So I went out and bought the Varese Sarabande CD of Conan The Barbarian (VSD-5390) because I had read so much about how brilliant the score was. I read such high praise that I simply had to hear it for myself. One particular guide states that the score is "an enormous, awe-inspiring creation that transcends the constraints of the picture's comic-book narrative to become a fully fledged independent work." Wow, I thought. I can hardly wait to hear this masterpiece!
Yet after listening to it several times, I find that I just don't like it! I tried to like it, but I just don't. It bores me to tears. Plus one of the things that really irritates me about the score is the "vocalization" (A chorus-like group singing "Ahhhhh...ahhhhhh...ahhhhh....") on some of the tracks. This score just doesn't "do it" for me. In any way.
My dislike for this score is not because I've never seen the movie Conan The Barbarian. A good score should be enjoyable on it's own, without seeing the movie.
For example, one of my favorite soundtrack CD's is El Cid by Miklos Rozsa (the Sony CD which is the CD version of the 1960's LP) even though I've never seen the movie. It's a great, rousing score. The music actually suggests to me what it might be like to see the movie.
Anyway, the Conan soundtrack was a huge disappointment.
I'm curious to hear about other people's disappointments. Cases where they bought a score on the basis of over the top praise and ended up disappointed.
Horner's "Something wicked this way comes." I started using the internet back in 2000s, and rediscovered my enjoyment of childhood soundtracks (King Kong, Jaws, Planet of the Apes, etc), and was looking for more thriller/horror favorites. The first recommendation I got from several people was this Horner score. I liked the movie, but the cd was OOP so I paid for a cdr. Didn't like it at all (or any Horner, as it turns out). It was an expensive lesson about relying on personal taste which I've never forgotten, probably because it was my first "blind buy." Love the Delerue score, tho.
So I went out and bought the Varese Sarabande CD of Conan The Barbarian (VSD-5390) because I had read so much about how brilliant the score was. I read such high praise that I simply had to hear it for myself. One particular guide states that the score is "an enormous, awe-inspiring creation that transcends the constraints of the picture's comic-book narrative to become a fully fledged independent work."
Wow, I thought. I can hardly wait to hear this masterpiece!
This board is in love with Christopher Young. I don't get it at all.
The Youngs I have are few as a result:
Copycat The Fly 2 The Grudge 2 Nightmare on Elm Street 2 Love Happens Rounders The Shipping News
I keep buying his stuff if I see it dirt cheap in a used bin because I figure I gotta be missing SOMEthing, but geez are they unmemorable.
Maybe you should stop buying his dirty cheap unmemorable stuff and should try some memorable. What about Hellraiser, Hellraiser II, Haunted Summer, Hider in the House, Flowers in the Attic, Bless the Child, Ghost Rider, Monkey King, The Informers, Priest, The Core, Scenes of the Crime, Murder in the First...?
Total Recall by Goldsmith. It should have been a warning sign that when watching the movie I didn't notice the score at all. But I read so many praises of the score that I couldn't resist and bought it. After a couple of listens I shrugged and sold it. It did nothing for me.
I really like Zimmers (and Howards) music from the Dark Kníght Trilogy. It has lots of good themes and variations of it. The orchestration is also good and you get the feeling that it actually was played by a real one.
I also quite like Men of Steel (Hans Zimmer). Not as much as TDK Trilogy but still, it has some good tracks like "Oil Rig", "Goodbye My Son", "If You Love These People", "Tornado" & "What Are ... Saving The World?". The Instumentation is a lot weaker and the orchestra sonds a bit fake but it's still a (quite) good Zimmer score.
Going into Batman v Superman, my expectations were really high.
Boy is this thing shit. All of the Batman themes are gone and replaced with a 2-Chord progression that gets repeated for 4 minutes straight in "Men Are Still Good (The Batman Suite)". I get that they didn't want the old themes because Afleck's Batman isn't Bale's Batman but SOMETHING memorable would be nice. It feels like a place holder...
At least some of the MoS material gets reprised here but less good...
Orchestration is weak af and I don't want to know which freeware samples were used to try to imitate an orchestra. The electronic sound-design (which I really like in DK and MoS) is in BvS a huge mess and in it's entirety, the score beyond overproduced. Everything feels wrong. This score features also the things of my Nightmares: Junkie XL drums.
The new themes vary between ok (Lex Luthor) and good (Wonder Woman) but both of them sound better in later DCEU films.
From what I gather, it's either going to win the Oscar or come in second place. People really love something about it, and for the life of me I can't figure out what.
I think nowadays it is very difficult to justify a "letdown" with a soundtrack.
For every release there are usually samples available, tracks on Youtube, the full score on Spotify, the full movie or at least sections of it available at Youtube, Netflix, etc... just listen before buying!
Sometimes you can be disappointed with the sound quality, glitches or presentation choices, but that's it.