 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Jul 5, 2015 - 2:59 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
McD
(Member)
|
I stopped reading when I got to the utter guff being spewed about the Spielberg/Williams collaboration...
Spielberg's work seems to be viewed with uncritical religious awe, even after it long hit the skids in a horrific way.
You're entitled to your opinion, but don't try and present it as anything other than that.
Or else what...? 
Or else, as shown upthread, people call you out for talking out of an orifice of your body located lower than your head... anyway, anyone who professes to be a veteran film music fan and somehow didn't notice Goldsmith and Bernstein both left us in 2004 really can't be taken seriously.
I can be allowed a few mistakes. I didn't spend half an hour on wiki first (although I did have another look to find out when Kamen died and something else).
I'm not a veteran film music fan. Or even a veteran. Some people on this thread gave up on film music before I was even born, I think!
But for me the glory days of great scores coming from great composers with a track record all ended at roughly the same time. Not just the so-called silver age legends, but quite a few of the next generation. The fact that three of my top seven, relatively youthful still, just gave up on film music during this period is sadder still. The winds of change were definitely there, and not just down to composers dying off.
And even the general public turned on traditional film music that year, with the [opinion]awful[/opinion] Troy being blamed squarely on the score, replaced quicker than you could say 'remote control'.
I still enjoy a few modern scores. But nowhere near as much as I used to. It's rare I leave the cinema and purchase the CD straight away, which I used to do all the time. Cloud Atlas may have been the last time. Under The Skin may have counted but, if I recall, there was no CD soundtrack available during its cinema run. Neither from traditional jobbing film composers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jul 5, 2015 - 3:10 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
JohnnyG
(Member)
|
Other than the fact that we lost some great film composers around that time, there's very little I can agree with here. (OK, I can agree that LOTR was a magnificent achievement and a milestone in film scoring and that Yared's TROY was miles better than Horner's). But I can't agree with the basic premise here.
I'm basically a senior now (although I still feel 20) and I've been collecting soundtracks since the late 60s. Sometimes I feel that there aren't as many good scores now , but I think that is just perception and a bit faulty. Every decade has some truly great scores and a tremendous amount of dreck. It's always been that way. As Theodore Sturgeon famously said: "90% of everything is crap".
Maybe the fact that in past decades, most scores were never released as stand-alone listens and now almost everything gets released....including stuff that probably shouldn't...leads to the belief that scores are not as good these days.
The OP seems overly harsh in his criticisms of say, Williams' recent work. I don't agree, but that's his opinion. I think some folks just get stuck in appreciating a rather narrow style from a certain time period and that's all they can relate to. There are just as many folks here who only seem to like stuff from the 80s as there are people who don't like anything written since Miklos Rozsa died. I think they are both missing out.
I love Rozsa and Waxman and the Golden Age, also Goldsmith and Poledouris and the Silver Age, but I value new adventurous-sounding modern scores too, like Zimmer's CHAPPIE or Serra's LUCY.
But what are you gonna do? People like what they like. A rant like that isn't going to change anyone's mind, anymore than my dissent will.
The thing is that in those decades there were a lot more truly great scores. A lot. You chose to focus on that 90 or whatever per-cent crap stuff there is in a certain time period. I choose instead to focus on the best each period has to offer. And there can be no comparison there. What's the cream of the crop from modern Hollywood? Powell's two 'Dragons'? 'Jupiter Ascending' and 'John Carter'? 'War Horse' even? Well, need I mention the best scores from those past eras to prove there's no contest? Same goes for European cinema (although things seem to be a little better here) - has anyone recently heard a score that can compare to Morricone's groundbreaking '60s stuff or Delerue's works for Truffaut, to Legrand's 'Cherbourg', to Nino Rota?
I'm a guy who can relate to different styles from different times - '80s, Golden Age, tonal and atonal music, synths, a lot of things. I like them, I collect them, I play them. But that doesn't change the fact that there aren't as many good scores now. Believe it, Ray - this is not perception, this is not a bit faulty. This is the sad truth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jul 5, 2015 - 6:11 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Ray Worley
(Member)
|
The thing is that in those decades there were a lot more truly great scores. A lot. You chose to focus on that 90 or whatever per-cent crap stuff there is in a certain time period. I choose instead to focus on the best each period has to offer. And there can be no comparison there. What's the cream of the crop from modern Hollywood? Powell's two 'Dragons'? 'Jupiter Ascending' and 'John Carter'? 'War Horse' even? Well, need I mention the best scores from those past eras to prove there's no contest? Same goes for European cinema (although things seem to be a little better here) - has anyone recently heard a score that can compare to Morricone's groundbreaking '60s stuff or Delerue's works for Truffaut, to Legrand's 'Cherbourg', to Nino Rota?
I'm a guy who can relate to different styles from different times - '80s, Golden Age, tonal and atonal music, synths, a lot of things. I like them, I collect them, I play them. But that doesn't change the fact that there aren't as many good scores now. Believe it, Ray - this is not perception, this is not a bit faulty. This is the sad truth.
There's no "truth" about it. That is just your opinion. And how do you interpret that I was focusing on the crap?
I didn't mention any specific titles from earlier decades. And there is no point in rattling off recent titles that I consider truly great, because you will just brush me off as "wrong". IN YOUR OPINION.
Just like film, film scores often get raised in critical opinion with the passage of a little time. In future, I'm willing to bet there will be a number of recent scores that get talked about in hushed tones 10 -20 years from now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"2004: The year film music died"
LOL!
Film Music is alive and well.
Must be sad being you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Jul 5, 2015 - 7:22 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
JohnnyG
(Member)
|
The thing is that in those decades there were a lot more truly great scores. A lot. You chose to focus on that 90 or whatever per-cent crap stuff there is in a certain time period. I choose instead to focus on the best each period has to offer. And there can be no comparison there. What's the cream of the crop from modern Hollywood? Powell's two 'Dragons'? 'Jupiter Ascending' and 'John Carter'? 'War Horse' even? Well, need I mention the best scores from those past eras to prove there's no contest? Same goes for European cinema (although things seem to be a little better here) - has anyone recently heard a score that can compare to Morricone's groundbreaking '60s stuff or Delerue's works for Truffaut, to Legrand's 'Cherbourg', to Nino Rota?
I'm a guy who can relate to different styles from different times - '80s, Golden Age, tonal and atonal music, synths, a lot of things. I like them, I collect them, I play them. But that doesn't change the fact that there aren't as many good scores now. Believe it, Ray - this is not perception, this is not a bit faulty. This is the sad truth.
There's no "truth" about it. That is just your opinion. And how do you interpret that I was focusing on the crap?
I didn't mention any specific titles from earlier decades. And there is no point in rattling off recent titles that I consider truly great, because you will just brush me off as "wrong". IN YOUR OPINION.
Just like film, film scores often get raised in critical opinion with the passage of a little time. In future, I'm willing to bet there will be a number of recent scores that get talked about in hushed tones 10 -20 years from now.
Well, let's hope we're still around in 2030 - we'll probably settle this!
(Nah, you're not wrong. OK, sometimes you think there aren't as many good scores now. It's good that this thought crosses your mind. Let it grow on you! )
(...IN MY OPINION!  )
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm really glad that I don't care for any of the stuff that's written nowadays for film because now I can concentrate on filling the huge gaps in my pre-1979 collection. So many Rózsas, Herrmanns, Friedhofers, Raksins etc STILL TO GET, plus all those which I HAVE got but haven't listened to nearly enough.
That's a fact and not an opinion by the way.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Music for film is not dead, but I admit that from 2008 onward I have lost interest in album releases of music from movies and TV made over the past 7 years or thereabouts.
I do continue to collect new CD releases, but the content is mostly pre-1980s.
A 55-year-old Italian film soundtrack recently issued on a label such as Digitmovies, for example, intrigues me more than whatever is 'new'.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
