Eirik Myhr
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I know absolutely nothing about the movie PROJECT HAIL MARY as I’m living under a rock, but I just listened to the score album after a recommendation from a director I know, and I freaking LOVED it. So different and so beautiful. The choir parts is one thing, but the whole soundscape is so *delicious*. I love all the intricate rhythmical details, with a rather wacky choice of sounds. I just found the whole thing incredibly beautiful and enjoyable.
By the way: I was quite shocked to read on this forum just now that the album is two hours long – I never noticed! I listened to it in several passes, but would never had guessed it was more than one hour..! 😮 It appears I «hearted» 17 of the 38 (!) tracks on my first listen, which is unusually high for me. I’ll certainly listen to it again.
Yeah, I am actually maybe rating SOLO over THE FORCE AWAKENS as well. But agree about the «full-on» bombast tiredness. I am usually NOT a fan of this in general (I often call it «hack’n’slash» music). Never listened a lot to Powell, but I guess he is known for doing this a lot? In that case, I don’t think it was a big problem on SOLO. Maybe the hack’n’slashing is done in a more tasteful way, because I surprisingly liked the score even when it was being a bit intense.
You have to listen to OGA’S CANTINA, Thor! You will love it! I forgot to mention that the first track is a remix of the original Cantina Band song. I would normally hate a «remix» of such an iconic track, but in this case I was pleasantly surprised, though it in no way touches the greatness that follows in the next 10 tracks or so.
I’ve listened to the next three releases, and it’s time for some possibly controversial opinions!
2018 | John Powell — Solo
I took this as an opportunity to finally listen to the Extended Version which was released some years ago. I knew I *liked* this score a bit, but it took me completely by surprise how much I enjoyed it now. I really like Powell’s take here. The more «exotic» instruments and percussion he brings to the table feels like a perfect fit for Star Wars. In a way it is kind of reminiscent of what Kiner tried to do in the first Clone Wars movie, but Powell’s themes and orchestrations feel more sophisticated and «tasteful». Interestingly, when I listened to this album on Qobuz, «The Adventures of Han» by John Williams which usually opens the album, was not present. I actually didn’t mind that. Williams’ orchestration style is very different and much more traditional than Powell’s approach, so it never really «fitted» this album for me. Jumping straight in to «Meet Han» kind of felt right. I love the «love theme» for Han and Qi’Ra (in tracks like «Han’s Closet», and with a truly beautifully bittersweet rendition near the end of «Dryden’s Long, Long Fight») which pops out throughout the album. There are so many highlights, and as far as I can tell , a lot of them don’t appear on the original album (hard to do a direct comparison as the track names are quite different). The «evil» two-note chromatic motif which also pops out throughout (like in the beginning of «Trust No One») is so simple but oh so effective.I could probably do without the Kessel Run «cut and paste Williams action music» track, but it’s fun to hear Powell’s characteristic percussion added to the mix. I also don’t like when composers quote Duel of the Fates as «Maul’s theme» when Maul appears, because it was never Maul’s theme, but a theme played in pivotal moments in Anakin’s life (Dave Filoni explains this very well in a clip somewhere, what «Duel of the fates» actually means).
But all in all – I want more Powell Star Wars!
Yes, I probably rank this score higher than both THE LAST JEDI and THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (and Giacchino’s ROGUE ONE isn’t even part of the competition).2019 | John Williams — Galaxy’s Edge Symphonic Suite
A nice little mini-suite single track from Williams, not really a lot so say about it. It’s nice. Nothing to write home about. It’s on the same level as his THE LAST JEDI score, I guess. Decent, but nowhere near the awesomeness of his prequel days.2019 | Various — Galaxy’s Edge: Oga’s Cantina: R3X’s Playlist #1
This took me COMPLETELY BY SURPRISE. I LOVE THIS!!! I guess this the music played in-universe at Oga’s Cantina in the Galaxy’s Edge attraction (never been there, and probably never will) – source music from an actual location you can visit. AND IT’S SO GOOD! Almost every single track makes me smile, giggle and/or dance. I don’t know how this was concieved exactly, but the idea I get from looking at the different tracks’ credits on Qobuz, is that they were made by different composers and producers, which were all given the same brief: Take your inspiration from in-universe acts like The Max Rebo Band, but in a more current music production landscape. Every song brings something new to the table, and the production quality is STELLAR. There are lots of hilarious vocals (in Huttese or similar sounding languages). It’s like a Eurovision hit parade of different musical genres which would all exist in the Star Wars universe! You have disco and funk, you have swing jazz (The Modal Nodes make a reappearance with a «sequel» song to their original Cantina Band hit), you even have prog rock. Impossibly out there «jazz fusion» solos on some weird keyboard instrument might suddenly appear in the middle of an electronic track. Did I say the vocals are all hilarious?I will die on this hill: This is the best Star Wars music release since REVENGE OF THE SITH.
Next up is Goransson’s THE MANDALORIAN season 1 releases, but I will take a short break and listen to some other stuff in the meantime.
Can I ask — what would something like that red box cost?
That red box was released by Victoria Records in 1993 as a part of Grieg’s 150th birthday (he was born in 1843). It contains all the solo piano music, all the songs & romances, and all the chamber music. The only things really missing is the orchestral music and the choir music. The 13 CDs with piano performances by Geir Henning Braathen are especially great – many of my favourite piano recordings are here, and only a few of these CDs are available on streaming platforms. I actually have two copies of this box, one of them is missing one CD. 😀 I bought both of them second hand – both for around 500 NOK, but as they contain 23 CDs which are all out of print, and the piano recordings not available anywhere else, the box is probably worth a lot more. At least *I* would certainly pay a lot more if I had to, so I made a bargain for sure. 🙂
Fantastic! But not complete yet, I take it?
With classical music, you can’t really ever have a «complete» collection, as there are impossibly many different recordings of each work, throughout all of recorded music history. A few of his works I have maybe 10 different recordings of, while some others maybe 2 or 3. But I think I have *at least* one recording of every work he ever published, yes. And usually one or two preferred recordings of each. 🙂 So the CDs above are the ones I actually WANT to have. I have even hidden away some inferior releases that I have no interest in re-listening to.
Regarding books about Grieg, I have all the major biographies, collections of letters etc. I lack some of the more obscure book releases, but whenever I come over something I don’t have, I buy it. But I don’t buy every CD I find of every work, as there is really no point in owning another sub-standard recording of the Peer Gynt suites, for instance. 🙂 As long as I have my preferred versions of each work, I’m happy.
Have you attempted to make a playlist of the material?
Not really, I just pre-saved all the albums in Qobuz and listen to one at a time. 🙂
As for a playlist of what I consider to be the track highlights – that would take too much time I’m afraid 🙂Just to shed some more light on how important this particular composer is to me…
Behold! My still growing Edvard Grieg collection of CDs, books, scores, and a few LPs 😀
Chiming in!
I should print an «Ask me about Grieg» button.
Seriously, Grieg is fantastic. One of my favourite composers, in addition to Ravel, Fauré and Bach.
Forget about the Symphony in C minor. It is an earlier work and not something he was proud of. Actually, he hid it in an envelope on which he wrote «MÅ ALDRIG OPFØRES!» (must never be performed!).
Most people have only heard the «hits». The Peer Gynt Suites is NOT the complete score for Peer Gynt. Grieg wrote a 90 minute fantastic complete score for Peer Gynt, it’s like a lost film score from the 1870s. Listen to the complete recording with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Ole Kristian Ruud – the best recording there is.
Or how about this funeral march for Rikard Nordraak? SO dramatic. So beautiful.
(This is the best recording, with Scottish National Symphony Orchestra and Bjarte Engeset)Believe it or not, that is still an early work. Later in his life, Grieg would move increasingly away from romanticism and actually pave the way for impressionism, inspiring the likes of Debussy and Ravel, with pieces like NOTTURNO:
Or how about the extremely experimental BELL RINGING (Grieg composed this in 1890!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knElw3POoYI&pp=ygUeZ3JpZWcgYmVsbCByaW5naW5nIGJlcmdlbiBydXVkOr have you ever heard a more haunting, a more beautiful piano piece than this?
I could go on.
Continuing my «production order» chronological SW soundtrack journey after Williams’ THE LAST JEDI, I finally got through the mammoth release that is:
2018 | Kevin Kiner — Rebels – Season Four
Now this is where Kiner finally manages to hit all the marks with his score for Rebels, goes even farther away from Williams-copying than the previous season, and totally follows his own gut. I only wish the Disney execs had given him the same kind of confidence from the start of this series, because there sure are a lot of beautiful moments here. The latter half of this final season of Rebels in my opinion is incredibly moving and maybe some of the best Star Wars there is, animated or otherwise. So fortunately, the score does not disappoint when it comes to closing this story. It feels a lot more personal, and a lot more emotionally potent. It also appears they used a real orchestra for large chunks of the final episodes, which really pays off.
Of course, as an «album» it is still far too long, so I have to look at this too more as an «archive» than an actual album to listen to from start to finish in one go. And there still are tracks that don’t really do anything for me, but then there are over 70 of them, so what can you expect.
Isn’t it great that we can disagree? 😁 I find John Williams’ prequel scores overall to be his greatest work in the Star Wars universe. I can’t say they are more *important* than the original trilogy scores, but I just prefer them from a personal standpoint. I am always one for emotional strings and woodwind passages rather than bombastic brass fanfares. There is also something about Williams’ harmonic qualities in the 2000s which I just find a bit more interesting than his work in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s a more «mature» tonal language. The melodies are perhaps less «direct» and a lot of the harmonic language, chord progressions etc., have more of a «question mark» over them, an ambivalence. There are more complex feelings and more layers within the music. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. I just find this an incredibly interesting period for Williams, and the SW prequels are a great example of that.
Which is why I skipped both the originals and the prequels entirely for this listening project, and dived straight into post-2005 territory, and for me, mostly unknown territory 😀
Haha, yes, JW even refers to it as a «tragedy» Duel of the Fates. To be fair, it works very well in the movie conveying the tragedy of Anakin. It’s just not as enjoyable to listen to in itself. Contrary to Across the Stars, Anakin’s Theme, and indeed Duel of the Fates…
Ah, I see! Then your list is pretty much on point. 😀
And Battle of the Heroes is not my favourite theme to listen to either. I’m much more fond of the REVENGE tracks I listed above. 🙂Agree about your THE LAST JEDI comments, it sort of lacks a grand theme that should be there, but isn’t.
Interestingly though, I regard REVENGE OF THE SITH as maybe my favourite of all the SW scores, on par with THE PHANTOM MENACE. There was a new main «suite» theme for REVENGE, «Battle of the Heroes». But for me, the real highlights of REVENGE are «Anakin’s Betrayal», «The Immolation Scene», «Anakin’s Dark Deeds» (especially the second half), and parts of «Anakin’s Dream». These are not themes that are used elsewhere, but each of them are so, SO strong, and IMHO better than all of Williams’ sequel music combined.
You left out some important main themes from some of the episodes – Episode IV of course had all the foundations including the main SW theme as well. Episode V also had The Imperial March (a bit important, that one). Episode VI also had the Parade of the Ewoks theme / The Forest Battle, and also The Emperor’s Theme. Episode I had Duel of the Fates in addition to Anakin’s theme. Episode VII also had March of the Resistance in addition to Rey’s theme. And of course all the films (even the sequels) have a lot of repeating smaller motifs as well, in addition to the bigger «suite» themes. 🙂
2017 | Gordy Haab — Battlefront II
I actually played this game’s story mode, and it was very good indeed, taking place right after Return of the Jedi and then with an epilogue part set right before The Force Awakens. Listening to the soundtrack in itself though, it is the same kind of Williams-pastiche as the first Battlefront by Gordy Haab – very impressive sounding, but rather exhausting to listen to, and lacking of memorable themes. There are some highlights though, like «Go. Survive. Live!», and the bonus track «Ma Kapar» by Raney Shockne, a Mancini-esque source music track with what sounds like Tatooine lyrics (or some other SW language). But all in all, style over substance, again.
2017 | John Williams — Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
I actually love Rian Johnsons’s Star Wars film, certainly the most interesting film of the sequels for me, and it’s got some of the highlight moments of the entire saga for me, Luke’s final holo-confrontation with Kylo Ren being one of them. It’s a bit sad then, that this is ends up being the first Williams SW score that I still find a bit disappointing. Williams ends up cutting and pasting his existing themes together, with not much new material to present. The main «new» theme is probably the «Fun with Finn and Rose» theme, which is a bit daft, to be honest.
Anyway, a fair share of tracks contain interesting parts, but it is all so fragmented (interestingly enough, kind of the same problem I have with Gordy Haab’s SW videogame scores). Many tracks contain interesting parts that last for half a minute, and then turn into something else entirely, or a reprise of some other theme without really bringing anything new. «Canto Bight» is fun, though. There are some good tracks with bizarre orchestral textures like «The Cave». The last four tracks is where I find the score finally picks up and becomes interesting, though. The sad version of the Luke and Leia theme in «The Spark», before finally entering a great buildup towards Luke’s scene with Kylo, and Luke’s final scenes in «The Last Jedi» and «Peace and Purpose» are hauntingly beautiful. But all in all, the most original film of the sequels had deserved a more unhinged and original John Williams, rather than the copy-and-paste-fest like this largely ends up being.
And I can’t really blame John Williams. From what I read previously, there was no spotting session – the almost religious ritual Williams relies so heavily on to get to work on his scores. If that is true, my guess is that it’s a «generational» clash of working styles at play here, and he had to deal with a lot of temp tracks consisting of bits and pieces of his own music, and try to make sense of it all, without any real opportunity to get creative. Still kind of a shame.
You’re right Thor – I am a full-blown superfan of this film. I am almost tempted to call it Spielberg’s greatest masterpiece – and that’s saying a lot.
I love the ending. I bawl my eyes out. I haven’t watched it after becoming a parent, but it’s a fair bet that it will hit even harder now. I don’t really care about it being scientifically correct or not – that thought never occurred to me. The ending of this film is simply one of the most beautiful, and most utterly heartbreaking things I have ever watched.
John Williams’ score for A.I. is, as far as film scores go, maybe his greatest artistic achievement – in my humble opinion. I love the minimalist stuff. Williams takes the *idea* of Philip Glass-style minimalism, yes, but Glass would not have combined that craft with the kind of otherworldly harmonic and melodic elements that Williams incorporate into this. For that reason, tracks like «Journey to Rogue City» and «The Mecha World» (Extended Version) are to me far more intriguing than anything I ever heard from Philip Glass. (That said, I owe myself to listen more to Philip Glass’ catalogue, as I am obviously a fan of his general style).
I believe no other composer than John Williams could accomplish this score, because the Glass-inspired stuff is really only a tiny part of the score, anyway. The themes and melodies play an even bigger role, and they are among Williams’ most beautiful melodies ever. The calm, lush and «held back» orchestration with strings, belltone keyboards and soft, etheral voices are my favourite thing ever. There are also soft, atonal/modernist passages that really have a «coldness» in them, especially in some of the opening scenes. You really feel Kubrick’s soul is still very much present in the way even Williams approached this. And as for the film itself, remember that Kubrick also did really unconventional time jumps and style shifts that could redefine the whole purpose of the film, completely contrary to more traditional storytelling structures – 2001 being a great example of this.
However, I agree that the original album does not really do the score justice. I *love* the «For Always» theme itself, but strongly feel that it works better in tracks like «Where Dreams Are Born», without the lyrics. The appearance of a «song» (as in: with lyrics) takes me out of this fantastic score. And there are SO many highlights from this score that simply are not included in the rather short original album. In this case, The LaLaLand 3CD C&C version is the one for me (sorry Thor!).
That is indeed an impressive endeavour, Eirik, although more focussed than my current crazy one.
Haha, that is absolutely crazy, and I love it!!! I stumble into projects like this on a regular basis, but perhaps on a scale that is at least *possible* to accomplish. 😀
We’ll see how far I manage to go with this – so far it’s been fun, but it might also get bored and give up, if I have to listen to many scores like BATTLEFRONT… I can’t wait to get to the ANDOR scores – both seasons contained lots of musical moments that I loved (not to mention that the series itself is the best thing ever with the Star Wars name on it, IMHO). I also remember Kiner’s score for AHSOKA to be quite interesting and different. But yeah, we’ll see if I manage to get that far. 😀
You are missing some old LucasArts game soundtracks like DARK FORCES, X-WING and TIE FIGHTER, ROGUE SQUADRON and “remix scores” like FORCE COMMANDER or DEMOLITION 😉
I know, and I grew up with many of those games – I especially love TIE FIGHTER! However, I only listed actual official soundtrack releases. The music for those games were never released (as far as I know).
2008 | Kevin Kiner — The Clone Wars (Movie)
It’s fairly obvious that Lucas and his padawan Dave Filoni wanted to go a purposefully different direction with the first SW animated movie, coming only three years after REVENGE OF THE SITH and what we thought at the time to be the end of the SW cinematic saga. The John Williams-inspired style is mixed with ethnic music inspirations, industrial hard rock, and synthetic elements. I think it works quite well, and the score is at times pretty entertaining to listen to. Most of the orchestral stuff is certainly performed by a real orchestra, with some exceptions near the end of the album which sound a bit more sample-based.
Some favourite tracks: Battle of Christophsis, Obi-Wan to the Rescue, Sneaking Under the Shield, B’omarr Monastery, Battle of Teth, The Jedi Council, General Loathsom / Ahsoka, Scaling the Cliff, Escape from the Monastery, Courtyard Fight.2014 | Kevin Kiner — The Clone Wars – Seasons 1–6
A single, hour-long album compiles musical highlights from The Clone Wars seasons 1 through 6, but suprisingly, I found it less musically interesting than the album from The Clone Wars movie – even though I LOVE the series itself (much more so than the pilot movie). It is also obvious that the budget is not on the same level as the movie – some (but not all) of the music is quite obviously based on sample libraries, but it still sounds quite good (and hey, I know all about budget restraints leading to this sort of thing, as a composer myself). It is less forgiving that Kiner often quotes Williams’ Force Theme while getting one of the notes wrong! Musically there is really only one standout track here: the quite beautiful «Ahsoka Leaves».
2015 | Kevin Kiner — Rebels – Season One
REBELS started out as what seemed like a corporate commissioned «retro Star Wars» animated show, but gradually through the seasons grew into one of the most original, most lovable, most mythical and lore-heavy Star Wars stories told to date. In my humble opinion! Disappointingly, the score for Season 1 is suffering greatly to the fact that Kiner appears to have been instructed to reuse Williams’ music especially from A New Hope (maybe because the new Disney execs didn’t want anything to resemble the Prequel Trilogy at this point). So what we have here is largely a mishmash of Williams’ own cues, re-recorded for quite cheap-sounding sample libraries, while often getting the notes wrong. It’s quite a travesty. And a big shame that the bosses couldn’t trust Kiner to come up with his own music that told the ACTUAL story, instead of reusing Williams’ themes in scenes they were never meant for. A gross example of this practice is listening to a 3 minute track called «Ezra’s theme» which has 30 seconds of a new theme at first, while transforming into a bad copy of «Luke meets Obi-Wan» from Episode IV for one minute, then 30 seconds of the Force Theme (again with the same wrong note), and then the last minute is actually Princess Leia’s theme! I only blame Kiner for the wrong notes, I highly doubt that he wanted to do this instead of creating his own musical universe. And it is a real shame, since the show itself is fantastic. Luckly, it gets gradually better through the show’s four seasons.
Two OK tracks: Passed the Test, Familiar Pilot. And the main Rebels Theme is allright.2015 | Gordy Haab — Battlefront
Now this sounds much more expensive – interesting that video games get all the big money now! Gordy Haab has obviously studied John Williams’ orchestrational style very closely, and there is obviously a real orchestra here. It is all expertly composed and flawlessly executed. HOWEVER, it is all style and no substance. It’s like listening to 13 tracks of pure Williams battle music, but everything is in «full power», there are no themes and no soul. The music shifts and turns constantly, from one chaotic scenario to the next, and I simply can’t find anything to hang on to. It quickly gets exhausting. There is one exception: The beautiful track «Approach to Landing Pad 13».
2015 | John Williams — Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Listening to Williams’ own Episode VII score quickly becomes a huge relief after the clever but all in all quite soulless BATTLEFRONT. This score has grown on me over the years. At first I was put off by the lack of more themes that were fully played out. Kylo Ren and The First Order only have short motifs and never full themes, for instance. But you have Rey’s Theme, which is very beautiful, and the Restistance march is kind of cool. It still can’t touch Williams’ own Prequel Trilogy scores, which I believe to be his highest musical achievement in the world of Star Wars.
Anyway, quite a LOT of highlights here for me: The Scavenger, Rey Meets BB-8, Rey’s Theme, The Girl with the Staff, Finn’s Confession, Maz’s Councel, The Starkiller, The Abduction, Han and Leia, March of the Resistance, Torn Apart, Farewell and The Trip, The Jedi Steps.2016 | Kevin Kiner — Rebels – Season Two
It is equally interesting to jump right into Kiner’s second season of REBELS after enjoying Williams’ Episode VII. Kiner is still playing around in the soundscape of the original trilogy, but he has been given a bit more trust to do his own thing. Like in «Journey Into the Star Cluster» where he delves into neoclassical territory with a string quartet – very cool!! And the ending montage which ends the season is totally epic.
Track highlights: Twin Moons, Journey Into the Star Cluster, Pergill in Hyperspace, The Great Pergill, Where the Sun Sails and the Moon Walks, It’s Over Now.2016 | Michael Giacchino — Rogue One
Unlike Thor, I quite like Michael Giacchino, and especially his work with Pixar. But I don’t think he was necessarily the right fit for Star Wars. Again, ROGUE ONE is a movie that I absolutely love, so the fact that the music could have been a lot better, kind of hurts. What I *do* like, is that the orchestra SOUNDS a lot like Episode IV era orchestra – the mix sounds as dry as it did back in 1977! What I *don’t* like is that Giacchino delivers some themes that sound quite bland, to be honest. And since the purpose of this film is to actually play right into Episode IV, he should be allowed to use the actual Williams themes for stuff like the Rebellion, Vader and the Empire, instead of composing «sound-alikes»… So this is actually the exact opposite problem as in REBELS, funnily enough! Having said that, his Empire theme is actually quite cool. And I also like that he cites the «extinct» Imperial theme from Episode IV (which was later replaced by The Imperial March in Episode V).
Track highlights: Star-Dust, Cargo Shuttle SW-0608, Your Father Would Be Proud, The Imperial Suite2017 | Kevin Kiner — Rebels – Season Three
A mammoth 71 track album clocking in at over two hours, Kiner keeps developing more of his own voice into REBELS, as he should have been allowed to from the beginning. I like Thrawn’s motif on the church organ, and Sabine’s new theme when we delve deeper into her Mandalorian backstory is also nice. The amount of tracks is a bit overwhelming, and it’s hard to get an overview of any kind of album structure. I guess it has to be viewed more as documentation.
Track highlights: Ezra Suspended, Try Again, My Real Name is Sabine, Ambushing the Imperials, Thrawn’s Deductions, Mart Sato, Fighting Sister Sabine, Entrance to Underground, Convincing Sabine, Mandalorian Vambraces, Mon Mothma’s Speech, Kanan Implores Bendu, Sato’s Choice, Orbital BombardmentThat’s where I’m at now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on some of these, if you have them. 😀
Three more years to go…
I don’t think for a second that he will step down willingly. He’s proven that already, and all these jokes about a third term are not really jokes. He has now made a normal thing out of just talking about it, and that’s the first step.
Also, judging by how bad things have gone in just one year, I don’t think the world can stand three more years. I also have a feeling that something will happen before that. Either he goes stark raving mad and starts WW3, declaring martial law and cancelling all elections so he can stay in the White House until he rots, or maybe he becomes so visibly ill that Vance has to take over.
“We have no place for politics in the arts, and those calling for boycotts based on politics are making the wrong decision,”
OMG. I would expect something that stupid from Facebook trolls, but not from the spokesperson for an actual fucking arts center!! Where to even begin… Sigh.
And to chime in on this thread in general, the world events do effect me very profoundly. I also feel I have to check the news many times a day, and sort of prepare for the worst every time.
The sooner the orange turd takes his last breath the better, but another problem is that some of the people around him (Miller, Vance, Noem…) are just as revolting, but unfortunately not as stupid. Still, anything is probably better than this constant game of never knowing what to expect the next day, because the orange clown is such a constant ticking bomb. Will he actually attack an allied nation today? Maybe tomorrow? The fact that all of Europe has been kissing up to him up to this point makes me sick. It obviously has not worked in anyone’s favour. Dump only cares about himself, no matter what. On a light note: I’m glad we are seeing a change in tone, and that European leaders are much more confrontational now – finally.
I think Grump is physically and mentally uncapable of having any kind feelings of any sort, about another person. Not to mention he is normalising asshole behaviour on a scale like nobody has ever done before. How the hell are we supposed to teach our kids about anti-bullying when the world’s most mighty person is the worst bully and the most thoroughly sick bastard the world has ever seen?
Loek Dikker, yes! Always sticking his head around… LOL!
(It’s extra funny because Loek = Løk, which means «onion» in Norwegian, and also quite an insult…)I never really spoke to him, though… As far as I can remember.
Oh I remember, I did meet Nainita Desai, it must have been in 2019 or early 2020. She did a great presentation at one of these NOPA (Norwegian composer and songwriter’s union) gatherings. We had a small chat afterwards, and geeked out a bit over the use of sample libraries. She was really nice, wonderful person and composer!
Well, going «undercover» as your photographer, TJ, we did of course meet Patrick Doyle in 2014 and Danny Elfman in 2017… Hard to top that one, fanboy-wise! Since I didn’t want to disturb them other than let you do your interviews, I’ll just have to live with the fact that they will forever see me as a paparazzi rather than a colleague. 😀
My memory is failing, there must have been more, but I really only remember the Nordic ones, and especially my Norwegian colleagues who I often meet once or twice a year. I can’t recall actually speaking to any international composers in particular…
And I also met your pal in London that time, whose name escapes me because I’m on holiday and have had a bit to drink. Eirik Myhr, it’s come back to me now.
Hi, Tall Guy! It was nice meeting in London back then! Hope you’ve been well.
It’s strange, because Elfman HAS written a rather large amount of scores that don’t really do anything for me, but he’s still my second favourite film composer after Williams. It might be that I identify with him as an angsty weird nerd with a lot of self-doubt and a very interesting journey from theatre musician, drummer, pop/rock musician and performer, into film composer and later a more classical composer. And his work that speak to me, REALLY speak to me in a big way. He’s just done so much different stuff.
I like his more mature 2000s period where he was sort of leaving behind the early Kurt Weill ompa-ompa style and taking a huge left turn, becoming more heavily influenced by the Philip Glass style of patterns and ostinatos in strings and melodic percussion. BIG FISH is a huge favourite, with some really beautiful main themes in strings and woodwinds, mixed with folky guitar patterns and fiddle. Just amazing. I also absolutely love THE UNKNOWN KNOWN and STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, and also PROMISED LAND and RESTLESS. It’s interesting how he really is a completely different composer if he works for Burton, Morris or Van Zandt. Having said that, I also love a lot of his Burton stuff, NIGHTMARE is an absolute masterpiece from beginning to end. And PLANET OF THE APES is a really bold score with its brutal col legno string-slapping, tribal percussion fest and distorted synth bass trip! All of these very different scores have inspired my own work at some point.
Wasn’t it some guy called Arne Svingen who had that “soundtrack column” (if you could even call it that) in the magazine? I think he later became an author. I do, however, remember kinda hating him a bit for his dismissive and ignorant remarks the few times he DID actually review a score album. I especially remember a review of ANYWHERE BUT HERE, where he wrote mostly about the songs, and then briefly mentioned Elfman’s score suite – kinda ad hoc – as “nissen på lasset” (a Norwegian expression that somewhat translates to “a thorn in someone’s side”). Even though Elfman actually co-wrote some of the songs as well.
(ooops, I just googled him and realized he wrote the children’s book DE TØFFESTE GUTTA [THE TOUGH GUYS], which was turned into a film with a score by our very own Eirik Myhr, who in turn is a big Elfman fan….so great comeuppance!).
Hahaha, this is hilarious!
Just to clarify, I never worked directly with Svingen on the movie, I only met him once or twice at the premiere and festival viewings. Seemed like a really nice guy. I, however, might not have been as nice if I knew about his erratic views of John Williams…
The classic misunderstanding that film music should not «interfere» or even «push» emotions, like you are not using every OTHER aspect of filmmaking to do exactly that already… Sigh.
I can only say, I hope my score for DE TØFFESTE GUTTA (which starts out as a comedy but later hits you in the face with some really gut-wrenching scenes) actually made him cry. By the time of the film’s release (2013) he surely must have learned that using music – like every other artistic output – to convey emotions, is actually not a bad thing.
Reading how he dismissed Williams back in that 90s magazine is actually quite shocking. The claim that Williams has been at it for too long and simply doesn’t have much to say musically anymore… Well, personally I think Williams’ most interesting period is the 2000’s, which had yet to occur when this happened… So Svingen was obviously very, very wrong back then.
I am also impressed by your calm, factual responses, Nils. And even though you had the last word, what an arrogant way for the magazine editor to step in and «declare the discussion of John Williams to be over», after TWO letters! Like they seriously didn’t find a discussion of the world’s greatest film composer to be even RELEVANT in a fucking film magazine! Horrendous. Absolutely horrendous.
