@Vektrix, I also like Metallica, especially the S&M CD.

I think film scores were at their best from the 80's to the mid-90's. I haven't bought a film score in ages. The last one being either Patriot Games for its whispy Irish music or Broken Arrow for its fun woodwind sound. Gladiator is the only recent film I'd even consider buying, oh wait, I did buy A Beautifyl Mind, but that was only for the song with Charlotte Church singing. The rest of the music is better left in the movie.

Sir S

Edited by - Sir Spectre on 1/9/2004 9:30:00 AM

I tend not to be too interested in whole score - I like lots of the Main Themes. I do not actually own any complete scores, just a John Williams CD. S&M is an insane musical journey, having said that, everyone should at leats listen to it. I own all of Metallica's albums (studio anyway), the same for Korn and Megadeth!!!! Film Scores for me peaked in the mid-to late 70's and early 80's - although the Pirates of the Carribean and Lord of the Rings scores are outstanding.

Gladiator? Hans Zimmer did that score, and the superb score for Black Hawk Down too, which is the only soundtrack I've bought since Drowning by Numbers by Michael Nyman (thats 12 yrs) HZ has also done the score for The Last Samurai (out any day now, yay!)

heres an IMDB linky to his ouvre, some of the films like Pearl Harbor stink imho but the musics always good, he's a cracking composer.

wow i didn't know he done Pirates of the Caribbean (makes sense, sounds just like Gladiator) 3rd Reich inColour (thought that was Claus Michael Winterhalter, sorry Hans!) Thin Red Line and the Ring. blimey he's done stacks, Lion King, Crimson Tide, Broken Arrow, Backdraft, Green card, Thelma & Louise (Ridley again) Paperhouse (top film that, genuinely scary) and My Beautiful Launderette!

Pirates of C and LotR were okay in my mind. Not as unique as I had hoped. Most of the scores I buy, I buy for their uniqueness and in the timeframe I pointed out in my previous post is when more movies had real original music.

Sir S

Taw, he didn't do PotC, I was just mentioning it as a score that I like!!!! Klaus Badelt di that one. I still like a lot of the stuff John Williams did - but my fave is Jerry Goldsmith on Planet of the Apes, it is quite spooky!!

he's on the credits with K. Badelt and the main action theme is identical to the Chariot theme in Gladiator.

Is he? I'll have to watch the credits on the DVD again sometime!!! Still a good score though!

what? are you kidding? HZ is bollocks, truly, like John Williams. I mean all his stuff sounds pretty much the same. some guy was playing the Gladiator Soundtrack and i thought it was Crimson Tide. Its all pretty much identical. Film music needs to have a bit of a sprucing up methinks.

Tarantino always has good soundtracks......

Soundtracks eh? Anyone heard the soundtrack to "Power of One" also by Hans Zimmer? Great movie and great soundtrack. Also the score for Requiem for a Dream by the Kronos Quartet is really haunting.

@Arch, there is (as is always the case! ) a great deal of truth in what you say. Professional film composers do have a habit of sounding very samey in successive films, but I think part of the reason this is the case is because they're given a brief by the studio to "make it sound like...some other film," also and in a related way they get typecast and asked to score similar-ish films over and over again. And i think there's an element of workaday laziness involved, regurgitating the same stuff over and over again, because it works and it'll do. Most film audiences don't take that much notice of the soundtrack and it operates on an unconscious level to help make the mood of any particular sequence.

Williams has been plagiarising himself and other works for years, and I dion't think he's got any originality left in him. Zimmer has, though; I accept that a lot of his stuff does sound the same (see top paragraph) but given the freedom to interpret a film's contents as he sees fit, comes up with some very decent stuff. i refernce again Black Hawk Down, Leave No man Behind is incredibly moving, Synchrotone and Tribal War are thumping action scores, and most of the rest of the soundtrack is highly eeocative of that part of Africa and its culture. Ok some of it gets rather maudlin and cliched which is always an issue with symphonic film scores, it's a Hollywood thang, can't get away from it I'm afraid.

There does need to be some new blood and fresh ideas in film scoring, I'm even getting bored with the score of LotR by the time I've heard the same themes in 3 different films, but I can't complain too much as you are meant to interpret the trilogy as one long continuous experience.

Leaving sondtracks aside (I prefer them WITH the films), I can say that what concerns music (I'm not talking about all that pop crap), it's only getting better - from useless feminine-style glam rock to heavy to thrash to death, to black to sympho black - all I see is improvement. Matter of taste, of course.

"Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin

i swear your just making genres up now.

Wanna make a bet, Archie?

"Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin