[Eirik Myhr]

I listen to albums, not archives™

I listen to both! Agree with almost everything said in this thread by Nick and Graham.
Sometimes I want a curated album, sometimes I want to study the complete work, as an actual film music “study item”. Agree very much that it is a case-by-base thing. Not just composer by composer, but also how personally invested I am in the particular film or score. John Williams I almost always prefer as C&C (sorry Thor :D). Agree what was said about Zimmer as well, but then he does something like THE LION KING, where I absolutely want the C&C of the Disney Legacy edition, with the whole evolving flow of the songs and the score, and how the themes bounce off each other.

What I actually don’t care for is when they have the original album first on a disc, then just stick in all the non-album tracks at the end as “bonus tracks”. That leaves me with the task of crafting my own C&C album or playlist, which to me just feels wrong (not to mention time-consuming)… This is sadly the case with BIG FISH, one of my favourite Elfman scores. The original album was so full of pop/rock tracks (by other artists), and the score part was really just the second half of the album (if not less). When the Elfman/Burton box set was released in 2010, they dropped all the pop/rock tracks that originally started the album, which left the “original album” part ridiculously short, and then added all the other cues as “bonus tracks” at the end. That felt like a really bad compromise, unfinished and kind of butchered. I still want a C&C release of that score. And please, for the STAR WARS prequels as well… 🙂