February 2011 Round Up: Battle LA, The Eagle, Gnomeo & Juliet, The Mechanic

Battle: Los Angeles - Brian Tyler

Brian Tyler used to be really promising, but seems to have got stuck with a lot of fairly crappy movies (Alien V Predator: Requiem anyone?), or at least movies that don't require much in the way of subtlety or skill. Battlefield: Los Angeles continues the trend. Imagine Tron: Legacy with all the subtlety taken out, even less in the way of memorable melodic material and action music that's largely indistinguishable from his other scores or ones from Remote Control. Still, it's the kind of scoring that makes what used to pass for a muscular score - Goldsmith's Total Recall or Poledouris' Robocop or Starship Troopers - seem positively wimpish in comparison and appear like masterpieces of nuance.

The Eagle - Atli Orvarsson

Atli Orvarsson might still count as promising and, for some reason, composers from Nordic and Scandinavian countries are usually ace (albeit more in the classical realm, Sibelius, Nielsen and Tviett wrote some of the 20th century's finest works. Oh, and Sigur Ros). Having seemingly appeared from nowhere to score Stuart Little 3 (even Alan Silvestri has to say no eventually), he has a decent CV of TV and movie credits to his name. His latest, The Eagle, is about a lost Roman legion... hang on, wasn't that what The Last Legion was about? Despite actually being a Remote Control composer, Atli's score is reasonably restrained, albeit not hugely distinctive. Large doses of highland pipes and fiddles abound which at least provide some decent flavour; it's set in Scotland... hang on, isn't that where The Last Legion was set? Of course, there are a few decent action licks, in a stolid, marching about kind of way although Out Swords! (which sounds just a bit naughty to me) has some surprisingly quasi-atonal violin skittering over the top of otherwise rather plain brass and percussion. Touches like this push it above average, just.

Gnomeo & Juliet - James Newton Howard & Elton John

The 2011 Oscar for "Film that looks least promising from its poster, concept description and trailer" must surely go to Gnomeo & Juliet, from the producing hand of Elton John and husband, David Furnish. Romeo & Juliet with gnomes. But, of course. Just what we always wanted. However, reviews have been pretty favourable and I might just about persuade the boyfriend to see it. Maybe. Surprisingly, most of John's contributions are from his back catalogue rather than new songs, although an ill advised redo of Crocodile Rock with Nelly Furtado is, well, ill advised. James Newton Howard and, erm, accomplice(?) Chris Bacon contribute a few score tracks to the album. It's fairly typical Howard stuff, but not really a patch on his previous animated adventures, although the titular track is fairly engaging.

The Mechanic - Mark Isham

Mark Isham has started releasing scores on his own label, the imaginatively titled Mark Isham Music, starting off with The Mechanic which, I have to confess, is one of his "oh bloody hell, why can't he stick to jazz and not action films" scores. It even comes in three versions. One short, "album" version, a complete version and a special edition which comes with a hand engraved model of his toilet seat (possible lie). Frankly the full version is a bit long but the suite format of the "album" version is interesting enough action/suspense stuff. It does have the benefit of not sounding like Remote Control, which is a start, but it's quite stark and dense stuff so isn't quite enjoyable in any meaningful sense, but is expertly written for what it is, just something of a tough listen to want to put on too regularly.

Film Music Free Friday: I Wouldn't Have Scored it Like That...

A discussion on the FSM forum regarding the music of Star Trek (which, inevitably, descended into a Goldsmith versus Horner debate - for the record, I view the first two scores as equally superb, but totally different so barely comparable) and I made a confession. I would have scored the opening - or rather more precisely, the opening titles - to Star Trek: The Motion Picture differently. Rather than the vibrant version of the now classic theme, I'd have gone for mysterious and ominous, using hints of the V'Ger material. Keep Ilea's Theme as the overture (the last ever, as I'm sure every fan knows), but against the black screen and stark, white writing, rumblings from the blaster beam, low brass chords.

When I floated this idea on a message board (often a terrible mistake), the response was actually surprisingly moderate/positive. It's not that I think Goldsmith did anything wrong, I have no doubt that Paramount, Rodenberry and Robert Wise wanted a big, epic theme to start the film; remember, the original viewers had never heard the now classic theme and might well have expected Courage's original theme. Indeed, this was the only area of contention regarding my suggestion on the message board; fans seeing the film on the big screen for the first time in 1979 would be having enough trouble accepting vastly different music as it was, without the opening to the film with a non-heroic couple of minutes. Therefore Goldsmith did what was asked of him. However, it strikes me that it would be vastly more dramatically satisfying to set a menacing and mysterious tone from the outset and slowly reveal what the menace is. Then, by the time you actually get to Starfleet after the opening segments with the Klingons and on Vulcan, the arrival of the main theme starts to give that traditional, upbeat Trek reassurance that Kirk is on the case and things might turn out OK in the end.

I also rather like the idea of an opening that confounds expectations. If you're not going to use the original TV theme, then you might as well do something totally different. Goldsmith's theme is, of course, very different to Courage's, but it still springs from the same, radiant, positive, adventurous outlook. While I've no doubt a few Trekkies were disgruntled that Courage's theme wasn't pride of place (possibly, fortunately we're saved due to the non-existence of online message boarding in 1979) but if you're going to go different, go totally different. As an experiment, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to track in some of the V'Ger Fly Over or Cloud music (a couple of minutes would suffice) that could happily segue into the existing Klingon Battle (it is literally just the opening credits music I would change) and provide just a little more tension.

The way that Dennis McCarthy scored the opening to Star Trek: Generations is perhaps the best comparative in the Star Trek pantheon. I do remember being disappointed that Goldsmith wasn't signed on and it was perhaps surprising that they didn't stick with Goldsmith's theme for the first Next Generation movie, but McCarthy did his own thing and was often more successful than fans give him credit. However, his almost free form, impressionistic opening titles music, leading to a heroic version of the Courage fanfare is a masterful stroke. It doesn't play its hand too early, keeps the viewer guessing (especially with the shots of the bottle spinning through space which is a nicely surreal touch in an otherwise pretty unimaginative and crappy film). It also means that the reveal of McCarthy's main theme a bit later on is that bit more distinctive and dramatic; "this is the main theme, it's for the Next Generation crew... we're off on an adventure with them." Of course it never returned in later films, but that didn't matter at the time.

I was thinking that maybe there were a handful of films or bits of films I'd come up with to score differently, but realised there wasn't one I felt so strongly about as the opening to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The only other I had idle thoughts about was Williams' score to Saving Private Ryan. Yes, it's lovely music and the end credits hymn is terrific, but it's a film that probably needs almost no music. There isn't a huge amount by Williams/Spielberg standards (less than an hour), but it's just a little too warm and fuzzy, overselling the gooey feeling inside you're meant to have from time to time. Fine in something like E.T. which is meant to tug at the heart strings like a steam train, but for Saving Private Ryan, one can't help but feel we should react from the stark realities of the situation and characters, not be spoon fed emotionally by the music. Shorter cues, rather than elongated, pastoral scoring might also have been more appropriate, at least outside of the opening and closing scenes and end credits.

If you have any thoughts on the issues raised in this article, please don't hesitate to contact our action helpline. Or, e-mail me with your thoughts. I don't really want "I wish X had scored Y film instead of Z" (i.e. I wish John Williams had scored every film ever made) but rather certain parts of a film, or even the whole film, that somehow doesn't work for you plus any comparatives as to how you might have done it differently. If there's enough interesting ideas, I'll put them together in a future article.

Rango - Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer and John Powell seem to be battling it out as to who can score the most CGI animated movies, although the former invariably gets help and the better invariably gets the better movies. The trailer for Rango looks half amusing and stars the voice of Johnny Depp as a chameleon in Mexico something something something. Naturally the music sounds like Pirates of the Caribbean rendered by someone impersonating Ennio Morricone in about 1965. Not that that's a particularly terrible thing, although the delightful Rango Suite does sound a bit too much like Depp's Pirates theme gone Mexican. Oh, and there's a none too subtle quote of Bernstein's Magnificent Seven rhythm in We Ride, Really!

Of the longer tracks, Bats is the standout; starting off as the unpromising 984,325th spoof of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries gets, erm, ethnically cleansed with harmonica, banjos and such like. Mind you, the quote of Strauss's Blue Danube later in the track, in amongst some standard issue Zimmer action music is less inspired but the track has more variety in 4 minutes than the rest put together. Then again, the brief songs from Los Lobos and others are amusing and breakup the heaviness of some of Zimmer's underscore. Serious, Hans, you don't need to turn up the synth percussion track to 11 in every score you write.

Tracks are generally short and pithy, interspersed by short narration tracks. This counts as one of the five cardinal sins of film music albums (one day I might tell you the other four) but they are brief and humorous enough not to be too annoying. Still, sure someone will complain. It's all very jolly and enjoyable but doesn't exactly stick out. It's one of those scores that sounds exactly how you imagine (as per the above description). The main themes are pleasant enough but I can't see me humming them to the distraction of others.

Purchase this from Amazon.com with money.

Please Release Me (let me go) - Part 5

While browsing the net in unfocused fashion the other day, it occurred to me that there's one contemporary composer who has been pretty short changed when it comes to soundtrack releases. Quite a number have appeared as "official" promos - Galaxy Quest immediately springs to mind. I couldn't believe my luck when I was sent it to review (them were the days) and is probably the best Star Trek score the franchise never had. David Newman has always been the neglected Newman and that extends to CD releases; a lot of the time, he's reduced to a single cue on a song album and for whatever reason, the usual suspects (Varese being the prime candidate) haven't managed to get the rights to do a proper score release.

Thomas may not yet have an Oscar, the inevitability of him winning is cancelled out by the Oscar dramatic irony category by which at least half of each generation's finest composers will never get an Oscar despite being hugely talented, highly influential (American Beauty, in particular) and scoring otherwise Oscar winning films. Seriously, how did American Beauty not win? It's hugely popular and every other drama score since owes a debt. There's even a dance remix. If the endorsement of drugged out clubbers isn't one of the highest order, I don't know what is... Oh yes, Randy got his long overdue Oscar for one of his least memorable songs (especially frustrating given how good That'll Do from Babe 2 and When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2 were).


David seems to be the Jerry Goldsmith of the family, toiling away on often shoddy family films that are vastly beneath his talents. I'm almost shocked that he's not been tapped by Pixar. Even if the satisfaction of the entire raft of Newmans contributing weren't enough, any moron could tell that David would do some top notch work for them; surely the most consistently excellent studio going. In no way a dig at Pixar's choices, music for their films is always terrific, but Newman, D would join one of the most consistently excellent group of composers around. He did great work on the first Ice Age but got ditched for John Powell when it came to the sequels. Tough call though, Powell is marvellous.

So, instead of American Beauty or Toy Story on his CV, David has, erm, Galaxy Quest and Bill & Ted. In fairness, those are two of the better films he's scored. Serenity and the animated Anastasia also fine features and largely great scores, even if Serenity wasn't quite the unofficial sequel score to Galaxy Quest we all hoped for. Still, at least it got a soundtrack release. As Fox's answer to the Disney machine, Anastasia held its own next to Hercules (when they were still pretty much on game, 2D animation wise). Newman's scores perfectly compliments the songs of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens. It's a grand, epic affair, with all the memorable melodies and drama one could hope for when composing for such a story. The score doesn't fair too badly on disc, but there's over an hour of score in the film, all worth hearing. He even got a rare Oscar nod, but lost to Anne bloody Dudley for her unimpressive work on The Full Monty. Dudley has written some great scores - from the Fry and Laurie version of Jeeves and Wooster to American History X to Bright Young Things - but The Full Monty ain't one of them. Anastasia is leagues ahead. No wonder she looked a bit embarrassed.

Ice Age has a paltry 30 minutes, with much else to commend from the film (although I can imagine it might become a little bitty over an hour). Even the aforementioned Galaxy Quest never got an official album. The 50 minute promo is just right and should surely get wider, legitimate exposure. The film did OK and sci-fi scores invariably sell well. 102 Dalmatians and Matilda were both fine, live action family films and got delightful scores, neither released. Composer promos float about, but nothing official. We must, of course, mention those films which weren't quite so good, but scores such as The Flintstones, DuckTales, even Scooby Doo would be welcome. All are filled with Newman's hummable melodies, his great way with the orchestra and and general fine craftsmanship. It seems probable that some of these will see the light of day eventually as Newman is one of those film music fan's film music composers whom the fans adore, but nobody else knows much about. Perhaps some well deserved releases will change that.

Film Music Free Friday: The Confederacy of Online Music Store Dunces

I wrote this some time ago on Facebook to my loyal friends, but am sad to report that the situation is the same, TWO YEARS LATER. Ho hum.

I'd like to say this will be an hilarious Charlie Brooker-esque rant, but it won't be hilarious, but I've thinking, why is it that music downloading is so idiotically implemented? With the music industry banging on and on and ON about all the money it's apparently losing from illegal downloading, why do they insist on making legal downloading MORE difficult and arcane than buying CDs. I should add that the music industry's view that one illegal download = one lost sale is utter bullshit, but that's another matter.

Two fine examples. The iTunes store. As most people know, I'm happily suckered into Mac using and have an iPhone, play all my music through iTunes and generally bang on about Apple slightly too much (although less than I used to). Having said that, the iTunes store is ridiculous. In the grand tradition of letters to Points of View, why oh why are there countries? How come you can't buy ALL albums in ANY country? Surely the whole point of an online music store is that you can buy from wherever you happen to from the comfort of your own computer desk? What moron decided that I can't buy things that are only on the US store (or whatever)? How is this progress? Even more stupid is Amazon. I can buy any CD from the US Amazon store, yet I can't download from the US Amazon mp3 store? What kind of crazy dumb fuck thought that one up? This was double annoying as the album I wanted doesn't appear to have received a CD release so I just have to wait (or download it illegally) and find out whether they can be bothered to either put it on CD or add it to the Amazon UK store.

Varese Sarabande have released a number of their hard to find/out of print back catalogue items to the US iTunes store (the double disc release of Goldsmith's terrific Lionheart, for example). Fortunately, I have a friend with a US store account who bought it for me. You know, pay money for music. Imagine that?! Of course, if I didn't have such a friend, I'd not have been able so Varese would have lost out on a little cash which can go towards their superb release programme. I could gripe that Varese themselves could put the music on the UK store, but frankly it shouldn't be an issue. It should be "the music is on the iTunes store" and you buy it from wherever you live in your local currency and with local taxes applied. Yes, I agree they need to know where you live, but that should just be for tax reasons etc. Surely online music stores are a great way of making money from back catalogues, especially in obscure music genres such as film music where it could take a while for the label to make its money back, but make it easier for the few thousand hardcore fans to spend and surely they will.

Although a rather more parochial concern, technically you aren't allowed to use the iTunes store in Guernsey. Something to do with VAT (and Apple being lazy as hell, frankly) and they are slowly closing the workarounds. The best bet is now to use a UK friend's address, but presumably they'll work out how to stop that. OK, offshore jurisdictions don't constitute a huge slice of their market, but I'd wager that per person, the average Guernsey person would spend more than the average UK person simply because Guernsey is a generally wealthier place per person.

I was about to write an enthusiastic polemic to Spotify, which strikes me as the most likely way forward for music ownership - online subscription and you just choose what you want from a vast online library - but even that is country specific. Still, as a legal way to sample music, share it and so forth, it's a superb service. It's how I imagined listening to music would be in the "future", although they need to get it in lossless, with gapless playback and ensure albums don't "disappear" randomly. Bloody copyright laws and stupid record companies seem to ensure this happens from time to time when they don't want their product sullied by being on a free, but legal service... perhaps they want it all on wax cylinders where they can fiddle with their handlebar moustaches and doff their caps to one another while the peasants lap up this "hip hop" music.

So, I ask again (for no real reason), how can it be so easy to buy a CD from whatever country you want yet if you want to download or play it online, it's made so much harder? If they want to combat illegal downloading, surely they should make it as easy as possible and with as wide a selection as possible. Plus, it wouldn't go amiss for them not to screw over certain places by charging more in one country than another. I'm reliably informed that it's not Apple who impose the country specific format, although given their market share, they should be forcing the record companies into the 21st century and trying to enforce some sense onto them. They don't seem that desperate to do anything much to change things, but we can only hope. Like Obi Wan Kenobi.

Film Music Free Friday: Reboot the Music Part 1

With so many film franchises getting booted and rebooted, made and remade, the film music fan is invariably going to watch with interest who is going to take over the scoring reins. It can be difficult to separate sequels from reboots, but I'll be deliberately vague and arbitrarily decide what counts and what doesn't. That seems fair...

It was the discovery that Patrick Doyle is to score the upcoming reboot of the Planet of the Apes series that prompted this column. This is one series that began with a much loved and critically acclaimed score by Jerry Goldsmith. The sequels largely ditched what Goldsmith did with the original and went their own way, even when Goldsmith himself returned to the series for Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Wikipedia claims that the pending Rise of the Apes is a sequel to the original franchise, sidestepping the Tim Burton remake of 2001. For all that was wrong with the film, Danny Elfman did some fine work, with suitably elemental percussion and brass, even if it doesn't reach the iconoclastic status of Goldsmith's original. I can't even conceive a Doyle score for a Planet of the Apes film, even if the concept (apes on present day Earth) is rather different. Should be interesting.

Jerry Goldsmith's was once again followed when The Omen was remade in 2006 (and presumably with the intention to produce a new series, which never materialised), whereby Marco Beltrami supplied the music. Where Elfman did his own thing, so too did Beltrami but with considerably less success. Elfman's Apes score may be nothing like Goldsmith's, but it apes (haha) the spirit of the original and refashions it in his own distinctive musical voice. However, Beltrami does little of interest for the Omen remake. It's just standard 2000's horror scoring that doesn't even attempt to homage or somehow reference the original. Same goes for Angelo Badalamenti's score to the remake of The Wicker Man which is modern horror dross, instead of the imaginative use of pseudo folk employed by Paul Giovanni for the cult 70's original.

Comic book character franchises seem to be rebooted every few years these days. After one good to great original, the sequels tend to start cancelling themselves out, notably Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, at least after the first sequel. Third time is rarely a charm. Technically, Tim Burton's Batman was a reboot of the original TV series and spin off movie, although aside from the character names and situations, they might as well be a separate franchise. Having said that, Burton's film is as comic book as the original, but with an entirely different tone. Elfman's music is serious without taking things seriously and the main theme is still one of his most famous and memorable. When Joel Schumacher took over for the second sequel, Elliot Goldenthal took over scoring duties and upped the wackiness to dizzying new heights. Goldenthal has always struck me as a rather serious composer so it's almost a surprise to see him on a film like Batman Forever and the celluloid atrocity that was Batman & Robin.

Since everyone else realised that, while Batman Forever was passably fun, Batman & Robin was beyond redemption so it had to wait for Christopher Nolan's artful and deeply serious reboot. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard formed an unlikely collaboration to compose the score which is about as tune free as film music gets. The main theme is essentially two notes played with enough orchestra, synths and percussion that is required to make it seem meaningful. I won't quite say drivel. OK. I will. Drivel. I doubt the upcoming finale to the trilogy will change approach much. If that's the end of Nolan's contribution to the series, one wonders whether someone else will take over or Batman will hang up his cape for a few years. Then again, given the acclaim of Nolan's films (somewhat unwarranted from where I was sitting), any reboot is going to have to be pretty bloody amazing. Unless they get Joel Schumacher back.

Men, both Super and Spider are considered in Part 2.

Film Music Free Friday: Reissue Issues

One of the main reasons I abandoned soundtrack reviewing, was the sheer volume of average stuff I ended up wading through. It's fun to trash a terrible album (apologies to those long suffering composers) or try and promote a great one (I remember being thrilled to promote Jeff Beal's terrific score to Pollock, having received a review copy, an album which otherwise might have gone under the radar) but writing about average is just so buggeringly tedious. However, when so many scores are getting substantial releases, sorting the good from the average is increasingly difficult and the same is starting to apply to archive releases.

When they started out, our industrious and dedicated film music labels were unearthing classics from the vaults and putting them onto CD. These were scores that everyone wanted, but we're getting to the Jerry Goldsmith bottle cap collecting stage. Sometimes we forget just how many movies have been made in the history of cinema and not every note of every score needs a release. Sure, there are undiscovered classics, but plenty of dross or scores of limited appeal. It is, of course, great to see them recognised, but it does risk watering down the catalogue of "classic" scores of the past from being essential to a rather more difficult choice of which ones are actually worth picking up.

Another issue of late is the reissue issue. In the last 10/15 years, a number of genuinely classic scores have had multiple rereleases from boutique film music labels: Superman (plus a re-recording), Poltergeist, ET, Patton and the much desired Cherry 2000 (at one point deemed the rarest of the rare) to name but five, not to mention expanded editions of new scores not massively long after they were originally released: Lost in Space, Independence Day, Star Trek and so forth.

It's hard to judge the impact of these. Hopefully they are making some decent cash to prop up those releases that don't sell in such numbers or to allow for more lavish booklets elsewhere, but as fans of George Lucas know, it can get quite frustrating, not to mention expensive, to be asked to dip into the wallet every few years for an incrementally better version of the same thing. It's true that the new release of Poltergeist does indeed sound somewhat better than the Rhino release, although the improvements between the Rhino and FSM Superman are perhaps a bit more marginal. The ET releases open up a whole new kettle of worms since both are 90% (wild guess) the same, but for some reason, none of the producers put together a release that was entirely final, film versions with alternates at the end and so both are a mish mash of both. The difference between the takes are fairly minimal in most cases, but it's frustrating for the die hard Williams fan after an "ultimate" release of the score as heard in the film.

Those are isolated examples and I'm sure a bit of research and the cash strapped fan can make an informed choice as to whether the 43rd version of Stars Wars is an essential purchase and the improvements are material or incremental (if noticeable at all - the Sony releases of the original Special Edition soundtracks are meant to be a soupcon better... but only on high end equipment) and money better spent elsewhere. We should, I suppose, be grateful for living in an age of film music plenty but the cash strapped film music fan is now deluged with both new and old scores to buy. Guess that's why crappy review sites like this one are so important... There, I think I justified my own existence.

Tron: Legacy - Daft Punk

I don't know if it bugs other seasoned film music fans when some random band or artist writes a film score and their name is then splashed about all over the place as though this were the most novel thing since sliced bread machines were invented, but it does somewhat bug me. Then again, a lot of things bug me, but that's not important right now. Yes, a lot of these one off scores are actually pretty good and they are less likely to be lumped with temptrackitis, which is a terrible disease. After all, why get some famous band in to right the music if you're just going to make them copy John Debney?! It's not that film music is a genre lacking in diversity, despite what a lot of people seem to think, but it does seem rather disingenuous to the somewhat unappreciated pool of talent already making their way composing for cinema.

So to Tron: Legacy by the popular beat combo "Daft Punk." No, I've no idea who they are either, but I have to admit, it's really pretty good, albeit fractionally more derivative than I imagined. If you put Zimmer's Inception, some 80's Philip Glass and a bit of Vangelis into a blender, the music would spew out something akin to Tron: Legacy. Actually, the Vangelis aspect is more for one particular fifth based motif that appears throughout which reminds me of Chariots of Fire - particularly during the portentously named Overture. I know two notes make a fifth isn't a lot to go on (especially given the number of Williams themes that start as such), but it somehow seems strongly evokes Vangelis' hugely famous Oscar winner.

The Glass allusions are largely from the repeating figures that occur throughout, dimly recalling the Qatsi trilogy, but more synthetic and with less variation, while Zimmer's low, farting, bass notes from Inception make numerous appearances. I realise I'm probably not given Daft Punk enough credit for proffering their own sound, but the comparisons are more for those unfamiliar with their work than anything. While very synth dominated, there is plenty of orchestra in there, from the chasing strings to brazen brass chords, bolstered by synths (although not with that horrible fake sound that Zimmer uses).

It's a score that I find hard to describe as particularly great in pure musical terms, but the sort of album that draws you back. It has atmosphere in abundance, albeit in a futuristic, techno kinda way; listening to it while travelling on the Tube or around a big city and the whole place somehow takes on some kind of epic, dystopian feel. Any score that can take you to another place like that has got to be worth a listen. I love the old masters of film music as much as anyone, but sometimes a left field musical voice is just what a film needs. Easily recommendable.

Acquire with money, bribes, gold or pieces of expensive cheese from Amazon.com.

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