Library music
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Currently listening to my four albums of library music composed by Nick Glennie-Smith for the KPM label in the 80s, before he hit it big as a film composer. Such great stuff — synths, disco, jazz, ambient, classical pastiche, pop, what-have-you. They include NOW AND THEN (1981), DESTINATIONS (1985) and FIRST GENERATION (1986) on vinyl, and AHEAD OF THE GAME (1992) on CD.
But the topic of library music has always intrigued me. Such a vast catalogue of great music, with each track being a self-contained piece rather than adhering to all the film-specific shenanigans of “proper” film music. I know there are fan communities dedicated solely to this artform.
Any others share this interest, or have any recommendations to share? I have a few more beyond the NGS albums, but I’ll wait to hear if you have any first.
Sadly cannot contribute to this. WOnder if those still are made. Probably soon everyone will use AI to generate some “faceless backgroundn noise”…
They’re still being made, but far more generic and boring. Most of the ones I’ve heard sound like that cheap trailer music that is all the rage these days. Could just as well have been produced by an A.I., yes.
The best library music was composed between the 60s and 90s.
I should indeed have explored those Nick GS albums further.
My favourite Jonathan Elias has done tons of library albums (mostly with a co-composer) on download after he wrote his final film score in 2011, but I still haven’t looked into it much. It’s a bit too overwhelming.
I’d be interested to check out some of that Elias stuff. But yes, some of these projects can be massive to get through. Same with Chris Franke’s library music catalogue.
Alan Hawkshaw, who died in 2021, is probably the greatest “superstar” of library music, but as with Elias and Franke, his catalogue is huge. It’s hard to know where to start. But there’s plenty to explore on Spotify and YouTube. I know that he particularly liked funk, so there’s a 2018 repackaging of some of these tracks I’ve heard good things about, named FULL CIRCLE. Taglined “tranquil funk for laidback, panoramic journeys”, it’s exactly that. Here’s an example (a little bit of crime jazz thrown in):
Cool, I love such “crime funk”. I think I may have one or two tracks of him somewhere buried in other funk tracks possibly.
There is the wonderful “Dimensioni Sonore” (Sound Dimensions) by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, which covers a wide range of moods in many self contained pieces. Really good stuff. As noted, library music tends to be more like an “etude”, usually they are self contained miniature compositions rather than developed scores, so listening to this stuff is like eating Potatoes chips… you can have one or two or three or a whole bag. 🙂
Composing library music allows the composer to explore ideas or techniques in short form, without having to conform and commit the material to a larger scale composition.I didn’t know Jonathan Elias wrote that much library music… I will certainly look (or better hear) into that.
Another artist worth mentioning is Francis Rimbert. He is mostly known for being a keyboard player in Jean Michel Jarre’s band, but he’s done some solo stuff too (a bit like Nick Glennie-Smith to Hans Zimmer, I just realized now), including a number of tracks and albums with April Orchestra, which wasn’t an orchestra, but a label for library music composed for CBS. His album APRIL ORCHESTRA 51 is a lot of fun – cheesy as hell, but also smooth easy listening. There are other bits and bobs out there too.
There is the wonderful “Dimensioni Sonore” (Sound Dimensions) by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai,
Yes, I sampled that awhile back. Totally weird stuff.
As alluded to in the rock/pop/electronic thread, Anne Dudley did some library music in the early 80s, while she was still with Art of Noise. Some of it is disco-ish, but a lot of interesting electronic elements as well. VERY catchy stuff. The library music company was Amphonic Music Ltd., and she did four albums for them – SOUND STAGE 6, SOUND STAGE 11, SOUND STAGE 18 and SOUND STAGE 27. They’re all on YouTube, the complete vinyl played as one continous file.
Hard to pick a favourite among them, they’re all fine. Pretty heavy on Fairlight CMI. But it’s a toss-up between 18 and 27, I think.
Did you know that Elliot Goldenthal wrote some library music in the early 80s? It sounds nothing like his later film music, it’s easy listening disco, jazz, pop, what-have-you. But a fascinating glimpse into the work life of a young composer.
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