[Nick Zwar]

Well, just because one has seen a movie once doesn’t necessarily mean one remembers every piece of music and how it was used in the context of the film. Especially not if there are years or even decades between listening to a piece of film music and watching the movie. Not to mention that often I actually have not seen the film and have even no intention to. So if the liner notes provide the appropriate context for the music (and save me from having to watch some movies), I think that is their job. That doesn’t mean all liner notes should always be track-by-track descriptions, of course.

But be that as it may, liner notes often to go beyond that, and do comment on the subtext of the scene or explore what and how the music does to communicate. I’ve seen all kinds of liner notes, some better than others, but it’s not as if liner notes never do into more detail of how the music functions.