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I've had the Ottman X2 score for several years, and it's a fantastic expansion!
I agree, though I also love the original edition - a really well-conceived single album. I go back and forth between the two.
I'm grateful we get the original versions of K-Man's album as well in this package, though I doubt it will feel as essential to me. I've been liking the combo of full score plus original album, and of course more in this case what with the stuff folks have already talked about.
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ORDERED! My 1st Kamen.
Really?
You should check out "Die Hard" as well and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" if it's still available.
"Die Hard" is a lot of fun, especially if you watch the movie and try to match the music up to it.
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Looking forward to hearing this, at long last. The film came out the same summer I was interning at FSM, and I remember there being a lot of chatter, both at the office and amongst other composers, about the scoring-stage drama between Kamen and the producers (Lauren Shuler-Donner in particular). It was apparently a pretty fraught process. Either way, it'll be great to have Jeff's take on the music, as always.
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ORDERED! My 1st Kamen.
Also try Don Juan Demarco, lovely!
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ORDERED! My 1st Kamen.
Congratulations! Check out his Saxophone Concerto with David Sanborn. You’ll be a lifelong fan.
Very interesting - it's a unique combo. Part of me wants to just hear the orchestra without the saxophone because its timbre really cuts through the orchestra in certain parts, but after a while it fits in more and more.
Thanks for the recommendation!
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ORDERED! My 1st Kamen.
Congratulations! Check out his Saxophone Concerto with David Sanborn. You’ll be a lifelong fan.
Very interesting - it's a unique combo. Part of me wants to just hear the orchestra without the saxophone because its timbre really cuts through the orchestra in certain parts, but after a while it fits in more and more.
Thanks for the recommendation!
At the risk of going too far off topic, I highly recommend if electric guitar concerto, which I actually enjoy more than his excellent sax concerto. The third movement is especially terrific (and the CD contains a version without the soloist which is a cool bonus).
X-Men... ordered.
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Well, I just received the CD today and I can say that the booklet doesn't really help clarify how the CD is arranged.
What IS really fascinating to learn is that while the biggest challenge was the balance between electronic and orchestral elements, Kamen's revisions to the score actually led to a second round of ADDING electronic elements to some cues while REMOVING electronic elements from others to bring out more of the orchestra.
So it wasn't just a matter of version 1: no orchestra, version 2: add electronic elements - it was a rebalance of everything, constantly tweaking to get the ongoing balance between orchestral and electronic just right.
This also means there is likely not a straightforward "this is Kamen's preferred version vs. THAT version" because Kamen was constantly revising.
Which brings us to the disc arrangement - as we noted before, Disc 1 and Disc 2 both include tracks called "film versions", so it's really unclear what each disc is meant to represent.
I don't think I've ever actually seen the movie all the way through so hopefully somebody who knows the film well can have an easier time making sense of it.
Also, side note - Klaus Badelt is not mentioned anywhere except at the end as a credit for "Additional Electronic Percussion by KLAUS BADELT" along with "Sampling and Programming by JAMES BRETT and MICHAEL PRICE".
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Also, very interesting music. It's such a breath of fresh air to not hear a superhero score that has an annoying, heavily-reverbed solo piano. "Death Camp" opens with a nice clean piano performance and concludes with a terrifying orchestral crescendo that you'd never hear today.
Much of the score in general has a nice orchestral looseness, that classic Kamen which sounds almost like a classical symphony - it's very refreshing because it gives the whole score SO much room to BREATHE, whereas newer scores are constantly bombarding with ostinatos ostinatos ostinatos.
One curiosity is "Rogue's Kiss" is straight up "Bill Clay" from DIE HARD in tone - it uses the same Phaser filtering technique that Kamen used all throughout DIE HARD, which ALSO is featured throughout this score, interestingly enough. It reminded me that DIE HARD was also a score that heavily mixed orchestral and electronic elements.
"Museum Fight" also features heavy techno-ish stuff that almost begins to sound like David Arnold's work for DIE ANOTHER DAY while pulling from Marco Beltrami's more silly string-focused action music like in SCREAM, which uses a very thin spread from the string section.
Overall, really cool to hear this. Again, it's so refreshing to hear a superhero score that is ACTUALLY ORIGINAL.
Something as simple as "They Knew / Laboratory" mixes electronic elements with unique orchestral percussive effects and classic strings. It is able to build up a rhythm without resorting to cheap repeating ostinatos or constant synthetic pulses or drum loops.
And "Jean and Logan (Alternate)" is interesting to hear compared to the standard version. Kamen's skill with woodwinds comes through in the alternate version, where you get an insight into his natural strengths with a full orchestra - AND the song has an ending rather than just ending on a sudden cut like most soundtracks now.
Really awesome stuff.
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