This is all fascinating. In other news, I’ve put on the clothes wash. One 40, one 60 degrees. It should be done in two hours and thirty minutes.
The point is I consider Amazon a great resource for soundtracks, others don’t. Since you stopped purchasing CDs this might have slipped by you. Hope your laundry is not wrinkled….
John Mullin, I don't know what those videos have to do with Thor's laundry. Let's stick to the topic, please.
But since you've taken this thread so far afield, I'll add that I'm really enjoying this album. It's nothing new for Newman. I just like Thomas Newman doing this, so I like this too.
I’m looking forward to this too. I don’t stream much so I haven’t heard many clips of the score. Thanks for posting them. I didn’t know the movie is based on a graphic novel. The New York Times sort of ignored the movie giving it a 4 paragraph blurb review. The didn’t like the way the cast spoke an English kind of French. To quote the last line of the review” what mostly resonates is a particularly lachrymose brand of show-business hedging”
John Mullin, I don't know what those videos have to do with Thor's laundry. Let's stick to the topic, please.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry... uh...
So, Amazon says "Temporarily out of stock" WAIT! They are in stock, but they're staying not until November. WAIT... not until December now. Why are there so many tracks? Do you think this will get an expanded remaster at some point?
The order I placed from an Amazon seller is supposedly on its way to me, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's not some other CD with the same title, or just some random CD.
My order, from All Your Music via eBay, is due to arrive between Thursday 10th October and Sunday 13th October. I promise not to speak another word about it when it arrives.
Schiffy said "It's nothing new for Newman" and I think it's fair to say, at this stage in the game (he's near 70 now), that Thomas Newman is like John Barry in a way (although not sounds-like way). You hire the man...you get HIS style of score. It always amazed me when a John Barry score would get rejected (in his later years). I mean...what did the producers expect? A score sounding like Jerry Goldsmith or Harold Faltermeyer!! I like unique, distinctive voices, and Thomas Newman has been honing this one since the 90s.
Very well said right above. Personally, I am enjoying a lot this new score from Tom Newman. Sure, he doesn't chart into any new territories that he hasn't already explored well in the past, but I sense that the filmmakers here probably temped the whole picture with cues from a number of his scores and asked him to write something very close to those lines, so he obliged. But it's pure Tommy Newman doing it the way only him can do. His style and approach have been copied unlimited times by many other composers (no doubt because they were asked to do so), but when it's the real thing, you can really spot the difference. His musical voice is deceptively simple. On a surface level one could say "Oh, it's just chords with some extra layers on top", but once you start to peel away, you discover how rich and dense his music is. He certainly has a modern approach in the sense that he often goes for groove-based structures and sound design-y ambience textures and in the last 10 years he went for more of that as if to adapt to the current landscape, but whenever he opens up his melodic wings, it's a true gift. This new score has some really heartwarming moments of pure Newman ambrosia.
Schiffy said "It's nothing new for Newman" and I think it's fair to say, at this stage in the game (he's near 70 now), that Thomas Newman is like John Barry in a way (although not sounds-like way). You hire the man...you get HIS style of score.
I totally agree with this, and it's one of the reasons for why he's now in my top 10 of composers, I think. There's a beautiful predictability in Newman's music. If you've heard one, you've heard them all. I say that with a wink in the eye, because it obviously isn't true (there's the electronic Newman of the 80s, the quirky Newman, the Americana Newman etc.), but there's a comfort in returning to a sound that he does so well, and does slight variations of time after time. WHITE BIRD is such a score, but again, it requires some serious whittling to get it through. Like a sculptor who "finds" the sculpture inside a piece of rock.
I can't stop listening to this. I agree with everyone that it's nothing new, but who cares - listening to Thomas Newman do this sort of thing is a treat.
It's mind-boggling that Tommy Newman has never received an Academy Award. He's perhaps the most high-profile composer to have never been recognized with an Oscar together with Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri and James Newton Howard (curiously all more or less of the same generation). Go figure.
