold the same view, bit with one caveat, not all digital access is equal. Certain territories are still being deprived of a number of titles, for no discernable reason....
Agreed, limited availability sucks. I for one would listen to far more Japanese soundtracks (anime, movies) if I could get them for reasonable vs. import prices, or even streaming.
And I agree it would be better if Panther were available as a CD, and I wonder if that will happen, as well as vinyl, especially if the movie really takes off. I've still bough physical copies of many of the Marvel scores I can simply listen to on Spotify - nice to have the higher quality and the physical product if it's something I care about.
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Posted: |
Feb 15, 2018 - 11:23 AM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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Sure, there was some drop in CD purchases when digital downloads came along. But I also believe the corporations push (not nudge) consumers into the direction THEY want us to go. They purposely drop one medium so they can push the new medium.
Why would they? What's their motivation?
Certainly, Best Buy loses completely in this situation. They made money selling CDs, but they have no download or streaming music service so what was once profitable is now zero. Same deal for Target, certainly a big corporation.
Yes, corporations would like to push consumers in their preferred directions, but they've never been able to sell people en masse things they don't want, whether it's Divx discs (remember those?), 3D television, or chips made with olestra. We are not all sheep.
I don't know anybody in the music business who doesn't long for the days of CDs. (Granted, I don't know the CEOs, who may have a different perspective.) Certainly in my business of television, the mass-market demise of DVDs in favor of streaming has taken a big toll. The studios did not want this. But I get that a consumer would think "Why would I buy 'Cheers' on DVD for hundreds of dollars when it comes with my $12/month Netflix?" Is this a victory for the big corporate studio? Nope.
Remember, downloads began as an illegal consequence of the internet, starting with Napster. Legal downloads were a response to that, and the labels went into it kicking and screaming (but realizing this was their new reality).
In my family of five, we used to buy several CDs a month. Now, we pay a $15/month family plan to Apple to stream pretty much anything anybody but me (the score nerd) wants (and even I listen to some mainstream soundtrack CDs this way, and won't bother buying them). How does that benefit the labels?
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Posted: |
Feb 15, 2018 - 6:13 PM
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By: |
bobbengan
(Member)
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Just got through my first full listen to the score album.
CREED was one of the biggest and most memorable surprises of 2015: An inspired, original score with a brilliant main theme and, at long last, an ample balance of "contemporary" sounds and action scoring conventions with glorious outbursts of thematic symphonic grandeur. It just rocked my world and I still listen to it all the time.
Needless to say I was thrilled that Goransson landed this assignment and went in with extremely high hopes that we'd get more wonderful, original music in this style, and that CREED was not a one-off bit of luck.
The good news is that BLACK PANTHER has a lot of CREED's trademark sound and style in the balance of brassy thematics and electronics, and I feel comfortable saying that score is indeed indicative of his emerging voice as a composer. I'll get more into the "good" stuff in a bit. But first...
The score is way, WAY overlong at 90 minutes. This could have been cut down to a great 40 minute album without missing anything of value. While CREED's early portions had filler that was easy to dismiss and program out, BLACK PANTHER is a much longer effort and sadly has a lot more room for that kind of underscoring to creep in. Unfortunately a very large portion of the runtime here is dedicated to tribal percussion rhythms (often unaccompanied by anything else except droning electronics) that, while much touted in the media as being "authentic" in their African nature, honestly just sound generic to me. You could drop large swathes of this score behind any typical modern action-thriller and no one would notice a damn thing. And I stress, this sound, combined with some strange processing of African vocal sounds, completely dominate the score.
Now, that being said - there are, throughout, moments where Goransson's voice is allowed to shine, and that exhilarating sound from CREED creeps through. The horn-carried main theme, often accompanied by staccato trumpet blasts and lofty string counterpoint, is straight out of that earlier scores' orchestrational book, and there are some very fine moments where that sound is allowed to shine through.
The triumphant second half of "Waterfall Fight", the monumental opening and closing of "The Great Mound Battle", the poignant violin solo in "Is This Wakanda?", the redemptive woodwinds and strings of "A New Day" are all very fine achievements... And then we get to the lengthy end title suite, and thank heavens, that's where Goransson is really allowed to shine - The brass is totally unleashed and the main theme becomes much clearer in its development (unfortunately even this cue gets a little dull in its middle portions). However, this theme isn't remotely in league with the one he created for CREED, and I don't see myself coming back to this one with anywhere near the frequency I did with that score. It just doesn't have that inspired touch.
Overall assessment? It's got great moments here and there, but it's overlong and not that memorable, aside from the moments that expand upon the composer's previously established sound. The exhaustive runtime will make this a frustrating experience for the "CD or bust" crowd, but for myself, I will likely extract a 15-minute suite of highlights that are bespoke of its finest attribute which, for me, has got to be the brass writing.
I'll be interested to hear what others think of this one.
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