Message Boards can be scary places. I'm a rather infrequent poster and even less frequent reader. When film music fan friends say "did you read about such and such on the FSM/Filmtracks/Other board?" I'll invariably say "what now?" Just for shits and giggles I had a look through the FSM message boards. Wow, I didn't realise that Varese's uber boxed set of Spartacus got shat on from such a great height. It never occurred to me that it was overtly pricey; it is, after all, an extremely well produced set. I bought it without hesitation. Maybe I'm just lucky in that I can afford such spontaneous luxuries. That would certainly explain the 3,924 hand made, fine china plates with paintings of kittens and puppies that I have surrounding me at Chez Tom.*
To my shame I've only actually listened to the stereo presentation of Spartacus. Being a child of the late 20th century, mono is hard work and takes me out of the experience of the music itself. I'll get round to it one day, I promise. However, I can only see myself listening to the 61,257 versions of the love theme once (I can't even remember how it goes - that is rubbish of me - maybe after that disc I will), same goes for the bonus tracks. Indeed, same goes for most bonus tracks, although at least most such albums get the bonus tracks at the end of the disc.
Since reading the various threads regarding this amusing fracas, I have started looking through the FSM board more regularly, although it can be annoying trying to find the intelligent comments in amongst the brief "yeah, I agree" type responses and the occasional nutter writing all manner of impressively ill informed reckoning. Quite how it gets to this type of conversation on a film music form, but the FSM board has "reliably" informed me that global warming is a myth and physical media will be around forever.
Anyone who thinks CDs and DVDs will be around forever is living on another planet. Or at least ought to be. I always imagined in the future it'd be like Star Trek where the crew of the Enterprise/Voyager/DS9 can access any recording from the ship's computer. Of course, in reality, it'll be more like a better version of Spotify where you access whatever you like via the interweb. Sure, there are quality issues at the moment, but streaming lossless encoded music is doable right now. Indeed, streaming lossless 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 surround sound with a recording of a dying giraffe on top is possible now, but sadly the download stores do still insist on lossy formats. Morons.
I think I'll continue to read the message boards, although working out the interesting/intelligent posters is the first route to message board happiness. Even on topics on which you have no interest, the informed forum poster can proffer something new, but some dickhead ranting about why every Hans Zimmer score should be released with every note of music he (and his minions) wrote on a 32 disc boxed set made of pure antimatter won't enlighten you, even if you are Hans' Number One Fan. On the note, I'm going to start threads listing every single bit of Prokofiev in James Horner's oeuvre and 435 reasons why Tyler Bates is the new John Williams.**
*Possible lie
**I'm not really, I don't have the time. Does anyone?
1 comment:
I envy that you missed all this folderol when it happened. (You did, right? Or did I misread?) Did you get a sense how long it went on by reviewing it in a rush? Seems like there were only a handful of people who had such SERIOUS MORAL AND SPIRITUAL objections to the Spartabox, but they did make some noise, didn't they?
The dude that gave me the biggest laugh was the one who (weeks before he could possibly have received the set, if he had ordered it at all) broke down all the items included based on the value HE would place on them and concluded that the only fair price Varese could possibly charge for the Spartabox was $20. I had no idea that's how the world worked. Awesome!!!
Don't completely write off the love theme variations yet - I've enjoyed those a LOT more than I expected. The tango version is a trip!
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