Do you also dislike the phrase “This is a fun score”?
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Do you also dislike the phrase “This is a fun score”? When people use that phrase to describe a score I can be sure about 90% that I won’t like the music when I hear it. It is something close to “To enjoy that movie you have to switch off your brain.”
It’s not these phrases themselves that bother me. It is just my experience that these phrases are usually used in context of scores or movies that I find bad.
Anybody similar experience?
Yeah, me too. It’s particularly prevalent on JWFAN, but I’ve seen it elsewhere too.
I mean, there are plenty of “fun” scores out there, but it’s become a bit of an annoying shorthand when there is nothing else meaningful to say about a score. At the very least mix up the adjectives a little! Like, WHY is it fun?
These puns are fun 😉 I am guilty of using that term often in the meaning of “guilty pleasure”. Or for “minor” scores of a composer that already has better or more original masterpiece scores in his ouvre.
To get back to the topic, I suppose it depends on what you mean by “fun” score. I don’t think calling something a “fun” score automatically means it is a lesser score. I think Haydn’s Symphony No. 87 or Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, both among my all time favorite symphonies, are fun, fun in the best sense of the word. GREMLINS is a score I would consider “fun”, which doesn’t mean it isn’t also great. I think it is “fun” when a composer plays around with and subverts expectations. When Saint-Saens slows down the famous “Can-Can” for the tortoises, that’s just pure fun, as is the entire score.
For me personally it is less a question of what I consider fun. I don’t use that phrase. It is just an observation of mine that in about 90% of the cases when I read this phrase written by others it is about a score that I consider rather bland, uninteresting and sensationalistic.
In best case, yes, this can be kind of a guilty pleasure.
That does not mean that fun isn’t a feeling that I connect with film scores. But even when I have fun while listening to a particular score, I would never use that phrase “This is a fun score.” because this is usually used to say that people have very low expectations to this music.
Other people might have other experiences. That is why I asked the question.
That sounds more like a personal connection you have, Gerate. Personally, I see no correlation between calling a score ‘fun’ and it being ‘bland or uninteresting’.
My only issue is the prevalent use of adjective itself, without further specifications.
I agree with Thor, it sounds like a more personal reservation against the phrase, which of course is fine. I would not hesitate to call Prokofiev’s first symphony “a really fun score”, but I would not mean that to denigrate the music, quite the contrary. But that’s just me, others may differ.
That sounds more like a personal connection you have, Gerate.
Right. That’s more or less exactly what I said. It is related to my taste and personal experience.
Others with different taste might say, if someone in a film music forum calls a soundtrack “a fun score” then they know that they will love it because they simply loves all scores that are called “a fun score” by other soundtrack fans.
But by my experience these scores are usually not my taste.
That’s what I said.I would not hesitate to call Prokofiev’s first symphony “a really fun score”,
Really makes all the difference. 😉
Right. That’s more or less exactly what I said. It is related to my taste and personal experience.
Others with different taste might say, if someone in a film music forum calls a soundtrack “a fun score” then they know that they will love it because they simply loves all scores that are called “a fun score” by other soundtrack fans.
But by my experience these scores are usually not my taste.
That’s what I said.Which you’re free to have, of course. We all have our connections.
I’m reminded of something sorta related. When I’ve discussed with colleagues, and they’ve been disparaging about a film, they’ve sometimes ended their argument with “but it’s got great entertainment value, I suppose”. A sort of reductive, faint praise when all else is lost. That’s often irritated me a little bit, especially if I love that same film for many other reasons than just its sheer entertainment value.
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