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It occurred to me the other night that Mike Post has got to be the richest composer on earth. Between all of the various Law and Order series, Rockford Files, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and the a bunch of other shows that air continually, he gets royalties from over a thousand individual episodes containing his music. This is a man who is currently earning what Jack Nicholson calls "death money" -- money you couldn't possibly spend while you're alive.
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He certainly must have a good sum of money, but how much I would guess depends on the deals worked out, and plus a number of the scores were composed with other people, including Pete Carpenter (and themes); woudl royalties continue going to his estate?
The real shame here is that despite his body of work and all the wealth of music to be heard, there's never been a CD release of original scores from anything he's ever done. It's always been theme compilations, with various levels of re-recordings (some just awful).
Mark Snow, Bear McCreary, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM -- one after another of TV work. But nothing for Post? WTF.
Something similar could be said of the body of Danny Lux scores. Though I can't speak to whether there's a bunch in there worth hearing apart from the shows.
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Have long had his CD collection of movie themes, although I see that these days the only ones I've kept in my iTunes are those for "Law & Order" and "NYPD Blue." Very inventive composer and it would be interesting to see what sort of royalties he gets -- it could be a lot, but sometimes the contract turns out to be surprisingly less than we, the public, think. But for a period there, it seemed like ALL the big main themes of action dramas on TV were written by him.
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The real shame here is that despite his body of work and all the wealth of music to be heard, there's never been a CD release of original scores from anything he's ever done. It's always been theme compilations, with various levels of re-recordings (some just awful).
I agree that the re-recordings can be quite awful. But, I think "Music from L.A. and Otherwise", overseen by Mike Post, is quite good. The L.A. Suite is very nice.
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To give you an idea of how much money is in the residuals/royalties for TV themes and scores cues, Haim Saban became a producer (and eventually a mogul) by partnering with DIC as a "co-producer" of their cartoon shows, his partner composing the episodes and titles for free and essentially buying a stream of re-run royalties which he later used to finance buying the rights to Power Rangers and production of the show for Fox. The rest is history.
So yes, I'm certain Mike Post has made quite a steady stream of money from re-runs of shows that have never been out of circulation and -- in the case of the Law and Order franchise -- air multiple times a day both nationally and in local markets (to say nothing of worldwide).
The ubiquitous 2-note chung-chung comes out sounding like ka-ching...
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still have my Mike Post TV THEMES LP from the 80's. That is another great one that was also overseen by Mr. Post. I love the cover of that old LP, where Mike Post is seen conducting multiple TV sets...:-)
Good album, but with all of Post's television music to choose from, it's criminal that this LP runs under 20 minutes.
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A 30 minute cd with music only from The A-Team was released a while back (the cd says 1999) and the music is great. very much Mike post Style. All of the music was composed with Peter Carpenter and occasionally others as well. Pick it up if you can and if you like the Mike Post sound from the 70's and 80's.
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A 30 minute cd with music only from The A-Team was released a while back (the cd says 1999) and the music is great. very much Mike post Style. All of the music was composed with Peter Carpenter and occasionally others as well. Pick it up if you can and if you like the Mike Post sound from the 70's and 80's.
And again that album doesn`t include a single second of the original score recordings. It`s a rerecording done by Daniel Caine in england in the mid 80s. The Caine-A-Team main title is much faster and has a much more large orchestral concert feeling to it than original LA sharp close mike recording. It`s better than nothing but that album has a very different character than the original recordings. There is so much Mike Post stuff that I would love to see released: The Rockford Files, Captain America, The A-Team, Wiseguy, Magnum P.I., Tales of the Gold Monkey, Riptide, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, Hardcastle & McCormick, The Greatest American Hero, Baa Baa Black Sheep etc. etc. etc.
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Posted: |
Jun 8, 2014 - 9:01 PM
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By: |
CindyLover
(Member)
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There is so much Mike Post stuff that I would love to see released: The Rockford Files, Captain America, The A-Team, Wiseguy, Magnum P.I., Tales of the Gold Monkey, Riptide, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, Hardcastle & McCormick, The Greatest American Hero, Baa Baa Black Sheep etc. etc. etc.
Most of the themes listed there have come out in their original form on compilation albums (I've bolded the ones I know about for sure - mostly on the TVT TV sets although Magnum, P.I. was on a French disc, Riptide on a German one and Tenspeed And Brown Shoe on Rhino's Crime Stoppers), but it's not enough.
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Most of the themes listed there have come out in their original form on compilation albums (I've bolded the ones I know about for sure - mostly on the TVT TV sets although Magnum, P.I. was on a French disc, Riptide on a German one and Tenspeed And Brown Shoe on Rhino's Crime Stoppers), but it's not enough.
Actually none of the original theme recordings have been released. All of the themes that have been released are rerecordings that sometimes sound close and sometimes sound very distant to and from the actual recordings as heard in the shows. And besides, we are only talking about some themes. When it comes to the scores nothing and I mean NOTHING has ever been released. Except for 2 albums with a very small amount of rerecordings (The A-Team and Hill Street Blues).
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Yes, they have. And I'm not talking about single releases like with The White Shadow, I'm talking about the actual themes as they're heard on TV, in some cases (like The A-Team on Television's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 and the abovementioned Tenspeed And Brown Shoe) with sound effects.
OK, on albums like Television`s Greatest Hits there are some of the themes. That`s right. But I`m thinking more of properly remastered tracks and not of tracks that are in mono, include all the SFX and sound like recorded with a microphone off the tv speakers. Many years ago Mike Post sent me a DAT with several of his original main themes in stereo (for example Riptide and The A-Team). That sure is a different sound than what`s available on official albums. Riptide for example has that great 60s retro sound with the instruments competely on the left channel and the doo-wap vocals compeletly on the right channel. And the A-Team and Hardcastel & McCormick themes also sound stunning in stereo without the SFX.
And like I said none of the original score recordings have ever been released. IMO there definetely is a need for several albums. Not every score of every Mike Post show but a couple of albums with the highlights of shows like the bluesy Rockford Files, The A-Team, Magnum P.I., Hardcastle & McCormick, Baa Baa Black Sheep, The Greatest American Hero, the terriffic Tales of the Gold Monkey and the catchy Tenspeed and Brownshoe would be fantastic. And consicering the succes of FSM`s Knight Rider I can imagine that a selection of some of that stuff would sell quite well.
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The A-Team CD releeased by Silva so many years ago was actually pretty great. Derek Wadsworth, I believe, was heavily involved in that. The main theme was obviously a rerecording, but the rest of the cues were very close to the originals (as I could hear compared with the DVDs). If they are rerecordings, they're damned fine.
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