Anne Dudley
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Oh yes, definitely lots of work. I think Jon, who’s done a few, and Malte (who has one upcoming) can attest to that. But somehow rewarding. Crazy to think it’s been 21 years since that buyer’s guide, which is the same stretch of time between Elfman’s first beginnings and when it was published.
Anyways, I’m not aware of any Dudley filmographies or extensive tribute articles online, but I’m sure some exist out there. When I went through her work more systematically about a year ago, maybe two, I just used soundtrackcollector, Discogs, Wikipedia etc. for info, and then sampling on Spotify and YouTube. And acquiring a few in digital file format. I’m pretty content with what I have now, but might add a few. This walkthrough of yours inspires me to check out a couple I hadn’t properly investigated, or perhaps brushed off too quickly – like FELIDAE and THE HUSTLER.
Yeah, it can be rewarding to dive deeply into the work of a composer. Especially if you have lots of more obscure unreleased works to check out (Youtube and other source can be useful here). A lot of work if you picked a busy composer as you will run into the issue of verifiying entries that sites like imdb and wikipedia list. They will contain lots of errors.
An easier way is just a discography of releases (in my coming article it would have been for sure 😉
Btw, just found my FELIDAE CD and gave it a listen. As I remembered a bit micky mousing yes but not that much – at least not on Scott Bradley or Carl Stalling level (whose “madness” I love btw ;-)) – and a overall film noir mood to me. After all it was not a kids animation movie actually.
As already mentioned, Anne Dudley has written three scores for Paul Verhoeven.
BLACK BOOK, ELLE and BENEDETTA.
I would say, all three are outstanding works of her, even though BLACK BOOK in my view probably the least spectecular. It is a solid sinister orchestral score. Rachel’s Theme is not necessarily an earworm.
But ELLE for me is on the level of BASIC INSTINCT, a thriller score with a recognizable main theme.Unfortunately I don’t own BENEDETTA on disc, but it is on Spotify.
A lot of haunting religious chorals carry the score.
By the way, I would say, these are three of Verhoeven’s best movies, if not the best.
And THERE it is — the one score that almost matches AMERICAN HISTORY X for me: BENEDETTA. It was my favourite film of 2022 (it was a 2022 film in Norway) AND my favourite score of everything that came out in 2021. I’m just a sucker for those religioso choral parts.
ELLE was a brilliant film – again the number one film for me in 2017 (although I saw it in Cannes in 2016 already, where it premiered – with Verhoeven, Huppert etc. present). And again a fine score, I love how Dudley tapped into those icy Goldsmith-ian/BASIC INSTINCT-like colours for this, like you point out.
BLACK BOOK is pretty good too, but neither film nor score reaches those levels for me.
GENTLEMEN DON’T EAT POETS could have been one of my very favourite Dudley scores.
But the jerk of album producer decided to mix the music with dialogue from the movie. This is probably the thing I hate most about movie soundtracks. Idiots who think there might be film music fans out there who are happy when the music on soundtrack album is mixed with dialogue.
May they burn in hell.Not familiar with that, but yes, it’s always a terrible decision to include dialogue, even those that have them in seperate tracks.
Geez…
Sorry. I didn’t know that you actually believe in hell. I didn’t want to hurt your religious feelings.
I think it was just an exaggeration for humorous effect (as in “everyone who likes sardines on their pizza, needs to be tarred and feathered!”). I don’t think Gerate was actually foaming at his mouth in rage over the inclusion of dialogue. 🙂
Humor is a difficult concept.
Indeed. Ask the British. Of course it is often said we Germans generally don’t have any humor at all 😉 I also had no problem with that exaggeration as it is a so overly common phrase… (I don’t like dialogue on score albums, too)
It’s basically something for an off topic itself: But “since the internet” I noticed lots of times that written text so easily leads to misunderstandings in rather unexpected ways… And not even just humor, irony or saracsm…
OK, I have a couple more I can recommmend too.
This album was actually brought up earlier in the thread by someone, a fine compilation/new recording from 2001 that includes both new versions of film themes and original non-film pieces. The chamber orchestra setup can be quite stark and cold sometimes, but thankfully Dudley spices things up here and there, by including voices or even electronics in the last part of “Moments in Love”, for example, or “The Club With No Name”. Good album.
Yes, I am a little behind. Thanks Thor for keeping the topic up.
I wanted to continue with this one: CROSSING THE BAR
Like at A DIFFERENT LIGHT Dudley here is in chamber music mode. To this album she was inspired by her new piano, she said in the liner notes. I prefer this album over A DIFFERENT LIGHT, because I like this pure accoustic ensemble. Mostly solo piano pieces here and there supported by a string quartet.
All very melodic, particularly impressionistic. A Joy!Yes, that’s a good one. I believe Alex (A24) asked about other non-film albums by Dudley in another thread, beyond ANCIENT & MODERN, which we’ve talked about several times, and CROSSING THE BAR came up.
Talking about Anne Dudley’s music The Art Of Noise must not be unmentioned.
I had their first album WHO’S AFRAID OF… as LP. And when I started to rebuy some Essentials of my record collection on CD I came across this album which is for me the better version of WHO’S AFRAID OF… It has three brillant versions of Moments in Love and I think the whole album plus some bonus tracks.
Actually, I don’t know if there is any chance to connect to that music if you weren’t there at the time it came out. But I think, Beatbox is still a brillant track.
Embarassingly, I never explored AoN very much. I mean, I’ve heard bit and bobs over the years (their version of “Peter Gunn” is neat), but never had a systematic exploration. Perhaps time I do so. Five studio albums should be fairly doable.
By the way, I find that Joe Hisaishi’s SILENT LOVE is pretty much a rip-off of Art Of Noise’s MOMENTS IN LOVE.
Talking about Anne Dudley’s music The Art Of Noise must not be unmentioned.
Which is why we respectively I already did in the 2nd post 😉
Actually, I don’t know if there is any chance to connect to that music if you weren’t there at the time it came out.
It’s pretty 80s of the sound so you have to like that. But it is pretty crazy what they did without all the computer tools from today. They literally had to work with hardware samplers and such.
Like Thor I never fully explored the few albums. PETER GUNN was probably also the first track I knew. Before knowing Henry Mancini. I remember I was dissapointed at first when I heard the original 😉
I found PARANOIMIA annoying back then when it was in the charts but I came to like it somehow. MOMENTS OF LOVE I knew as it was often used but long didn’t know the title or by whom it was. Indeed the Hisaishi track has the same vibe but it seems otherwise different. Most likey inspiration/coincidence since he probably knew AoN.I have digitally a Best of album, DAFT album (it’s kabel “Japan” version, no idea, seems indeed the first album with some bonus tracks) and IN NO SENSE NONSENSE which contains their other cover DRAGNET (which I believe was featured in or done for that David Akroyd remake movie).
So actually more AoN albums than actual Anne Dudley albums…Gosh, I just realized I’ve had an Art of Noise connection since I was a kid, and without really knowing it. Because I obsessed over those SYNTHESIZER’S GREATEST HITS albums by Ed Starink, and he featured “Moments in Love”, “Paranoimia” and “Camilla” on those. “Paranoimia” was, especially, a favourite (sorry, Malte!), since I actually copied that one on to a mixedtape of tracks from these albums (that a friend of mine owned on original cassettes). Here’s the Starink version that I have such a soft, nostalgic spot for. I think the track was pretty influenced by Jean Michel Jarre’s ZOOLOOK album, which was two years old at that time. That’s probably why I latched on to it.
(sorry, Malte!),
Hehe, no need to 😉
SYNTHESIZER’S GREATEST HITS albums by Ed Starink
Those albums were very present back in the days but I never had any of them.
This album has also already been mentioned. It is more a testimony of Dudley as an arranger than as a composer. It is a beautiful mixture of choral and orchestral works partially based on traditional choral works, few Dudley’s own compositions and one piece by JS Bach arranged by Dudley. Has a nice religious touch.
Ok, this is now the last Dudley album I own: SERIOUSLY CHILLED
Concerning sound somewhere between 90s orchestral TripHop and 80s Classic Rock she arranged and conducted these tracks with the BBC concert orchestra and band.
For that she used existing compositions from various instrumental artists most of which I don’t know, but some are well known like Ennio Morricone (Chi Mai), Mark Snow (The X-Files), John Barry (Midnight Cowboy) or Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks), Ryuichi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence). But also music of Fauré, Mussorgsky and two of her own compositions were used.
Like the album title says, it’s all very chilling and groovy.
It’s not really my type of music. For my taste too undecided if it wants to be orchestral or pop music.
But it has its moments.Now that you’ve finished your walkthrough, Gerate, I really only have ONE other Dudley item to add:
I really like some of the period-specific (late 90s) synths and pop modes in this. There are also a couple of uninteresting, aimless tracks, but the album is only half an hour, so it doesn’t ruin too much of the listening experience.
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