Anyone getting tired of the Enya-like "Aaaaaaaah...aaaaaahhh..." scores? (1 Viewer)

[Nick Martin]

My take is this:

Being a Horner fanatic (in the worst possible sense) I collect all of his scores. "Troy" is a score I love every note of (especially the huge, chaotic brass) but I HATED Tanja Tzarovska's vocals, so much so that I created an album of the Troy soundtrack without ANY of her vocals. I enjoy it much more now.

I found some mp3's of raw recording sessions from Troy, and used bits and pieces of them to fill in the gaps. In them there are parts where you hear Horner talking to Tzarovska, telling her to improvise freely. None of those vocal parts were written, just directed towards a certain feeling.


There are two main approaches to this vocal style - the "Gladiator" / "Troy" style, which I cannot stand most of the time, and there's the "Titanic" / "A Beautiful Mind" /"The New World" style, where the voice is just a part of the orchestra ensemble, and doesn't stick out.

"The Four Feathers" featured a variation on both styles, and utilized a male voice - Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

 

[Bob Turnbull]

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was incredible. I had the supreme luck of seeing him perform live in the early 90s and I still get shivers thinking of that evening. His voice, the genuine feelings being emoted and the vibe of the audience made it unnecessary to understand his words or even be religious (he sings Qawwali which is the devotional music of a sect of Islam called Sufism).

Nicholas, was the soundtrack of Four Feathers using his Qawwali music (usually sung in Urdu I think) or was this specifically recorded for the film and made up of just vocalizations?

 

[Nick Martin]

 

[Bob Turnbull]

Thanks for the info Nicholas...

I'm realizing I was thinking of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (king of Qawwali music) who passed away in 1997. Since both films you are talking about were released 5+ years later, I would guess you mean someone different (I didn't catch the "Rahat" the first time). I expect their singing styles are similar though.

 

[Nick Martin]

Rahat is Nusrat's nephew, as well as his official successor. According to a wikipedia article, this is because Nusrat had no son.

 

[Allan^L]

Loreena McKennit's "The Mystic's Dream" was also use in TNT's The Mists of Avalon twice.

Nina Gordon's really nice song has shown up twice for me. Once for the trailer for Captain Corelli's Mandolin and for TV commercials for The Notebook.

I'm a big fan of the wail and/or "exotic" scores in movies. It was overused in Troy but that movie sucked overall. I think the high number of historical epic movies in the past six years or so have resulted in this fad. It hasn't been mentioned yet but the Sci-Fi Network's miniseries Children of Dune has a fantastic "exotic" score complete with female and male wailing!

 

[todd stone]

I prefer the enya like style

 

[JeremyErwin]

But not enya herself? What's the matter, todd, can't take your saccharine straight?