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all I know that I love his music to Angels and Demons score but I understand as I watch some TV
Atli Örvarsson's music has some similarity to what Mr.Zimmer has done
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Best thing he ever did, and my alltime fifth favourite score, is BEYOND RANGOON. I've heard murmurs he doesn't like it himself, but I don't care. The whole album should really be enough to convince naysayers, but if I have to mention one track, I guess I'd pick "Waters of Irrawaddy".
Maybe too many synths for the naysayers...
A pity he doesn't seem to like it himself.
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Here are some tracks by him that I would believe even non Zimmer-fans could enjoy. If you don't enjoy it, I would like to hear WHY, put in a grown-up and reasonable way.
Many of us are just not into Hollywood scores from the 80s or 90s. I don't think your samples would convince many Golden Age or European film fans... It is just very different styles.
Nothing from the 80s on my list.
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But right from your first sentence you demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of the issue with "Zimmer-sceptics".
You see, the skeptics are already aware of the quality of his early work.
What they lament is the fact that he, himself, has moved on from that sound and will likely never return to it.
There are indeed members here who seem to hate everything he has his name on, even if they most probably haven't even heard it. It's enough to see his name. Maybe not many, but there are some.
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Zimmer's not liking his own stuff is kind of part of the problem. It also goes hand in hand with the built up persona of him as a genius, which I don't think he is. He doesn't need to promote himself because that's done very well for him - but where he'll deride his more orchestral works and earlier works that people like me tend to like more, and he still talks all the time about his worry that people won't like his music, he embraces the "genius" persona instead of humbly shoving it off, which is very off-putting. And when he's criticizing a style of music (orchestral) that I like from his earlier works, it feels very grimy. And when I consider that he has tons of flaws as a composer, it just makes him all the more unappealing. He comes across as being kind of uncomfortable with himself and not really committed to any aspect of his work.
When I look at someone like John Williams, he seems like a really grounded individual who is 110% committed to his craft and his output. He has chosen a love for orchestral works and has stayed committed to that throughout his entire career, despite its having gone in and out of fashion numerous times. He will try to push the envelope every so often but ultimately he stays true to his unique voice, which has always been classical with a blend of jazz. Very unique, and very HIM. So when he does really bland work (STANLEY & IRIS, TINTIN) or in extremely rare cases bad work (HEARTBEEPS), it doesn't affect my appreciation for him because he is loyal to his own craft. He might be embarrassed of his earlier works like SUGARLAND EXPRESS, but he stands by what he has done.
THE HOLIDAY is actually a great example because when Zimmer tries to switch genres, it sounds like a confusing mess. THE HOLIDAY sounds like he's trying to match the conventions of what the genre demands without really coming to it with a unique voice. It has his bad tendencies of creating an over-scored wall-of-sound effect while over-relying on sappy chord progressions. It ends up being an odd mix.
Compared to a similar romantic-comedy-entry by Williams like STANLEY & IRIS, I personally find this score to be very dull and trite... but it's still a Williams score. He stays committed to his own artistic perspective and goals without trying to shoehorn himself into a genre. That difference makes him so much easier to admire than Zimmer. The one time where I really disliked Williams was HEARTBEEPS and he was trying, so awkwardly, to fit himself into a weird synthy genre, and it felt so non-Williams. That score fortunately has pure Williams-esque moments that save it somewhat, but I provide that example as how when ANY composer loses their voice to fit the demands of the larger entity, it's not pleasant. Composer are supposed to be flexible to fit different genres, but they should do so with their own unique voice. Otherwise, there's absolutely no point in having different composers if they literally all sound the same.
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Please don't make this a John Williams thread.
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But right from your first sentence you demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of the issue with "Zimmer-sceptics".
You see, the skeptics are already aware of the quality of his early work.
What they lament is the fact that he, himself, has moved on from that sound and will likely never return to it.
There are indeed members here who seem to hate everything he has his name on, even if they most probably haven't even heard it. It's enough to see his name. Maybe not many, but there are some.
Well, I guess the operative word here is "seem".
That's when it's the most important to read everything carefully--to grasp the entirety of a person's thoughts in their comments.
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Please don't make this a John Williams thread.
Well, it's there for context and comparison because I think it would sound like rambling hear-say otherwise.
Here's what a non-Williams summary of what I wrote about Zimmer might look like:
Zimmer seems to dislike his older music (the stuff I like), disparages the use of orchestras (the stuff I like), and doesn't have a defined voice or artistic perspective that remains consistent. When he does genre films like romantic comedies, I hear the strain of him attempting to score genre conventions rather than coming up with his own unique take. It seems like his artistic perspective is more cerebral and "let me experiment" rather than any specific creative focus on the content himself. "Experimental" is so broad and Zimmer to me doesn't demonstrate consistency in his oeuvre, and as mentioned before even dislikes and criticizes his earlier orchestral work. The only consistency I hear are bad compositional habits like overly-dense, wall-of-sound scoring and an over-reliance on sappy chord progressions. And as much as he seems to dislike his previous works, he still has no problem playing along with the "genius" label that is so over-heaped upon him, incessantly. Zimmer comes across as a rudderless ship, drifting to wherever the industry seems to want him - without a core musical voice that comes from his emotional soul - just a bunch of techniques that come from his over-thinking cerebral mind, and that the industry has adopted and copied to the point of being quite tiresome.
Maybe that helps? But without specific comparisons to me this is less effective of a statement.
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