I take it that your attempted foray into 1975-1990s John Williams has hit the "Dreaded Neoconservative Kitsch Wall"?
John Williams is the kind of composer who I will buy only if I stumble across stuff for cheap. The stuff I tend to see in the bins are scores for the kinds of films I would never watch and from a decade that I have done my best to erase from memory.
No worries. There is a LOT of stuff between your preferred years (1958-1972?) in Williams' canon that you've still to discover (and that I think you will like). And I daresay I think there's a handful or two in the last 40 years too that MIGHT be up your alley somewhat.
No worries. There is a LOT of stuff between your preferred years (1958-1972?) in Williams' canon that you've still to discover (and that I think you will like). And I daresay I think there's a handful or two in the last 40 years too that MIGHT be up your alley somewhat.
My preferred era for film scores is year 0 to 1975 and then 1990 on.
1975 to about 1982 is hit-or-miss, for a variety of factors. I like a lot of stuff from this period, but it is also the era of Star Wars and proto-Reaganite cinema.
I don't think I have any film scores from 1983 to 1989, except for David Lynch.
It is provocative? Or is the subject line just a veiled statement that he essentially doesn't like the music of John Williams? In which case, that's not so interesting. I can't convince someone to like music they already don't like, and not sure what the point is. Had he asked why some of us were passionate about Williams' music (without dragging in his own lack of interest) then that is a more interesting question.
I can write pages about how Williams drove my interest in film music and it's formative role in how I got to where I am today.
Or is the subject line just a veiled statement that he essentially doesn't like the music of John Williams?
The subject line is based on a combination of 1) My ignorance of Williams' music; 2) the fact that I love "My Friend Mr. Nobody; and 3) on more than one occasion, I have heard Williams fans cite "My Friend Mr. Nobody" as a favorite from his early period.
I like its combination of mystery and poignancy, all within what I would describe as an outer space aesthetic.
I don't find Onyabirri's stance particularly provocative. It's different, yes (and certainly doesn't correlate to my own view on the maestro), but that's what I find so fascinating about it. Also, I love the fact that Williams has done so many different things, that it's cool to recommend some things in his oeuvre outside the true and tried neo-romantic stuff (brilliant as that may be).
It was a great time for some cool and edgy stuff like Altered States and Videodrome, but film music started to become very conservative at this point relative the range of things that written in the 1960s and first half of the 70s. IMO.
DADDY-O is cute, but surely if you want to recommend Williams' crime jazz of the late 50s and early 60s, there are plenty of other things to recommend that actually have am album release.
