Schilkeman
Forumsvar Lagt Inn
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Innlegg
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I’m firmly convinced Rare’s success was at least 65% the music for their games, and not the rather floopy, looks-better-on-the-box-than-in-motion gameplay. The soundtrack to Donky Kong Country still makes me feel some kind of way.
The usual suspects on JWfan are grumbling that the free website they sometimes use isn’t 100% overnight. I’ll be happy when FSM is up and running, as I plan on leaving the other site for good.
Not that there aren’t usual suspects on FSM, but the conversation does at least seem to revolve around music there.
I would love it, Thor, if you could bring some of your old thread starters here. I’m not very good at that sort of thing. I like these forums, even if the site does yell at me in Norwegian before I change it.
Medicine Man and Rudy. I’ve been trying to love, rather than only appreciate, Goldsmith. Familiarity breeds affection (or contempt), so they say. I’m aiming for the former.
Since my interest in film music is about 90% John Williams (I’m trying my damndest with Goldsmith), I spent most of my time on JWFan. There are a few cats on there I find mildly-to-completely insufferable, so I have scaled back considerably. Maybe I’m one of them. Probably.
I do feel like I came in a little late to the party (story of my life) and most of the JW centric discussions happened 10-15 years ago. To be fair, he doesn’t write as much these days.
I like FSM, but I just don’t find a ton of film music super engaging. I’m a classical guy at heart, and a lot just doesn’t measure up, or at least doesn’t stand well on its own. Still, film music was my first love in the world of art music. I have a soft spot for it, and I like hearing other people’s enthusiasm. It helps me try new stuff.
I wasn’t really thinking of expansion liner notes, of the type Intrada and LLL put out with their releases, since I don’t really buy those any more. They can indeed be very thorough and informative. OST notes are usually a paragraph or two from the director, if that, and a bunch of promotional photos. In the era before wikipedia, forced to read whatever books on music my local library had, I learned the basics of music history, form, tonal relationships, and interpretive specificity from liner notes on classical albums.
I’m a (wannabe) completionist for John Williams, Goldsmith, Beethoven, Haydn and Wynton Marsalis. I’m also aiming for a, if not complete, very large collection of Telarc records. All the audiophile hipsters overpaying for vinyl, and I’m over here getting some of the best recorded music ever for $4 a pop.
For soundtrack releases, not of much importance. They’re usually used as extensions of the promotional material and aren’t that interesting. For classical, and opera most of all, I find them essential to the experience. I moved from digital back to cds for that very reason.
Minor musicological quibbles that became harder to ignore the more I listened to him. His dodgy voice leading, sometimes intentional like in Apollo 13, presumably to avoid an overly religious feel to the choral writing, but other times not, like in WoK where I just feel he was rushed for time. The way he distends his melodies during moments of underscore, particularly prevalent in Titanic. The new age aspects his music took on in the 90s. His passionate love of direct modulation. And last, but probably least, that he didn’t get the memo about plagiarism vs pastiche.
He knew his way around the orchestra, and when inspired could deliver music of surpassing beauty and subtle detail, but his “eclecticism,” and the other stuff, has gotten a little harder for me to ignore. But I go in waves with these things. I may decide I’m full of crap in 6 months. Apollo 13 was also one of my first, and favorite, soundtrack experiences.
I’m pretty much all OSTs these days. I sold all of my expansions. After dabbling with them for a few years, I determined I was listening more when it was just OSTs. I make exceptions for scores with no OST (like Poseidon Adventure, or Rio Conchos), or in cases where studio meddling compromised the original release (like CE3K or Apollo 13 ((though actually not Apollo 13 as I’ve gone off Horner)).