Maybe sales of "The X-Files" and "MillenniuM" have softened FOX to possibilities like this.
I've been asking for this on/off for over a decade. Some quick examples I remember, worth mentioning:
The action music from "Homer the Heretic" when Homer falls asleep with a cigar and it falls, catching fire, causing the house to go up. Flanders has to rescue him.
Various cues from the two-parter, "Who Shot Mr. Burns?".
The wonderful finale cue from "Simpson and Delilah" (Patrick Williams).
Some of the cues from the one episode Tom Scott scored.
The "Patton parody scoring from the episode where Bart and kids confront Nelson.
"Bart Gets an F" (Arthur B. Rubinstein), especially that wonderful set piece for everybody outside skating, playing with snowballs, etc.
I don't remember the episode, but there's this wonderful cue when Abe takes money he got, and fixes up the senior center, and they all come in to enjoy it for the first time.
Maybe sales of "The X-Files" and "MillenniuM" have softened FOX to possibilities like this.
I've been asking for this on/off for over a decade. Some quick examples I remember, worth mentioning:
The action music from "Homer the Heretic" when Homer falls asleep with a cigar and it falls, catching fire, causing the house to go up. Flanders has to rescue him.
Varius cues from the two-parter, "Who Shot Mr. Burns?".
The wonderful finale cue from "Simpson and Delilah" (Patrick Williams).
Some of the cues from the one episode Tom Scott scored.
The "Patton parody scoring from the episode where Bart and kids confront Nelson.
"Bart Gets an F" (Arthur B. Rubinstein), especially that wonderful set piece for everybody outside skating, playing with snowballs, etc.
I don't remember the episode, but there's this wonderful cue when Abe takes money he got, and fixes up the senior center, and they all come in to enjoy it for the first time.
I really hope so, even the music that Richard Gibbs scored for a couple of episodes sounded really catchy. but with recent tv soundtracks like the Star Trek complete series and boxsets like Batman The Animated series. it'd seem (to me anyway) that a Simpsons box set would be somewhat of a no-brainer. i'd like a really big boxset for something like this, but still anything at this point would be awesome (and if that gets a release, maybe we could get a release with Craig Safan's music to Cheers somewhere down the road. I really like Safan...and Cheers, but I digress)
It's more like wishful thinking at this point, but you just never know...
Also, The episode you are thinking of is "Old Money" in which Grandpa's new girlfriend dies and leaves him a lot of money. This Episode was scored by Clausen.
I love the marching music in The Old Man and the Lisa, as they're getting their new business off the ground.
The action music in Raging Abe Simpson And His Grumbling Grandson when Bart's doing his diving is also memorable.
I also recall good action music when Bart is skateboarding down a steep cliff in Bart's Girlfriend.
Of course the Treehouse of Horror episodes have a lot of great opening title music.
I do believe a good amount of the special end credits scores made it onto some earlier CD soundtrack releases for the show. The Dragnet parody one from Marge on the Lam is a highlight.
There's of course a number of cues here and there on the three released CDs, though most of them have dialog on top of the under score (still, some great stuff like The Land of Chocolate are there)
There's of course a number of cues here and there on the three released CDs, though most of them have dialog on top of the under score (still, some great stuff like The Land of Chocolate are there)
The Land of Chocolate is a sound-alike of the "Captain of Industry" cue from Joe Jackson's score for "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" (itself a riff on a certain style of industrial music from that period, though I don't know of any specific inspiration for it).
I don't know how good a Simpsons score album would be. The vast majority of music in the series is in the form of very brief cues - 3, 5, 7 second stingers to set up or punctuate the scene - or end credits versions of Elfman's theme, many of which get released on the song albums. Over the past few years, as they have extended the "couch gag" from a gag to a longer sequence, we've gotten some nice, lengthier music pieces (this season had a good Halloween segment, a Hobbit/LOTR segment, and a Merry Melodies type segment), but otherwise I don't think there's much there to a score album (and even those segments are only 30-90 seconds long).
What I would like is a continuation of the three-album series of songs-plus score - include some of the score highlights that aren't just stingers or repetitions of the Elfman theme, in addition to songs that haven't yet been released.
BTW, here is a blog that is run by The Simpsons' longtime music editor, which updates regularly and has a lot of great insight (earlier insights just about the general scoring process for The Simpsons, and more recent updates about specific sequences and episodes)
I suspect the real problems would be rights and costs issues from tracked in music and cues that parody or use themes from other films and TV series.
One of my favorite tracked cues, which I had not heard before until the episode, is the eisode where Marge sells pretzels and Fat Tony and his mob try to stop her. There was a montage music with this Sam Spence peice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yprqSr1-v3o
I think a set could easily be made by any loving fan who wants to plod through all that music (depending on how much material there is, maybe multiple sets, like Seasons 1-5: Volume 1) and chose the cues.
Considering re-used themes, a clever editor could edit individule stingers and short cues into listenable suites. I'm against this for film scores -- I hate that editing and crossfading -- but here where to take a five second cue with two notes and edited into other smiliar cues to create a surprisingly coherant suite, would be wonderful.
I suspect the real problems would be rights and costs issues from tracked in music and cues that parody or use themes from other films and TV series.
If it was legal enough for TV it'd be legal enough for a CD album. Hell just listen to the musical parodies that HAVE been released -- especially the My Fair Lady one, you might think you are listening to the original melody until you go and listen to the original melody.
Yeah, I don't think there would be any rights issues with song or score parodies. "The Land of Chocolate" and "My Fair Laddy" are mentioned above, but look also at released tracks like "See My Vest," Sherry Bobbins/Mary Poppins tracks, Homer's versions of "Under the Sea" or "When I Was Seventeen," the Schoolhouse Rock takeoff "I'm An Amendment to Be," the takes on "Jack and Diane" and "We Didn't Start the Fire," the Lisa/Evita takes, etc etc. Even if they weren't reworked (different melodies in the same style), they would fall under parody as fair use (see for instance: Weird Al parodies using almost identical backing tracks to popular music)
I just discovered a bunch of interviews with Alf Clausen on YouTube. In this one he talks about the available albums and that he's working on putting together a score album (although I wouldn't say actively), but the shortness of cues is a hurdle.
Like others have said, I'm not sure how well sitcom music like this would hold up on a score album, even if the various versions of the Elfman theme could fill up several albums alone (love the JFK-ish one from "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", for example). But maybe if he got to expand the snippets into coherent pieces, it could work. I'd be up for it.
It's really the same issue I have with Williams' sitcoms from the 60s, like GILLIGAN'S ISLAND or BACHELOR FATHER. The completist in me wants to see these released, but at the same time I'm well aware that 5-second snippets, intros and outros don't make for the best listening experience.
Outside of the theme and the sitcom-y linking pieces, there's plenty of great emotional and action cues.
Personally, I think the best way to go about it is to take the material, arrange it into a series of suites and re-record it, rather than edit the existing material. Over the course of 27 years, I think there's more than enough music to make a solid 45 minute album that holds together as a listening experience.
I found something I had either completely forgotten about or never knew, but the late Ray Colcord scored an episode of the show, too.
He scored "Dead Putting Society", with a fine score that shares similarities to what Clausen has done.
Matt Groening is developing a new animated series, for Netflix. Not details at this point. There's eve na rumor that "The Simpsons" may end up going to Netflix, but I doubt FOX will let the rights go. Unless it's not as profittable as it used to be.
