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Remember folks, we're living in the age where bigger and noisier is better.
If you have a modern two hour action film, expect three hours of music for the crash-bang-wallop orchestra and the great grand choir of the apocalypse.
There's nothing wrong with choir as a form of musical expression. There are some wonderful choral scores. The Lion In Winter. The Omen. Conan.
But, has it become an over-used Hollywood cliche? Yes!
Nowadays, it seems the absolute minimum statement necessary in an action movie is massive overstatement.
So many modern action scores bore me silly, precisely because it's all so monotonously overstated.
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Remember folks, we're living in the age where bigger and noisier is better.
If you have a modern two hour action film, expect three hours of music for the crash-bang-wallop orchestra and the great grand choir of the apocalypse.
There's nothing wrong with choir as a form of musical expression. There are some wonderful choral scores. The Lion In Winter. The Omen. Conan.
But, has it become an over-used Hollywood cliche? Yes!
Nowadays, it seems the absolute minimum statement necessary in an action movie is massive overstatement.
So many modern action scores bore me silly, precisely because it's all so monotonously overstated.
I agree with you, Stephen. There's a great article in an old print issue of FSM (perhaps by Jeff Bond?) in which he says that one of the problems with scoring for modern action films is that every moment is treated like a climax - which completely obliterates any power the "real" climax (if there is one) may have. This must have been about 15 years ago so it's not a new thing, and although he wasn't singling out the overuse of choirs, I think the result is the same.
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I guess a lot of you hate Basil's Conan the Barbarian then. What a revaluation!
I prefer listening to the choirless version of Riders of Doom on the Prometheus set of Conan The Barbarian.
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While I've never had a problem with soundtracks with choruses, I did feel that John Ottman's original soundtrack recording of "Superman Returns" had too much of it for my own taste, but was convinced by others here to buy the 2-CD expansion and don't regret that I did. Choruses have been used judiciously and effectively in a myriad of films, from "Ben-Hur" to "King of Kings" to "The Lion In Winter" to "Gladiator" to "Rudy" to "Empire of the Sun" to "Omen IV," and a myriad of others. But it's all a matter of taste -- just now I had the start of the Grammy Awards pumping out of my surround system and angrily changed channels because I couldn't stand the music they were playing. For us soundtrack lovers there's a wealth of them with and without choruses, so there's plenty of great music out there for all of us.
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Personally I love the use of choir. Two amazing examples I think of straight away are Howard Shore's scores for the LotR trilogy and Murray Gold's Doctor Who, especially Series 4. Incredible. Human voices are as good as any other instrument in any orchestra.
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To be honest, the massive over-scoring of Dr. Who is exactly why I don't like about the new series but I know I'm unusual in that.
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Goldsmiths First Knight is a good example of choir used sparingly to good effect.The final battle between Lancelot and Malagant is thrilling stuff.However if the whole score had been like this ( Are you listening Mr Ottman? ) it would have been too much.
Actually, the ONLY track i dislike from this all-time fave is that "Carmina Burana" knock off!
bruce
Hm? I always loved that track on First Knight, for one precisely because it did NOT sound like anything from Carmina Burana (even though it was temp tracked with it).
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If you think about the choir as an instrument ...
Then, as with all instruments, it's possible to use it in ways which are distinctive, original and meaningful ...
And it's possible to use it in ways which are bland, indistinct and over-used.
(It's not the instrument / style so much as the way it's used that can get tiresome.)
I don't have anything against good choral music, but I think the way choir has been used in 'blockbuster' films recently has become very uninteresting.
Cheers
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First off, it was amusing this morning to see these threads right next to each other:
Scores which suffer from too much CHOIR..
Alan Silvestri: THE ABYSS (DELUXE EDITION) Varese
(It’s not an opinion I share, but I know it’s one that many have.)
I think I went through a phase in the 90’s where I thought choirs were awesome. But then like some have said here, too much became too much. EVERYTHING had choir. For anything.
I’m not sure what my tipping point is. I found the choir added to Krypton for Superman Returns to be quite charming.
Hmmmm, I guess I can’t think of a score that suffers from too much Choir.
Ones that don’t?
The Abyss
Secret of NIMH
Krull / Brainstorm – You know, really, Horner goes for such a different sound here. It’s a “fragile” choir.
You know what choir I adore? Goodbye Serris from Galaxy Quest. It might be intended to be goofy and over the top, but it brings a tear to my eye every time.
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) it's delicious effectiveness could be said to be due to its underuse. 