Nick Zwar
Forumsvar Lagt Inn
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Innlegg
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There were and have been over the years several hefty boxes with ALL of Bach (Hänssler https://haensslerprofil.de/shop/werkausgaben-boxen/die-kompletten-werke , really good recordings, I do have some but by no means all or most of them) and all of Beethoven, and all of this or that.
“ALL” is of course debatable, as there may always be some odds and ends to include or not include, what is “ALL” anyway, all Bruckner Symphonies or all VERSIONS of ALL Bruckner Symphonies. (I have a set that is literally the latter:
).I can’t say that these box set’s take the fun out of it, quite the contrary, they really allow to have a good overview dive into a composer. I don’t have a lot of “composer complete” boxes, as they used to be expensive (not anymore, you can get the Hänssler Bach edition now for a fraction of what it originally cost), and seemed a bit “overwhelming”, I preferred to spread out my funds for music over various different music and couldn’t just dump it all on ONE composer (and therefore not buying a lot of other music, like film music).
I do have some “specific” box sets, like all of Mozart’s symphonies, or Piano concertos, or all of piano sonatas.
The Newman’s of course, that’s a given. Kyle Eastwood is also known Jazz Bassist and film composer (usually for his dad).
And there is Andrea Morricone, of course.
MOUSE HUNT is mickey-mousey, that’s the idea. 🙂 It’s a charming score that relishes the zany slapstickness of the movie.
It would be easy to now list a lot of favorites, but I choose two that I especially love:
JUDGE DREAD and MOUSE HUNT.
JUDGE DREAD is a varied, rich action score with muscular themes, suspense cues, and just an all out tour de force… Silvestri here steps into Goldsmith/Poledouris territory, and he keeps up with them. I was surprised how much I enjoy the score, given that I didn’t care all that much for the movie iteelf. It’s become one of my favorites.
And MOUSE HUNT is just a delight, like Peter and The Wolf as a film score. The theme is infectious, and the music is in such wonderful spirit, as if a modern composer scores a classic keystone cops/Laurel&Hardy movie, which is basically what it was.
Those two are definitely favorites of mine.
I’m right now listening to the new PLAY DIRTY score, which is off to a promising start.
I did an FSM threads with a similar subject once, “Completionist Collections”, where I asked which part of your collections do you consider “complete” strive to complete. FSM: Completionist Collections
As I said, I’m a bit lax in the checkbox department myself, so I don’t even know how “complete” some of the collection is. I do have a natural inclination to get some composers… like when there is a new interesting album by Leonard Rosenman or Bernard Herrmann or Alex North, I’ll probably get it, though I have not compared my collection with Discogs or Soundtrack Collector to see how complete it is. Same with Beethoven, I got a lot, certainly all the concertos and symphonies and string quartets and sonatas, but how would I know if it’s “all”? I’d have to compare my collection with a “Werkeverzeichnis”, but I haven’t done that.
The classical composers I do have complete (I listed up there) are “easy” to have complete, because either the ouevre had a clear, limited focus (Wagner, Mahler), or there were supposedly complete editions that I have (Boulez, Ligeti when you combine Sony and Teldec). I also do have all (studio) albums by Peter Gabriel or Talk Talk, but there are not too many, so it’s “easy” to be complete there and know it.
I may not even know if I have a composer “complete” because I’m lax in the checkbox department.
I’m pretty sure I have all (or close to all) compositions (by no means all recordings) by:
Gustav Mahler
György Ligeti
Pierre Boulez
Richard WagnerI do have so many Jerry Goldsmith scores, I might as well strive for completion now…
As a side note:
I also have all Duck comics by Carl Barks, the one collection I started and finished with the completionist’s mindset. 🙂Not by “design”, but some things eventually become “complete”. By that I mean, I don’t systematically double check what is missing and what I would need to get in order for something to be “complete”. But some things may eventually be “completed” just out of natural interest. For example, when I started out, I became very interested in Jerry Goldsmith, and picked up LPs and later CDs when I found them and could afford them. Having a “complete” Jerry Goldsmith collection seemed way out of reach and not a realistic aim. But over the decades, I accumulated quite a bit. I have currently around 240 Jerry Goldsmith albums. When I look at that, that is most of his body of work, but probably not all it. I am actually not sure how “complete” it is… there are no major films missing, obviously, but experts might take a look at it and point to where it’s not “complete”. So some things just naturally “complete” themselves over time. Any new release of a previously unreleased Goldsmith score would probably end up in my collection… no need to stop now. 😀
I do have some classical composers and non film scores composer where I have a more or less “complete” collection… I do have all Peter Gabriel or Talk Talk albums, for example, or all of the works of Gustav Mahler and Pierre Boulez, but I’m not sure if I have film composers where I have everything (or close to everything).
I don’t think I have ever paid any real “collector’s price” on a soundtrack CD… I remember back in the 1990s some crazy auctions on (the then comparatively new) eBay, where CDs sold for hundreds or in a few cases over a thousand dollars. Those were legendary discussions in rec.music.movies. I still have a printed film music “pricing” guide from around that time. I have only ever paid for what the CD would have cost new more or less anyway. The very few CDs I absolutely wanted to have and initially missed (like Ennio Morricone’s THE ISLAND) I traded for something else later on.
I would have paid $25 for FUTUREWORLD now, as it belongs to a special type of film score (it’s among film scores I initially taped of the TV, scores that got me interested in film music to begin with), so I’d love to have it.I also didn’t buy anything from Kendall although there are a lot of things of interest. Other than you I have not everything I ever wanted because I have to be picky what I buy.
Oh, I have always been picky about what I buy too, that’s why I mean I have everything I ever longed for, not that I have actually everything. (Obviously not.) However, when there were releases I really wanted, I picked them up when they were released. So I bought stuff like STAGECOACH and THE TOWERING INFERNO and THE LORD OF THE RINGS complete sets when they were initially released, I didn’t have to pay “collector’s prices” later on.
Yeah, could be. I basically have all of the film music I ever wanted, and I even have basically all of the classical music I ever wanted.*1 That doesn’t mean that I don’t buy anything anymore, but just about all music I really longed to have when I was a teen years ago is now in my collection. So for the most part, I’m just an opportunistic buyer, and I still find opportunities.
*1: I said “just about all music”, and there are some titles — but very few — that remain elusive. There are Maurice Jarre’s 5 CARD STUD and William Lava’s THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS that remain elusive simply because they have not been released yet. Then there are a very few (it’s really very few) titles that I have not yet been able to get. Fred Karlin’s FUTUREWORLD, for example. It just showed up at Lukas Kendall’s sale for a reasonable price ($25, but it was sealed, so okay), but was snatched by someone else. Oh well, one day maybe. But for the most part, I have all I ever wanted, and all I am getting now is “goodies on top” or new discoveries.
US CDs are not more expensive than EU CDs, it’s the shipping back and forth that costs, if you look at the actual prices, they are roughly the same.
I have some actual prices that are comparable:
I bought a Deutsche Grammophon release of Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and Dutilleux in 1997 for 34,95DM, which is 17,90€. That was a normal price then for a new “premium” CD. I bought a Mahler recording via Amazon in 2020 for 8,99€:
That was a steal (which is why I bough it), but there were many “steals” like that. And it’s very comparable because they belong to the same “line” and label.
I have found that especially classical recordings have become remarkably cheap within the last ten years, with many labels and outlets obviously reducing prices or offering ridiculously stuffed boxed set that sell for a lot less than they would have 20 years ago.That’s probably as a result of streaming. And that’s for new CDs.
The used market has obviously shrunk as well, but differently. The used market went berserk 10-15 years ago or so. That’s when streaming, Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, etc, all became mainstream and people were dumping their CD collections right and left. So that’s when you got an avalanche of used CDs cheap. Stores had to be careful to even take on more inventory, because everybody was selling their collections, far more than were buying it. It was a buyers market for sure, if you were in the market for used CDs. Now that market has incredibly shrunk since then, and far, far fewer CDs end up on the used market. Makes sense. CDs used to be mass products and mainstream, people bought maybe lots of CDs (including soundtracks), listened to it a few times, found they don’t care for it (anymore), and it was sold again. That’s happening a lot less these times. The few people who buy the CDs usually know what they buy and why and they keep them. Everyone can listen to anything streaming anyway, so far fewer people buy CDs to later sell them again. Fewer “new” CDs end up on the used market. (And far fewer CDs get produced to begin with.)
But beyond that, prices on CDs have risen far, far more than sheer inflation accounts for. As has shipping and other things.
It’s interesting that you say that, that is not my experience at all. Perhaps it’s different in Norway. The way I see it, CDs have been remarkably resilient to price increases, thereby becoming actually cheaper.
My first ever CD order from Amazon was in 2000, two Varèse Sarabande CDs, they cost €15,33 back then. (The McNeely recordings of MARNIE and CITIZEN KANE). I ordered them from Amazon at that time because a) I could not find them at my local store and b) the price was pretty good. When FSM first released CDs like Stagecoach and The Poseidon Adventure, they cost $19,95… that was in 1998! That was a normal price back then for a new premium release. The tomorrow released MOI QUI T’AIMAIS by Philippe Sarde from Music Box Records costs €16,80! The “regular” price for a new “major” CD in Europe and the US has been around $20 for a quarter of a century. Intrada now releases sometimes CDs for $21,99 something like that, but that’s a relatively small increase. There are STILL many new CD releases for around 20 (Euros or Dollars).
If you look at actual inflation rates in Europe and the US, considered for the last 25 years (from 2000 to 2025), a CD that cost 20€/$20 in 2000 should cost now about 32€ or even $37 in 2025 (the inflation rate over the last 25 years was higher for the Dollar than for the Euro). So in fact, CD prices have decreased by a considerable margin (by staying the same.)
The best bet for good deals on used or out of print film score CD is currently actually Lukas Kendall, who is selling off a lot of collections.
Most offline CD stores have vanished, so I guess that’s not much different from online CD stores. I used to live near what was once and for a long time the store with the by its own account “The largest record collection in the world”, Cologne’s Saturn Music Dome, and that store is gone. It had been a shadow of its former self for years, and now it’s a gamer venue.
In any case, I’d love to pay for lots of things the same prices today that I did 20 years ago. I would save a lot of money if I’d pay for electricity, gasoline, food, etc. the same prices I paid 20 years ago and no more. 🙂
In fact, I’d happily pay today’s prices for CDs if I could have the other things for the same prices they cost 20 years ago.COSÌ COME SEI was among my early “foundational” albums, I bought the LP some time in the 80s. I’m pretty sure it must have been among my first five or six Ennio Morricone albums. I’ve never actually seen the movie.
