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Excellent points, especially regarding the synth use in Logan's Run.
There is one substantial difference with synths and other instruments, though. Synths tend to be "of the moment" and the popular sounds change all the time. There is almost a "fad" type overuse that happens with electronics, like all the use of the Yamaha DX7 during the 80s. What ends up happening is that synths "date" the music faster than any other type of instrumentation. This can be a real problem when someone tries to recreate the music at a later date, which is exactly what we saw with DAMNATION ALLEY.
We don't really have this problem when wanting to hear the organ in Saint-Saëns symphony - an organ is still pretty much an organ (and of course I realize that there is a huge variety of organs out there, but you know what I mean).
Quite true, good point, it may be that some scores show their "date" more by having a particular synthesizer sound, which was "en vogue" at the time, while a cowbell is a cowbell, and gets used now and then. (More, if theBruce Dickinson is producing the song. ;-) ).
However, I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. I mean, why should an 80s film score not sound like an 80s film score? A Golden Age Max Steiner score sure sounds like a Golden Age score, too.
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The "dating" probably doesn't bother us film score fans as much as the general public. I have a good friend whose wife starts objecting to a film as soon as she sees the opening logo - she can literally tell from the film grain or even design of the opening logo if it's a modern film or an older one. Anything more than 20 years old gets on off-hand rejection.
To my ears, Bernard Herrmann has hardly dated at all (vs. Max Steiner, who you point out). Williams dates less than Goldsmith, I think primarily because of Goldsmith's use of electronics (non-electronic Goldsmith doesn't sound nearly as dated to me as "switched-on" Goldsmith). Williams' most dated score is probably "Heartbeeps" simply because of the electronic elements.
Love them all, though. I just have this annoying habit of being able to "hear" things through the ears of the audience I am sitting with 
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To my ears, Bernard Herrmann has hardly dated at all (vs. Max Steiner, who you point out). (
Herrmann doesn't seem dated on disc. But I have to admit, even in 1991, the use of Herrmann's music in Scorsese's Cape Fear sounded "old fashioned" to me, and gave the film a odd feeling, and a confused sense of time and place. And it's great music, it just didn't fit into a 1991 movie.
On the other hand, Elmer Bernstein's style never felt "out of date" to me, even though it barely changed between To Kill A Mockingbird and Far From Heaven.
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To my ears, Bernard Herrmann has hardly dated at all (vs. Max Steiner, who you point out).
I think the reason why, out of all the "Golden Age" greats, Bernard Herrmann's music doesn't sound "dated" to modern ears is that his obsessive, repeating patterns come the closest to today's chugga-chugga ostinato-driven string patterns in film. By hewing to short, repetitive motifs rather than long-line themes, a Herrmann score wouldn't sound out of place in the type of Zimmerized "power chord" style music that dominates blockbuster cinema today. It's a thousand times BETTER than anything being written today, but it's within the same ballpark. A lot of the "tension" music in Miklos Rozsa's work has a similar quality.
Not a bad point, but I felt the same way back in the 70s and 80s way before Zimmer came on the scene. Herrmann sounded fresh and contemporary while Steiner sounded dated, even back them. None of that should be construed as an argument for or against the quality of the music from either composer, it's just an observation.
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To my ears, Bernard Herrmann has hardly dated at all (vs. Max Steiner, who you point out). (
Herrmann doesn't seem dated on disc. But I have to admit, even in 1991, the use of Herrmann's music in Scorsese's Cape Fear sounded "old fashioned" to me, and gave the film a odd feeling, and a confused sense of time and place. And it's great music, it just didn't fit into a 1991 movie.
On the other hand, Elmer Bernstein's style never felt "out of date" to me, even though it barely changed between To Kill A Mockingbird and Far From Heaven.
I really liked the Cape Fear adaption, but excellent point about Elmer Bernstein. His Ten Commandments score sounds way less dated than many of its contemporaries. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is another good example.
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I’m just suggesting you listen to this half hour podcast episode with some samples of the new album, Kev. I’m saying that I largely agreed with you about this score until Intrada’s new album changed my mind. Your old dub is not the best way to judge it.
Yavar
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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2020 - 2:00 PM
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By: |
Nils
(Member)
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Overall, I don’t have any trouble with Goldsmith’s use of synths. Sometimes a bit overdone, yes, but generally I find he integrates them very well with the orchestra. Synth-heavy scores like DAMNATION ALLEY, UNDER FIRE, LEGEND, EXTREME PREJUDICE (how can anyone not love that amazing 9 minute build-up-and-release that is “The Plan”?  ), HOOSIERS and several others are among my favorite albums of his. As for his all-synth scores, I’m quite fond of RUNAWAY but have absolutely no love for CRIMINAL LAW, which I find unimaginative, droning and boring.
There’s really just one score where his mix of orchestra and synths ruins the experience for me: THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS. And it’s basically because of one specific sound: Those synthesized voices that go “HAIIII!!”. It makes my hair stand on end – and not for the right reason. I just can’t stand it! When Intrada released their expanded edition, I had high hopes that, surely, that sound wouldn’t be on a lot of the extra material... would it? So, full of optimism I sit down for my first listen, expecting/hoping/praying for each new cue that that sound won’t show its ugly head. But no – there it goes again... It just drives me up the wall!!
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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2020 - 3:38 PM
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By: |
The Shadow
(Member)
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I actually like TDID Main Title, Yavar, in its purist form, but those buzzing/farty synths completely ruin it for me, to the extent that I don't want to listen to it.
I also find a lot of the other score tracks dull and uninteresting (from my old tape cassette dub).
It's not a score I've ever fallen for.
(Shit, here comes the posse) 
Kevin, as a super-fan of James Horner, David Newman and Bruce Broughton sound for Spielberg club and the likes productions you are, if I remember well enough, I am not surprised you don't go for such gritty economic depressed atonal avant-garde early seventies creative Goldsmith output.
Not your universe I guess...no more than Don Ellis same era stuff I suppose (FRENCH CONNECTION, SEVEN UPS).
Even without electronics maybe....
Am I wrong?
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Yeah I had trouble taking the synths seriously in the past, too. But honestly if I had to pick three words to describe them now after hearing this great sounding Intrada album they probably would be “edgy, raw, guttural”! I’m coming around on ‘em even though I like other (pure orchestral) parts of the score better.
Yavar
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Posted: |
Aug 23, 2020 - 5:55 AM
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By: |
DavidCorkum
(Member)
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Yeah I had trouble taking the synths seriously in the past, too. But honestly if I had to pick three words to describe them now after hearing this great sounding Intrada album they probably would be “edgy, raw, guttural”! I’m coming around on ‘em even though I like other (pure orchestral) parts of the score better.
Yavar
The synths in The Don is Dead seems like a musical comment on the true nature of the mafia. The orchestra is reflecting the surface that they try to project, that they're tough businessmen in suits, sophisticated and classy. But underneath that is the truth, that they're really just violent street thugs, represented by the synth effect which sounds like a termite in the background, scratching at the facade.
And as the podcast mentions, it racks up the tension in scenes that don't really have any, It adds a nervousness.
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That’s a cool description! And speaking of nervousness...I neglected to bring this up in the podcast (wanted to keep it to half an hour or less) but another element of the Main Title besides the synth lept out at me: scissors as a percussion instrument! That’s straight out of “Nervous Man in a $4 Room”! (Also I think Jerry did it the following year in his “Late Date” Thriller score.)
Yavar
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Posted: |
Aug 23, 2020 - 1:33 PM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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As regards THE DON IS DEAD, I just listened to Yavar's mini-podcast. Good one, Yavar! I've certainly got this on my wish list. Hope it's still in stock in ten years time. I remember watching the film on TV probably back in the late '70s, and I never noticed anything annoying about the synths. I've just re-acquainted myself with (parts of) the movie on YouTube, and I do remember the terrific dramatic scoring for the climactic scene - you remember, running, car window, guns, death... The Main Titles are actually pretty cool. There might be a "squelch" or a "quack" too many, but it never honestly bothered me until I attached a semantic value to it.
I'm posting this here rather than on any of the other DON threads because I have to say that I'm enjoying EXTREME PREJUDICE more each time I hear it. It's not one I can stomach in its 50-minute presentation, never mind the even longer one, but it's increasingly interesting when done in 15 or 20 minute chunks. And I think I'm enjoying it more because I'm trying to shake off those semantic associations. I have this affliction where I have to turn everything into words in order to understand them. So when I listened to EXTREME PREJUDICE in the past I was extremely prejudiced due to mentally filing things in my brain negatively as "Simmons", "Basketball", "Boxing glove" etc. Now I'm trying to get rid of those wordgames and just hear it all as "music".
Same goes for THE DON IS DEAD. It's all part of the musical fabric. But if I start thinking in words such as "quack", "duck" etc then I'm off to a bad start.
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