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Please note: We are not selling out of A Certain Smile. We are just getting rid of the rest of the stock we have and not repressing. The contract is expiring and we do not want to press up the remaining 1000 units.
So, 1500 units (once sold out) is what this title sold. Lovely score, but sadly didn't perform even at a discounted price for the past few years.
MV
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Please note: We are not selling out of A Certain Smile. We are just getting rid of the rest of the stock we have and not repressing. The contract is expiring and we do not want to press up the remaining 1000 units.
So, 1500 units (once sold out) is what this title sold. Lovely score, but sadly didn't perform even at a discounted price for the past few years.
MV
1500 is amazing, actually - sad that it wasn't at full price, though, because it's a beautiful album, beautifully presented. But such is the way for Golden Age scores, sadly.
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Posted: |
Jan 31, 2017 - 3:12 PM
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By: |
PFK
(Member)
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Please note: We are not selling out of A Certain Smile. We are just getting rid of the rest of the stock we have and not repressing. The contract is expiring and we do not want to press up the remaining 1000 units.
So, 1500 units (once sold out) is what this title sold. Lovely score, but sadly didn't perform even at a discounted price for the past few years.
MV
1500 is amazing, actually - sad that it wasn't at full price, though, because it's a beautiful album, beautifully presented. But such is the way for Golden Age scores, sadly.
Yes indeed, A CERTAIN SMILE is such a beautiful score. I paid full price when it came out and it's worth every penny of it. 1500 copies (nearly) sold is very good. Alfred Newman was one of Hollywood's greatest composers, arrangers and conductors!
Thanks again MV for the Golden Age CDs you have done, especially for SHANE, GIANT and GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL. I hope you still might reconsider the Franz Waxman and Max Steiner CDs you apparently had planned. 
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1500 is amazing, actually - sad that it wasn't at full price, though, because it's a beautiful album, beautifully presented. But such is the way for Golden Age scores, sadly.
Not all Golden Age scores. LLL themselves have had a number of Golden Age releases sell out within a year at 2000 copies, with no discounts necessary -- some of them even Alfred Newman scores (The Robe and The Egyptian)!
The problems with selling A Certain Smile were several, unrelated to it being Golden Age or Alfred Newman:
1. It was not a western, swashbuckler, epic, sci-fi, horror, or action score. It was a (lovely) score for a soapy drama. Those on average seem to sell not much better than most comedy scores, and in addition tend not to have exciting covers that grab you and make you imagine the amazing music contained within.
2. Apart from genre, the film itself was not at all well-regarded and is virtually forgotten today, with no home video releases of it for people to even rediscover it. Even manderley barely remembered this one! So no "nostalgia factor" for anyone.
3. Even to Alfred Newman NUTS like me, this score can be seen as a bit compromised musically because he had to adapt the song (not composed by him) into his underscore. Now, it's not a horrible song (though not quite Love Is A Many Splendored Thing either). But I will admit that for me, personally, I get tired of its appearance in the score, especially since Newman himself wrote a much more profound and gorgeous love theme, which totally blows the song theme away IMO. I love Golden Age scores in general but the one fad from the era that I tire of is title songs, particularly ones not written by the composer which they are then forced to interpolate. Admittedly, a lot of Golden Age fans aren't bothered by this but some of them, like me, are.
That said, even with the above complaint, this is a GORGEOUS score, LLL's two disc set sounds GREAT, and it was an early Jim Titus project so looks beautiful (even though that cover image from the movie poster is a little weird looking). At $10 it is an absolute STEAL and all lovers of beautiful film music should buy it.
Yavar
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Fair enough, and like I said it's not a bad song per se; I simply find it's beauty far more superficial compared to Newman's own love theme from the score, which is as great as his love themes usually tend to be for much more famous scores like The Robe.
Yavar
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Gorgeous score. Got the deluxe CD treatment. I bought it when first released, and certainly don't regret doing so.
However, were anyone likely to put that amount of energy into releasing a Newman score, I know a number of people would have recommended other titles than this one. Either NEVADA SMITH or, more requested, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK would have been more popular releases. (Though the availability of materials for either of them seems to be a moot subject, let alone arranging for legal rights.)
So A CERTAIN SMILE got released. Great score. Worth getting. But not what I would have called A-List Newman.
And I know whereof I speak. I'm a Newmaniac.
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However, were anyone likely to put that amount of energy into releasing a Newman score, I know a number of people would have recommended other titles than this one. Either NEVADA SMITH or, more requested, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK would have been more popular releases. (Though the availability of materials for either of them seems to be a moot subject, let alone arranging for legal rights.)
Re: Diary of Anne Frank, MV has hinted repeatedly on this forum that LLL has been working on a complete release. I don't know if that's changed now after Giant tanked, but I certainly hope not! (Perhaps he can post and let us know whether to stop hoping.)
As for Nevada Smith, since it's from a certain era at Paramount it certainly may be the case that elements for the complete score don't exist. I continue to hold out hope that there are stems or something that can be used for an imperfect release a la Goldsmith's Seconds or Bernstein's True Grit. I definitely think it'd be more of a hit for LLL than A Certain Smile, being a Silver Age score and a western.
Yavar
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1500 is amazing, actually - sad that it wasn't at full price, though, because it's a beautiful album, beautifully presented. But such is the way for Golden Age scores, sadly.
Not all Golden Age scores. LLL themselves have had a number of Golden Age releases sell out within a year at 2000 copies, with no discounts necessary -- some of them even Alfred Newman scores (The Robe and The Egyptian)!
The problems with selling A Certain Smile were several, unrelated to it being Golden Age or Alfred Newman:
1. It was not a western, swashbuckler, epic, sci-fi, horror, or action score. It was a (lovely) score for a soapy drama. Those on average seem to sell not much better than most comedy scores, and in addition tend not to have exciting covers that grab you and make you imagine the amazing music contained within.
2. Apart from genre, the film itself was not at all well-regarded and is virtually forgotten today, with no home video releases of it for people to even rediscover it. Even manderley barely remembered this one! So no "nostalgia factor" for anyone.
3. Even to Alfred Newman NUTS like me, this score can be seen as a bit compromised musically because he had to adapt the song (not composed by him) into his underscore. Now, it's not a horrible song (though not quite Love Is A Many Splendored Thing either). But I will admit that for me, personally, I get tired of its appearance in the score, especially since Newman himself wrote a much more profound and gorgeous love theme, which totally blows the song theme away IMO. I love Golden Age scores in general but the one fad from the era that I tire of is title songs, particularly ones not written by the composer which they are then forced to interpolate. Admittedly, a lot of Golden Age fans aren't bothered by this but some of them, like me, are.
That said, even with the above complaint, this is a GORGEOUS score, LLL's two disc set sounds GREAT, and it was an early Jim Titus project so looks beautiful (even though that cover image from the movie poster is a little weird looking). At $10 it is an absolute STEAL and all lovers of beautiful film music should buy it.
Yavar
The Mathis song (and as you described, its pervasiveness in the La La Land) is the only thing keeping me from putting the CD in my queue.
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Don't hesitate on LLL's great release. There is also an original love theme by Alfred Newman heard a good amount in the score, and as one might predict it is absolutely gorgeous. The score is very very good, even if it's not as good as it could have been if it was allowed to be 100% Alfred Newman. But his arrangements of other people's tunes are still more brilliant than most Hollywood composers' IMO.
Yavar
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Don't hesitate on LLL's great release. There is also an original love theme by Alfred Newman heard a good amount in the score, and as one might predict it is absolutely gorgeous. The score is very very good, even if it's not as good as it could have been if it was allowed to be 100% Alfred Newman. But his arrangements of other people's tunes are still more brilliant than most Hollywood composers' IMO.
Yavar
What I've heard of the actual score is tremendous; Alfred was just phenomenal with strings and woodwinds in particular. In some ways it brings to mind one of my favorite scores for a pseudo-soap: the magical Peyton Place.
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Well if you see it for an affordable price, grab it. Sadly it sold out at only $10 a copy this past year from LLL, before you discovered the forum.
Yavar
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Well if you see it for an affordable price, grab it. Sadly it sold out at only $10 a copy this past year from LLL, before you discovered the forum.
Yavar
It's going brand new for under $19 at moviemusic. For a two disc set that sounds pretty good to me. I'll probably bulk up my Goldsmith before I go there, though: QB VII, Wind and the Lion.
RE the latter composer: I feel as though I have enough Omens with the I and III deluxes, but I watched Omen 2 the other day (weirdly underrated thriller imo) and loved some of the synth work there. So that one's tempting as well
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