Greatest Soundtrack Ever: Lord of the Rings voted Number One. (1 Viewer)

[Michael Taylor]

Agee,
Thank you for posting a verifiable link to an established critic. That was what I was looking for.
Randy,
The proof I wanted was in response to your claim that "most musicians and critics" think Williams is a hack, because you know what you think, but how do you know what most other people think.
I am not worried about criticism of a favored composer, because we are all allowed to have out opinions. The opinion was he is a hack, the touted fact was that most critics and musicians would agree. The supposed fact is what I was questioning.
:star: To everyone reading this thread. I am sorry to have participated in sidetracking the main subject of this thread. From this point on, I will say no more in response to the JW/hack thing.
Kevin, Peter, and Rob,
Thank you for your responses regarding The Dark Crystal. I love this score so much and I can't wait to have a copy on CD. The isolated score is very cool, but unfortunately, you have to wait through long periods of silence to get to the next bit of music. The cool part is, I could record it on my PC and then put the songs on CD if the official version is never released.
Zen,
Vangelis is my favorite Neo Classical (New Age) composer. I have nearly every one of his CDs. The Blade Runner score is incredible, however, I wish they would have ommitted the dialog from the movie that is spoke atop several tracks. It is really jarring. (Funny thing is, I wish the DVD would include Harrison Ford's narration! ) His score for 1492: Conquest of Paradise is wonderful. The choral pieces are excellent. Chariots of Fire is not my favorite Vangelis score, but it was what introduced me to Vangelis' work. Have you ever heard his score for a film called Antarctica? (not on DVD, yet ) It is really good, but I think it plays better after you have seen the movie.
Whew! I go away for 12 hours and there was so much to catch up on!

 

[Zen Butler]

The Blade Runner score is incredible, however, I wish they would have ommitted the dialog from the movie that is spoke atop several tracks.

The 94 (Atlantic/Warner UK) release is technically not a soundtrack per se. Vangelis requested it be simply called Blade Runner. I have several versions of this soundtrack, some, it's a little shady on whether I can mention them here.
Although the quality of the 94 release cannot be disputed. You, many others and myself have problems with the dialog interwoven.
Ahhh! Antartica , exactly a year later after BW's release. This is a soundtrack also. I think this is well overlooked and goes nicely in rotation with Blade Runner, 1492, & Oceanic to name a few. The Bounty , I have only heard in the movie. It is a very tough soundtrack to get a hold of.
Great mention of Antartica

 

[Michael Taylor]

Vangelis' "Themes" CD contains two tracks from "The Bounty", which only whet my appetite for the whole thing. I would snap it up in a heartbeat.

I thought I knew what the difference between a soundtrack and a score is, but apparently I am wrong. I always thought that the score was the orchestral (not exclusively orchestral) music that played under a scene and that the soundtrack was usually music (usually with lyrics) that is played to accentuate some stylized mood in the film, aka rock music in most action movies. For example, The Matrix has the soundtrack and score on two separate CDs.

Since the Classic FM soundtrack list consists of what I thought were film scores, I figured the station was using the term "soundtrack" loosely for the benefit of the general public. If they truly meant to include all soundtracks, then I would have liked to see soundtracks such as "Saturday Night Fever", "The Matrix", and "Last Action Hero" somewhere in the list. I love all three of those enjoy most of the songs on them. OK, the Fever soundtrack is not one of my most listened to CDs, but I *do* listen to it when I am in a disco mood (rare, but happens occasionally)


Obviously, I must be mistaken on what constitutes a score and a soundtrack. Please, someone, clear this up for me!

 

[Jay_Leonard]

Good thing none of us feel passionately about Film music huh...

J

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Obviously, I must be mistaken on what constitutes a score and a soundtrack. Please, someone, clear this up for me!

I'll try .
Usually (and that's a *big* usually), when film music fans refer to a "score", they mean the music specifically written and recorded for a film, whether it's orchestral, electronic, or something else (Herrmann, Williams, Goldsmith, Vangelis, et al). "Soundtrack" used to refer to the album (record, CD, tape) released featuring the music score from the film (the original release of Star Wars, for example, says "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"). So, in the old days, "score" and "soundtrack" were sometimes used interchangeably.
However, in recent years, "soundtrack albums" started to mean a compilation of pop songs that were (sometimes) in a film; i.e. those "Music From and Inspired by..." albums or something like "Top Gun", which has one or two score cuts and a bunch of new and old pop tunes. Record labels then started to use the wording "Original Motion Picture Score" to distinguish the orchestral-type albums from the song compilations. The example you gave of "The Matrix" is a perfect illustration of the difference between the two types of albums; there is the "soundtrack" album that has the rock songs and the "score" album that features the original music of Don Davis.
But there are certain releases that are exceptions to my generalizations, so don't take this as the final word.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Thank you Peter!
Ok, based upon my understanding thus far, here is my theory of the evolution of the word "score"...
It sounds like all of them are technically soundtracks and the term "score" is used as a sub-category. Or is "score", akin to the term "vegan", which is an extreme form of vegetarian? Both words came about because the original, root word's meaning wasn't specific enough to describe a more narrowly focused category. So, back in the 1970's there may not have been a distinction between the types of soundtracks like those for Star Wars and Saturday Night Fever. Thus, they were both referred to as soundtracks. As our language has evolved, we had to extend "soundtrack" by adding "score". So now when we refer to a score, we know that it is (1) from a movie, (2) usually void of lyrics but may have vocals appearing as another instrument, and (3) that it will not feature any of the current or former top 10 pop-rock favorites.
Maybe I should find something better to do with my time.

 

[Patrick McCart]

As for the list itself, I agree it skews towards modern films a bit too much. One other classic score that I don't think has been mentioned would be Chaplin's music for City Lights (particularly as conducted by Carl Davis in the late '80s). Equal parts beauty and humor.

Amen!

His score for City Lights is fantastic...Carl Davis's re-recording makes it even better.