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Posted: |
Apr 29, 2017 - 6:49 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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Certain scores exist that I really admire and appreciate but can only listen to them in context, and by context I mean synched to the film. I can’t listen them as stand-alone scores.
I don’t listen to horror or scary scores, but I really admire Goldsmith’s ALIEN, Beltrami’s JOY RIDE, and Ekstrand’s LIFE scores. Those scores really enhanced and elevated the scary thrills of their respective films, but I wouldn’t put one in my CD player.
Ross and Reznor’s score for THE SOCIAL NETWORK was a cold, isolating composition that matched the main character and the visuals. I admire its aural effects when watching the movie, but I wouldn’t own it.
Now here is a totally opposite score which is Isham’s OCTOBER SKY. Lots of people on this board have loved it. I finally dug it out yesterday after not listening to it for over a decade, and I wondered why I’d ignored it for so long. Now I know. I had enjoyed the movie and purchased the score. This score enhanced the visuals and messages; however, with the exception of the October Sky cue, I was bored, very bored. It seemed like slow droning. It was a tiresome listening experience for me.
Share scores that you have really admired or respected within the context of their films but have no desire buy them as a private listening experience. If you want to, explain why they work best for you only when viewed with the film. (If this topic has been done before, I couldn’t find it.)
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Repetition is certainly something that can kill a great score apart from film. Barry's score for Until September works beautifully in picture, but I've struggled to figure out a satisfactory track selection that doesn't leave me maddened by the repetition of Barry's theme, gorgeous as it is.
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I think that most film composers would say this is true about most scores, and certainly at least if what we mean is hearing the whole score apart from the film. Thus the long history of more effective album presentations of scores until the fan mentality of releasing everything took over so much of the niche. I admire Hans Zimmer and Christopher Young and some others for continuing to produce good albums.
But the other factor is simply listening preferences, which is fine, and also somewhat mysterious. It can be easy to almost impossible to explain why someone enjoys one thing but not another. I myself am probably a bit more musically omnivorous than most people, and so enjoy on album all of the scores so far mentioned, except a couple like October Sky that I just don't know. I've got to be in the right mood, and I'll listen to some more than others, but for me, if I enjoy a score in the film, I want to hear it apart from the film, whatever the genre.
Though, again, for many scores I'd prefer a well programmed truncated listening experience - except for those I want every note of, which probably goes into the hundreds.
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Yes, UNDER THE SKIN was quite brilliant but I couldn't hear it divorced from the movie. Nor did I buy Kunzel's MacBeth.
Sean I wish I had your listening abilities and could listen to music from all genres.
These two statements are related for me these days. My family subscribes to Spotify (which thereby costs 5 bucks a month per person). So that's how I've listened to many of the less tuneful scores I've listened to in recent years - Under the Skin, Social Network, It Follows, Gone Girl, etc. If I had had to buy them at full price to hear them, even just downloads, I doubt that I would have.
But that's the thing for me these days. Spotify is built for the musically adventurous, because so much is available for one small price. I've listened to parts or all of hundreds of albums I otherwise never would have heard.
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I know this is a minority opinion but while I own every piece of Bernard Herrmann's film music I can get my hands on, I do not have Psycho in my soundtrack collection. I think it is one of the greatest film scores ever written and Herrmann's contribution to the Hitchcock film is part of the reason, the film is legendary. But as a listening experience, away from the film, sorry ..... my ears just can't take it. I find it monotonous beyond words. But hey, that's just me!
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DANCES WITH WOLVES - John Barry
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I know this is a minority opinion but while I own every piece of Bernard Herrmann's film music I can get my hands on, I do not have Psycho in my soundtrack collection. I think it is one of the greatest film scores ever written and Herrmann's contribution to the Hitchcock film is part of the reason, the film is legendary. But as a listening experience, away from the film, sorry ..... my ears just can't take it. I find it monotonous beyond words. But hey, that's just me!
To combat that (I know how you feel), if you don't have one or more, I highly recommend any of the suites or "narrative for orchestra" recordings - especially Herrmann's own on his Hitchcock suites album and Esa-Pekka Salonen's Herrmann album on Sony. You get the feel of the score in 7 to 14 minutes.
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I think SE7EN by Howard Shore is a brilliant film score, throbbing away like a giant monolithic beast underneath Fincher's bleak visuals, but as a standalone listen, I canna hack it.
Yet ALIEN by Goldsmith works in a similar vein, but I can listen to that score anytime.
Nobody said I had to make any sense 
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