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I'm glad I did that 5CD set of David Raksin at M-G-M when I did!
I guess this is the part where I give up any hope of LLL or Intrada doing an Andre Previn at M-G-M set, eh Lukas?
(Thanks ever so much for the Previn MGM titles you did tackle, Lukas. In fact despite the sound effects, the Previn disc was my favorite part of the Lassie set! If only there was the sales potential for a re-recording, because I think his first Lassie score in particular is just fantastic.)
Yavar
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Not *very* tech savvy if they think TV speakers deliver satisfactory sound!
That's as may be, but it doesn't change Mr. Marshall's point. Further, if you're living in a small apartment, or with roommates, your volume options are limited. People do what suits them.
SOME folks who want a "home theater" will purchase a speaker bar, which is certainly a big improvement over tv speakers but not really good at delivering music
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There's any number of reasons why I'm buying less and less these days.
[1] Modern scores just aren't interesting enough. It's long past the point where I even bother to look on the poster for the music credit; I'll see the name in the credits themselves but it no longer means anything, any more than the costume designer or editor. (Not to denigrate those arts and professions, but they've never been passions of mine, while the music definitely used to be.) These days I honestly can't imagine ever leaving the cinema and heading straight for the nearest CD shop (there are still a few) or firing up Amazon and clicking Add To Basket. I guess that's the fault of studios wanting these kinds of scores, but as listening experiences they're woefully unsatisfying. I know this because I've cracked them through Spotify and in many cases I've struggled to finish the album. Sometimes it's not even much of a struggle to abandon it entirely.
[2] It's great that the labels have kept the standard limited edition price at $20 for so long - wasn't that the launch price when Varese started the Club again with Heartbeeps? But shipping costs and customs charges have raised the import costs alarmingly (not to mention the currency rates which, given the UK's recent behaviour, are probably not going to get any better any time soon) to the point where, unless there's a sale on such as the Colosseum clearout of a few years ago or an offer on free shipping, it has to be something really special. Leading to....
[3] Is there much that's special left? Obviously that's a personal matter for personal tastes, but most of my grails have been released now (Arnold's SHAFT, Mancini's CHARADE, a stack of Goldsmith) and there's not a lot I'm still looking for. Plus, I'm older now and whilst I'd love a CD release of Roy Budd's WILD GEESE II, it's a fact that I've managed the last twenty years plus without it and life hasn't been any worse for not having it. I got into scores through the usual routes - mostly Bond, Star Wars, Geoff Love - and accumulated a lot of CDs from the mid-1990s onwards, providing a ton of Goldsmith, Horner, Barry, Williams and Zimmer but so many others as well. I bought almost everything to start with. But gradually whittled it down as I refined by preferences - less Golden Age, less crummy synth scores. Now I know who and what I like and who and what I'm less keen on. I'm no longer buying scores just because they're there.
[4] It's also great that the release day frenzy has died down and scores no longer sell out in a day. I was never angry that I had to spend $20 plus shipping on BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND (even if it's a score I haven't now played in maybe five years and can't even remember ever pulling off the shelf), but it did annoy me that I had to buy it now, this morning, immediately because by lunch it would be gone and I'd end up having to pay twice as much to an eBay speculator just because I had to go to the office that day. That doesn't seem to happen any more. But with that has gone the impetus and excitement: I don't need to stay up late or get up early for the announcements, they'll still be around tomorrow, next week, October.... oh, they've finally gone. I've missed a couple of titles like that, even Goldsmith ones, and it took me ages to pick them up on the secondary market.
[5] I am of that school that's less excited by expansions than premier releases. Sometimes I'm perfectly happier with the original release - I have the Varese 2CD set for THE FURY but the earlier single disc is the only one I ever play, and I'm not sure the expansions of EXTREME PREJUDICE or NOT WITHOUT MY MOTHER are better than the Intrada and Edel discs respectively - while others like GREMLINS or STAR TREK 5 were welcome simply because there was so much previously unreleased music on them; the latter was genuinely like hearing a new Goldsmith Trek score simply because the first album was so brief. But I can't get excited about every note. I'm not an archivist, I'm a listener, and when I want to hear EMPIRE or JEDI it's always the 1-disc albums I go for because, terrific music that it is, the 2-disc sets are a bit of a stodge to actually sit and listen to. I'm fine with reissues of old scores that haven't been around for ages, like LINK (a score for which I have an almost idiotic fondness), so when Intrada put it out I bought it instantly. But if it came out again tomorrow with 10 minutes of extra stuff I'd struggle with whether to upgrade or not. And we do seem to be getting more expansions recently. US MARSHALS is great at 30 minutes, AIR FOREC ONE is great at 35, and I'd certainly like more, but I'd be more thrilled if the inexplicably absent MACARTHUR and RAGGEDY MAN resurfaced after all these years or something like THE DON IS DEAD premiered.
[6] Even after a few clearouts through the Trading Post and even after getting rid of a stack of limited editions and rarities that I no longer wanted, I still have in my flat an absolute ton of music that will keep me going for years. There are boxes of CDs all over the place and many of them have not been played for years so they're pretty much waiting to be (re)discovered. It's got to be something special to get me to add to the pile when I really should be clearing a bit of space.
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Posted: |
Apr 16, 2017 - 5:11 AM
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By: |
afn
(Member)
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Platini, I agree 100% - ONE HUNDRED PERCENT - with what you write. I could have written this. I've said all this time and again on this board but it seems only in this thread here it finally catches on with a lot of readers and they are finally willing and ready to speak out.
BUT: What I've also said is this: Yes, the studios apparently want those nondescript, bland and cardboard "scores" (Should they even be called that anymore?) that add nothing more to a film than the fact whether you see a black or a grey vase in the background of a room in any movie scene. Nobody cares, nobody even notices it.
So if that's true then tell me why live "music to picture" concerts are on the rise and draw such huge crowds everywhere? JURASSIC PARK, STAR WARS, TITANIC, HARRY POTTER, LORD OF THE RINGS, POTC etc.? Each and every time a film dares to have a recognizable score these days it resonates with the audience. Even INCEPTION with its rather edgy music managed to have its score performed live, and friends of mine who are really just "normal" moviegoers were fascinated by the music and listened to it at home!
Who can explain this paradox?!
But as some here have already written, in a time when you have no main title sequences in 99% of movies today -sometimes not even showing the f***ing T I T L E of the film!! - but at the same time have elaborate and incredibly inventive and creative "main title" sequences at the beginning of the END credits where nobody is watching anymore and either leaving the cinema or switching off the player - what do you expect?
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Some otherwise good arguments in this thread are marred by old-man "They don't write 'em like they used to" sentiments. An old man could say the same about contemporary pop music, but still, someone is buying those records, or at least downloading them.
So, we are not really getting to the core issue if our aesthetic judgments are blinding us to economic or sociocultural factors that have affected the "popularity" of film music.
Oh, I'm well aware that my argument is basically Old Man Yells At Cloud, but it's not a sentiment. I'm 52! Maybe if I were thirty years younger I'd feel differently about the godawful of MAN OF STEEL or whatever malfunctioning fridge noises Reznor and Ross are churning out. Maybe I'd be more interested in modern TV shows, but the fact remains that the CDs of LOST and ALIAS that I picked up had so little impact on me that I honestly couldn't tell you if I still had them or chucked them or traded them away (certainly I didn't buy any more). And maybe if I were thirty years younger I'd probably have the impetus to explore other areas - videogame scores or Japanese anime scores - but I don't. Not any more. I don't doubt good work, maybe great work, is being done in those areas, but I just don't have the energy or the desire to chase it any more.
And ultimately all I have are my aesthetic judgements. Maybe they're mixed with nostalgia, but there's nothing I can do about that. I don't have all the stats on what sells and what doesn't, who purchases it, where and how and in what format. I can only tell you what sells to me. And these days, for reasons a few posts up, that's not very much. Maybe the younger generation feel differently, and in thirty years time they'll be moaning about how the scores of 2047 aren't as good as the golden age of Steve Jablonsky they grew up with. I can only speak for myself.
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Posted: |
Apr 16, 2017 - 6:18 PM
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By: |
Spymaster
(Member)
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(Almost) everything that we could possibly want is now out there, either in our collections already, or at a store available for purchase (at varying prices). I fail to see this is being a problem.
And there are enough good (active) composers still out there to sustain certainly MY interest going forwards - Williams, Silvestri, Elfman, Marianelli, Velasquez, Newman, Beltrami, Young, Donaggio, Burwell, Yared etc. And a few I'm just discovering from scratch, e.g. Bruno Coulais.
The heat around new releases may be diminishing, but the music is still out there, and it's mostly wonderful.
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