How do you feel about this practice that some companies took on some of their Movie Soundtrack Releases. I personally think it sucks and is not a nice gesture to the composer. It's like leaving the author's name off the book cover and that just doesn't seem right.
Here's a few cases where it happened on LP Soundtrack Release from the past.
Jerry Goldsmith surely should have been recognized for composing such a great score here. Shame on you WB:
Here they seemed to think showing that it was a "Digital Recording" was more important than crediting the great James Horner:
Arnold's name also doesn't appear on the front of Columbia's "The Bridge On The River Kwai" L.P. (both the original issue and the reissue, which got new fonts on the cover, though a writeup about him on the back cover is on both issues).
Growing up buying soundtracks I have to admit it's not something I noticed or cared about. But in retrospect I think it's rather disrespectful leaving the composers name off the cover.
I could care less about it being disrespectful to the composer: It is disrespectful to me when I am digging through crates of LPs and a soundtrack I've never seen before catches my eye, and then I can't figure out who the hell the composer is!
John Williams' name didn't make the cover of JAWS, either on the LP or the MCA CD. I don't know if he ever amounted to anything, but that's a fantastic album.
...but with MCA-1660 in a rectangular box in the upper right-hand corner. But the back cover has MCA-2087 in small print, same location. Whatever. Seems to me I purchased it right after film's release.
FSM CDs have the composer's name on the visible portion of the inlay tray so that if you're looking at the CD, the name is actually pretty prominent.
Sadly, that doesn't help when you're searching for FSM cover art on Google, and have to put the composer's name over the image when posting it in the current "Now Playing" thread.
How do you feel about this practice that some companies took on some of their Movie Soundtrack Releases. I personally think it sucks and is not a nice gesture to the composer. It's like leaving the author's name off the book cover and that just doesn't seem right.
Here's a few cases where it happened on LP Soundtrack Release from the past.
Jerry Goldsmith surely should have been recognized for composing such a great score here. Shame on you WB:
Here they seemed to think showing that it was a "Digital Recording" was more important than crediting the great James Horner:
There is no intent by a label to leave a composer's name off. Keep in mind that any soundtrack that is licensed from a studio is subject to art approvals. Back in the day, the idea was selling the soundtrack. That is why some don't have that info. It's not a situation of trying to hurt or ignore a great composer.
Sadly, that doesn't help when you're searching for FSM cover art on Google, and have to put the composer's name over the image when posting it in the current "Now Playing" thread.
Perhaps, but the design concept was made long before digital music libraries were a thing. While the booklet covers don't mention the composer's credit, the idea was that you would have seen the composer's name quite prominently whilst looking at the CD, so you can't really count it as “leaving it off.”
Very much in general, I get the feeling that "normal" people who buy soundtracks don't really care about who composed what, and those of us who do care - buying from the specialist labels etc - already know who the composer is, even if there's no name on the cover.
I can't imagine that "leaving a composer's name off the front" is in any way an insult to the composer, in fact in all my years of soundtrack collecting this is the first time I've even thought about it. I certainly have absolutely no idea whose name does or doesn't appear on the front of my LPs and CDs.
