[Thor Joachim Haga]

I’m at THE FRIGHTENERS now, in my chronological Elfman walkthrough. Such a chore!

I’ve found that I still very much enjoy his 80s efforts, and early 90s. But then from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE onwards, maybe all the way to “Serenada Schizophrana” in 2004, it’s mostly very dense, lots of counterpoint, lots of agitated strings and brass, that just goes on my nerves. I’ve gone from MARS ATTACKS! to EXTREME MEASURES to THE FRIGHTENERS now, and it’s very challenging for my tinnitus ears.

When he’s downkey & downtempo for smaller indie dramas, he can be so lovely. But then it’s all turned upside down with the next big genre flick.

As I said in the first post, this means he’s fallen off my top 10 (the number 2 spot, even) in recent years, but he’s still just outside, in Waiting Room No. 1. Maybe even that is too high, but it’s difficult to place him any lower when I look at my vast collection (see picture in the “The Grand Listening Project” thread). It’s so bizarre to be a completist of a composer you don’t feel the same for anymore. There must be some form of psychological disconnect; the urge to collect trumps the music. Weird.