Actually, there is ONE piece of nicely-delivered dialogue I would have welcomed... In the final scenes of El Cid, with Heston's horse galloping across the beach and about to head off into the distance, a group of knights is seen kneeling and one of them (I think it's King Alfonso played by John Fraser) says "Heavenly Father, open your arms to receive the soul of one who lived and died the purest knight of all", at which point Rozsa's music swells gloriously and poetically. It's a wonderful union of words and music. I think it would even be nice to hear the line inserted in a live concert presentation of the piece.
I'm listening to JESUS OF NAZARETH by Maurice Jarre right now and I honestly believe the track The Beatitudes wouldn't be half as powerful without Robert Powell's dialogue over it. Stunning Stuff!!
No. I usually don't like any dialogue on music soundtrack albums. I wish that THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH was free of dialogue - the remaining music tracks are excellent and I do wonder what the music on the other tracks is like.
The only exception to dialogue-free music tracks is Jeff Bridges' "The Grid" monologue in TRON: LEGACY. Now that's an excellent example of music and dialogue that adds to the overall feel of the track. Hearing the music-only version seems to lack a bit of punch without the dialogue.
Still pisses me off I can't enjoy Howard Shore's marvelous main title music from Ed Wood without Jeffrey Jones' "Criswell' narration.
It's funny, because I usually dislike them (APOLLO 13...), and even if it's well done I am glad there is a version without the dialogue of ANGELA'S ASHES for sure,. But the only example that came to my mind where I enjoyed it is... ED WOOD! Particularly Martin Landau's classic monologues, and I thought the spirit of the movie was well reflected into the usage of dialogue into the soundtrack.
The SILKWOOD album (LP & CD) by Georges Delerue featured one track with a radioactive contamination alarm going off during a dramatic scene/cue and some characters singing/crying a lullaby alongside a typically beautiful/melancholy string piece by GD on another. While it could piss off some, it's never bothered me and I enjoy the score/album very muchly.
I absolutely hate them. If mixed into a score queue, they are awful. But, if it is separated as its own track then I don't care. I rip all my CDs and edit my music, so I just skip those tracks that are dialogue.
The nice thing about iTunes is I can just take them off the playlist for that album. Can do simply by unchecking the dialogue pieces. Did that ones with a long interview at the end of the burned CD that I did not want to hear over and over again with the album.
Interesting original topic! There's a few that come to mind: Spock's narration at the end of STII:TWoK, the legacy second volume of Braveheart, and Flash Gordon, for example. I wouldn't have thought I'd enjoy narrations, but in the cases where they're there, I actually love them. But that's not to say I think they should be present on all or even some scores, that's for sure. I'll also say, though, that during scores for some movies I'm saying the lines verbatim in my head anyways.
Would I prefer they weren't there 100 percent of the time? Also yes.
Even worse: Sound effects! One of my favorite releases of the last few years is LaLaLand's John Williams disaster movie trilogy, in large part because those dumb earthquake effects were isolated and the album could finally play as Williams intended.
I'm listening to JESUS OF NAZARETH by Maurice Jarre right now and I honestly believe the track The Beatitudes wouldn't be half as powerful without Robert Powell's dialogue over it. Stunning Stuff!!
The Legend expanded reissue has dialogue and effects on the additional tracks, and I can’t tolerate them.
Absolutely not! Before the days of home video, some snippets of dialogue on a soundtrack album was an enjoyable bonus; for musicals that is. never for underscore albums. Now that we can own copies of the entire movie, dialogue is redundant and annoying.
