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 Posted:   Dec 7, 2014 - 2:45 PM   
 By:   Solium   (Member)

An infamous Ford A. Thaxton "we are Fanboys who know nothing" rant in 3..., 2..., 1...

We have a winner!

 
 Posted:   Dec 7, 2014 - 2:59 PM   
 By:   Sean Nethery   (Member)

To echo a couple of points here, Basil's in particular, a lot of times in the LP days, composer put together great Side 1's, with weaker Side 2's that would often feel a bit like a rehash of side 1. Much as I love Goldsmith, I think he did this from time to time, even with Star Trek the Motion Picture. Side 1 is just perfect. Side 2 is great, and it has the only play through of the love theme, but it isn't nearly as effective on its own. (The Wind and the Lion was another example of this.) And that's the point, the LP was supposed to work just hearing one side as much as altogether, which is inherently problematic.

Yes, once CDs were dominant, and composers stopped creating two 20 minute suites, this kind of thing worked better, even though some play order was wildly distorted. (Like Goldsmith's original Total Recall, which after the main titles started with the penultimate action cue and then brought in the final action cue at the end. It isn't in some ways as satisfying as the chronological order in the wonderful expansion, but that very expansion has those two cues as the end of SEVENTEEN MINUTES of action music, which is too damn much!).

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 7, 2014 - 3:02 PM   
 By:   .   (Member)

I don't know, Basil....but from what you describe there, it actually sounds like something very much up my alley. And I've enjoyed practically all my CD's released around 1990 that were straight reissues of older LPs. There seems to be a fine balance of ebb and flow (like a sonata form) in the program.

For someone like me, who's not interested in the films or -- in fact -- any function the music may originally have had in the film, it seems to work very well. Like a concert program (with an intermission/flipping of the LP).





You should get the Varese For Whom the Bell Tolls. One of the better self-contained LP arrangements of a film score I've encountered.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 7, 2014 - 3:49 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

You should get the Varese For Whom the Bell Tolls. One of the better self-contained LP arrangements of a film score I've encountered.

I have an old combo disc of that score alongside GOLDEN EARRING and OMAR KAYAAM. That's pretty much perfect for me.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 7, 2014 - 4:21 PM   
 By:   .   (Member)

You should get the Varese For Whom the Bell Tolls. One of the better self-contained LP arrangements of a film score I've encountered.

I have an old combo disc of that score alongside GOLDEN EARRING and OMAR KAYAAM. That's pretty much perfect for me.




Odd that it's me who is recommending the album arrangement/performance and you who is happier with the original soundtrack snippets.

 
 Posted:   Dec 8, 2014 - 3:46 PM   
 By:   Adm Naismith   (Member)

Bear McCreary assembles suprior albums.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 8, 2014 - 4:12 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

Bear McCreary assembles suprior albums.

He's one of the worst out there. But his music is often quite good and deserves a lot better.

 
 Posted:   Dec 8, 2014 - 4:17 PM   
 By:   Yavar Moradi   (Member)

His music for Human Target is IMO the best thing he's done but I've been finding LLL's (otherwise beautifully-produced) album annoying to listen to because the cues from different episode scores are all jumbled together. If it'd been more like some of their Shirley Walker releases (The Flash, Space: Above & Beyond) I think I'd enjoy it more.

Yavar

 
 Posted:   Dec 8, 2014 - 9:51 PM   
 By:   Lokutus   (Member)

Marco Beltrami has made some very fine albums from his scores - my favorites are Hellboy, Flight of the Phoenix and 3:10 to Yuma.

While I have no objections about Yuma (and I am still looking forward to LLL's expansion), Flight of the Phoenix is a GREAT album but only if you don't know rest of the score that has some terrific cues in it and some brand new themes that are completely absent, it's far from being as bad as how TERRIBLE Hellboy CD is - easily the worst presentation of one of his finest scores ever - not to mention that someone obviously skipped quality control of the master entirely with its ticks and pops every other second. HELLBOY includes almost random like selection of a few cues, completely disses the climatic and most of the action music and even some major themes - actually HB's theme for relationship with his father is only hinted on the album despite the fact it plays major part throughout whole score and is actually used far more frequently in the movie than HB's own theme for bass guitar. There are some other major issues too, as completely absent choir in some parts like the final version of the love theme, Father's Funeral is also different version than used in the film, End Credits suite is also missing and that one is one of the most important cues, etc, etc, etc...
Combine all of this with completely random track order and HELLBOY is nr. 1 candidate for DeLuxe edition, that will correct all these problems of the original release.

I, ROBOT is next in the line and could also use remastering and resequencing and of course expansion.

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 8, 2014 - 11:38 PM   
 By:   Thgil   (Member)

Like Goldsmith's original Total Recall, which after the main titles started with the penultimate action cue and then brought in the final action cue at the end. It isn't in some ways as satisfying as the chronological order in the wonderful expansion, but that very expansion has those two cues as the end of SEVENTEEN MINUTES of action music, which is too damn much!

Speak for yourself!

 
 
 Posted:   Dec 9, 2014 - 5:48 AM   
 By:   Joe Caps   (Member)

I don't think in older times, the composers chose the music for the albums at all.

Up until the time Alfred Newman left Fox, all albums ere put together by fox vocal director Ken Darby.
Both ken and Alfred hated the usual fake album reverb that labels added. They warned whatever label to NOT add anything to the original sound. This does not mean the labels complied.

One of the reasons that so many of the Fox albums were on Decca, is that Decca did comply.
Listen to the roginal albums of Anastasia, Young Lions, Sound and the Fury and there is no extra album reverb on the originals.

Over at MGM, Jesse Kaye chose everything. The exceptions were the Arthur Freed musicals, which were edited and put together by Lela Simone.

 
 Posted:   Dec 9, 2014 - 10:57 AM   
 By:   Sean Nethery   (Member)

....Flight of the Phoenix is a GREAT album but only if you don't know rest of the score that has some terrific cues in it and some brand new themes that are completely absent, it's far from being as bad as how TERRIBLE Hellboy CD is - easily the worst presentation of one of his finest scores ever....

This is the essence of different perspectives on this issue. What I'm saying is that Hellboy works great as an album for me, not that it is a comprehensive representation of the music in the film. I completely understand that some of us really want music we hear in the film more or less as presented in the film, but that for me is not what this is about. It's about whether the music holds together as music, whether it plays well as an album, more or less divorced from the film, which is what it actually is. (You wanna hear the music in the film? Watch the film!)

For me, Hellboy plays great, it starts great, it's packed with variety, it ends great. So much so that I just ignore the technical problems on the album (though of course it would be great to have that cleaned up, and I no doubt would buy an expansion).

And let me be perhaps the first poster in the history of this board to say that by and large I couldn't care less about end credit suites (well, except when I do, but mostly I skip 'em). I don't need reprises of themes - there's more than enough (MUCH more than enough) repetition in film scores as it is.

 
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