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Listening to the recent "Gold Nuggets 6" episode of the Goldsmith Odyssey podcast, which is great, and in talking about MORITURI David brought up an interesting point. Paraphrasing, he said that the substantial sonic upgrade really helped a score like this, allowing the details to shine through. There is also a new warmth in the sense that the sonic quality draws the listener in to a difficult score rather than keeping at arm's length.
The obvious, pat answer to the original question is that any score, especially any great score, will benefit by a sonic upgrade. But David's comment really struck me and I've been thinking about it a lot. Of course there is something to be said for better audio to improve the listening experience for robust, thematic scores, but I hadn't really thought about the other end of it, that it may better further the case of more experimental, avant garde scores where the devil is so foundationally fixed in the details.
Curious if anyone else has any thoughts. Is there a score you maybe didn't like or connect with before, where the sonic upgrade changed your mind?
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Posted: |
May 2, 2020 - 11:15 AM
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By: |
T.J. Turner
(Member)
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Listening to the recent "Gold Nuggets 6" episode of the Goldsmith Odyssey podcast, which is great, and in talking about MORITURI David brought up an interesting point. Paraphrasing, he said that the substantial sonic upgrade really helped a score like this, allowing the details to shine through. There is also a new warmth in the sense that the sonic quality draws the listener in to a difficult score rather than keeping at arm's length.
The obvious, pat answer to the original question is that any score, especially any great score, will benefit by a sonic upgrade. But David's comment really struck me and I've been thinking about it a lot. Of course there is something to be said for better audio to improve the listening experience for robust, thematic scores, but I hadn't really thought about the other end of it, that it may better further the case of more experimental, avant garde scores where the devil is so foundationally fixed in the details.
Curious if anyone else has any thoughts. Is there a score you maybe didn't like or connect with before, where the sonic upgrade changed your mind?
I appreciate the remastered edition of An American Tail. The original version lacked resolution for the dynamic range that was used so the quiet parts of the score had digital artifacts that were very audible.
I would like to see The Land Before Time get the same special treatment in the future.
The Restless records release of The Phantom of the Opera by Misha Segal is absolutly horrendous! But it sounds much better on the Silva resissue.
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My best non-Goldsmith example would be The Day the Earth Stood Still, heard only behind the movie, in the particular quality available in the VHS age. I had no particular affinity for composers outside those hitting the big films of the mid-70's to mid-80's, having only heard such music in that same way, with the films, but I knew a little of this one due to a couple of long clips played when Siskel & Ebert covered sci-fi on a show I'd audiotaped and listened to many times, and at a time when I had a touch of casual cash due to a new job and paid-off school, I saw this release, from 1995, I think:
The design probably pushed me over the edge on it, and it just sounded wonderful. So does the new one, this one:
https://lalalandrecords.com/day-the-earth-stood-still-the-limited-edition/
(very willing promo)
That music just came alive for me via this release, and it led me further down the Herrmann paths. The score of his where I can most feel this need is On Dangerous Ground, which I love, but from a cold distance. Imagine being in the room, though. When that was being recorded? I think my heart would race from sympathetic resonance.
I'd like that one, All About Eve, and Tucker: The Man and His Dream to be given the business. Such a list would probably well overlap a list of scores we'd like rerecorded, and I've had a similar reaction via the Tadlow Thriller compilations, almost a 180 in my response to the music, despite its general accuracy.
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Regarding Mike's original question - Yes, what "kind" of score benefits most by sonic upgrade... Hmm, I was going to automatically say the more abstract ones, usually with small ensembles. So many interesting sounds get lost if the recording's sub par. I'm thinking of stuff like, off the top of my head, Schifrin's THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE and others of that ilk. Mellé's THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN...
And then I thought no, that really any score (any music!) would be enhanced by optimal sound. The MORITURI example is an interesting one because I am one of a few who was never really attracted to it in the first place. I don't intend to immediately get the upgrade (all my finances are on hold for the time being), but I do think that the majority of Goldsmith's work sounds even more amazing when heard in amazing sound. That may seem obvious, but I'm thinking about all those little ornamental touches he used to decorate his scores with, especially in the '60s and '70s... they really do need to be heard properly in order to be appreciated. Otherwise it's like trying to take in a great piece of art at the museum when you've left your specs at home.
So yeah, everything really. I also dislike the concert hall sound of some re-recordings. There are many cases when the detail is totally lost in the sonic soup. And these are usually scores for large orchestras. Maybe that's a slightly different case, I don't know. Close-miking and all that.
Final point - I grew up listening to cassettes taped from the telly. I've told you that until you're blue in the face. So I was always "used" to what I now know is total crap quality. But once you get used to hearing stellar recordings (on GOOD equipment) there's really no going back. I never was an audiophile, but I have a few scores in my collection that I just cannot be arsed to listen to any more because it's such a struggle. I don't mind "clean, (although) archival" sound so much, it's the distant muffled broth/stew recordings that I just can't get into nowadays.
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Lots of Intrada's recent Horner expansions have greatly enhanced the original releases.
Things like Balto, Batteries Not Included, Cocoon & An American Tail sound so much richer and fuller after their remastering.
One that hasn't happened yet, but really needs to, is Michael Small's magnificent score to Mountains Of The Moon.
The original release sounds like it was recorded 3 rooms away. It really ruins what is a fantastic and underrated film score.
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Any score of a certain age benefits from a sonic upgrade, or - to be precise - a rerecording. I almost exclusively listen to rerecordings for scores before, say, the 60s.
On the other hand there are good and bad rerecordings. The concert-hall ambience thing I alluded to earlier is something I don't like about some rerecordings. In those cases I generally prefer to hear the original soundtrack. At least with the originals, even when the sound is less than perfect, you know that you're dipping into the past and hearing a historical event. A bit like the first recordings of, say, Louis Armstrong. It's all snap crackle and pop, but you (or at least I) wouldn't want to hear a new recording where people are PRETENDING to be Louis Armstrong.
But I think that's bordering on a different topic.
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Posted: |
May 3, 2020 - 11:32 AM
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By: |
Mike Esssss
(Member)
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Any score of a certain age benefits from a sonic upgrade, or - to be precise - a rerecording. I almost exclusively listen to rerecordings for scores before, say, the 60s.
On the other hand there are good and bad rerecordings. The concert-hall ambience thing I alluded to earlier is something I don't like about some rerecordings. In those cases I generally prefer to hear the original soundtrack. At least with the originals, even when the sound is less than perfect, you know that you're dipping into the past and hearing a historical event. A bit like the first recordings of, say, Louis Armstrong. It's all snap crackle and pop, but you (or at least I) wouldn't want to hear a new recording where people are PRETENDING to be Louis Armstrong.
But I think that's bordering on a different topic.
I'm enjoying the posts here regardless but yes, I'd say that's bordering on a different topic. Any score experience will be improved going from "bad" sound to "good" sound, particularly where it's an old recording. What prompted this topic was the idea of that improvement affecting enjoyment or appreciation of specific types/genres of scores more than others. MORITURI is a good example because, like David, I own the FSM release but never connected with it. But now I'm seriously considering the new Intrada because the remastering gives it an entirely new personality.
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Mike, if you never connected with MORITURI but now respond to it better because of Intrada's sonic improvements, I recommend that you watch the film. Your appreciation of both picture and its music may rise higher than you expect.
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MORITURI is a good example because, like David, I own the FSM release but never connected with it. But now I'm seriously considering the new Intrada because the remastering gives it an entirely new personality.
Along with The Illustrated Man, Morituri mesmerized me during the mid-'90s when both surfaced as illegitimate releases. It most definitely connected with me because Morituri is an ideal vessel for the unique early-Goldsmith blends of Bartok 'night' music with 12-tone techniques.
Morituri is cousins with Freud, Shock Treatment & Seconds. All these were like cinematic extensions of Goldsmith's prior work on TV's Thriller.
But Morituri also has its own aural identity with its incongruous admixture of a pre-WWII Kurt Weill-type theme & post-WWII Cold War espionage personified by an electric bass guitar still-fresh from the recording sessions on The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
Perhaps the most difficult obstacle for the listener, though, is Morituri's core characteristic: unrelenting vengeance. Not unlike future scores such as Jerry Fielding's Chato's Land or Michael Small's Marathon Man, Morituri is 'revenge' music. It communicates hatred. It's an aural stew that continues to simmer in your brain after you've stopped listening to the disc.
I love it!
Will restored master tapes and improved sound help you like Morituri better if it never 'spoke' to you before? I'm not sure about that. In order to 'get into' Morituri, one may need to alter one's expectations - indeed, even one's mindset - in order to approach … and appreciate.
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Return of the Jedi would, but that's none of my business... 
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I feel dumb for leaving this out, as I've talked about it a few times on this very board before. Electronics!
I'd never cared for the electronic stuff before, in the film and on the trebly MGM records release and the Bay Cities CD of that. There, it interrupted the 'proper' score, in my symphonocentric mind, and I found it simply cheesy.
BZZZZZEEEEEWWWWWWW - BZZZZZERRRRRRWWWW - BZZZZZZZZZ
boopbupbipbupboopbupbeepbup (loop)
I always programmed those out, giving me a 20 minute score. Then came FSM's Logan's Run disc, and those bits were wholly transformed. Not only were they sequenced properly, so it's less like they're jabbing me in the eye while I listen to other music, but the sonic upgrade pushed them way over the top of the hill. What FSM did with this music was the biggest makeover since Archibald Leach turned into Cary Grant. Cheesy? Not sounding like that. Not in stereo. Not at all.
Sometimes I program only the electronic tracks, especially if my speakers are very far apart, and the room has a nice echo. It's full, bassy, and very well (re?)mixed.
I love it when the rough is turned into a diamond.
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