[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Opening up categories, the way I see it, there can be one of several things true about a film score:

Possible and perfect:

Great film score and great stand alone music. (Perfection.)

Also possible:

Bad film score, but great stand alone music. (When the music just doesn’t work in the movie but is great on its own.)

Also possible:
Sufficient film score, but uninteresting on its own. (Functional music, unintrusive, pushes the right buttons, but nothing one listens to on its own.)

Also possible:
Bad film score, bad as stand alone music. (No explanation needed, I presume. That music sucks. Hard.)

Also possible of course:
Countless in-betweens of neither all out great nor all out bad, whatever…

There is, however, a category that doesn’t exist:

Not possible:

Great film score, but bad stand alone music.
(That’s just not something that can conceivably exist.)