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I need some advice for a couple of Goldsmith scores

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Author	Topic: I need some advice for a couple of Goldsmith scores

Alwin Oscar® Winner	I really want to buy The Edge and Powder, but am hesistant to do so, simply because I don't want to buy a CD that is basically repeats itself over. Rudy is a prime example. A great score, but essentially 2 themes rehashed over and over again. It gets tiring and loses its lustre. So are the above 2 scores in question like that, or is there greater variety?
posted 09-11-2000 04:50 AM PT (US)

PeterK FishChip	Not much repetition in The Edge. I thought this score and album was one of the best of the year, especially liked Goldsmith's jazz treatment of the main theme on the last track. Excellent grizzly bear music as well. The forty-six minute running time is perfect. Powder. Hmmm. There's some beautiful music here, but if you have a problem with hearing beautiful music repeated, I would stay away from this. The thing is, I don't have a problem with multiple listenings of beautiful music, unless I was forced to hear the CD 100 times over in the same sitting.... Hope this helps! PeterK NP - "The Edge" by Goldsmith
posted 09-11-2000 07:59 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	The Edge is good, and not very repetitive. Although my album only has 38 minutes, MrK? I found it in a used bin and didn't regret getting it. BTW, are there some glitches in one of the final tracks, or is it just my used copy? As for Powder, the (beautiful) main theme pops up several times, but it also has several very dark tracks, although the appearences of the main theme are the album's highlights. If you don't have any part of that score in another version (e.g. the suite on Silva's Goldsmith compilation), NOT getting Powder is not an option! NP: The Edge, and then Powder
posted 09-11-2000 08:19 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	Oh, and I played Powder over and over for days after I got it, so it can't be that repetitive.
posted 09-11-2000 08:20 AM PT (US)

PeterK FishChip	You are right, 38 minute running time. Dunno what I was thinking (or what I looked at)! Perfect running time nonetheless, as far as listening experience. PeterK NP - "Don't Make Waves" by Vic Mizzy
posted 09-11-2000 08:33 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	It's one of the few CDs that even mention the running time on the back cover. NP: Still The Edge
posted 09-11-2000 08:34 AM PT (US)

Al Oscar® Winner	The Edge is a MUST. It's easily the best "lost in the wilds" score ever composed, I think. The main landscape theme does show up many times during the duration of the album, mostly in the grandiose sweeping romantic mode, but Goldsmith transforms it into other minor motifs so that it is not tiresome. Plus, with the primal action music, you'll be treated to trombones growling fiercely over some wild percussion. It's Goldsmith gone grizzly. If this sounds appealing, you SHOULD already have it!
posted 09-11-2000 09:07 AM PT (US)

Jeron Oscar® Winner	Come on, Alwin. You know we've had this discussion before... it's Goldsmith! What do you do? Ya buy it. Jeron
posted 09-11-2000 09:09 AM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Both good scores. I think I'd give the edge to THE EDGE. Also it's a much better movie, tautly written by David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori, with two of the better performances given by Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin in recent years. A gripping, underrated little gem. POWDER, the movie, is little more than a weird, self-indulgent, self-important hollow cousin to EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. Goldsmith scores POWDER with great romantic sympathy and restraint, and I was often reminded of his work on LEGEND. The final cue "Everywhere" is a knockout, worth having just for that one piece (and if the arrangement -- not the theme -- is naggingly similar to the end title of FOREVER YOUNG, then it remains that I prefer "Everywhere.") NP: Cheap Trick concert album
posted 09-11-2000 09:57 AM PT (US)

jonathan_little Oscar® Winner	Just FYI, my order for a copy of Powder has been "processing" now for 3 weeks at barnesandnoble.com. If I was you, I wouldn't buy Powder from them. NP: 13th Warrior
posted 09-11-2000 10:16 AM PT (US)

BMikeJ Oscar® Winner	<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=1 face=arial>quote:</font><HR size=1>Originally posted by Marian Schedenig: The Edge is good, and not very repetitive. Although my album only has 38 minutes, MrK? I found it in a used bin and didn't regret getting it. BTW, are there some glitches in one of the final tracks, or is it just my used copy? NP: The Edge, and then Powder <HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE> Marian, the second to the last track on The Edge has some type of digital problem going on. It's a kind of scraping sound in one of the channels. The strange thing about it is that it hasn't been corrected, which makes me think it's part of the album master. NP: Capricorn One [Message edited by BMikeJ on 09-11-2000]
posted 09-11-2000 10:32 AM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	Apparently the digital glitches WERE part of the album master. Figures. It's odd that the two scores you ask about are Powder and The Edge, as I've always thought that the theme from The Edge was the first few notes of the Powder theme (I say this any time I get a chance), followed by a rearrangement of the B-theme from First Knight. Does anybody else hear that? Anyway, Alwin, I think you have enough evidence that you should be buying The Edge right away. "Deadfall" is my favorite cue. Horribly mixed in the film (or should I say "drastically dialed down"?), I still think it's the best piece Goldsmith wrote in 1997. Shaun
posted 09-11-2000 11:33 AM PT (US)

Alwin Oscar® Winner	Thanks for the help. The Edge for sure, Powder I'll save for my "freebie".
posted 09-11-2000 11:46 AM PT (US)

Howard L Oscar® Winner	Attn: H Rocco Speaking of Forever Young, I do believe you were asking Jerry about "The Very Thought of You" up in Detroit before getting interrupted. Refresh me about that and also which other of his scored movies it was featured. BTW, when I think of Forever Young I keep hearing Mr. Barry's Peggy Sue waltz theme. Must be a back-in-time-film-association-in-my-mind thing.
posted 09-11-2000 02:10 PM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	Shaun, before I answered to this thread, I hadn't listened to The Edge since I got Powder, and I was really surprised, the first notes ARE identical. Didn't hear the First Knight theme, but maybe I only missed it. NP: The Hunt for Red October (Basil Poledouris) - "Nuclear Scam" has to be one of the best film score tracks out there
posted 09-11-2000 02:21 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	y'know, Howard, I wasn't exactly interrupted ... he heard the question clearly enough, I think he just wasn't interested in answering it. I had mentioned its use in the much older movie CABOBLANCO, a score he probably doesn't think about too much. That was the last day in Detroit and I think he just wanted to sign stuff and let it be over with. (I'm still embarrassed that in those last moments, I had a CD cover for L.A. CONFIDENTIAL that someone else had entrusted to me to be signed, and my gold pen died on me.) I distinctly hear "The Very Thought Of You" in the opening notes of his wonderful theme to CHINATOWN as well. Clearly "The Very Thought Of You" is a tune that means a great deal to him. Perhaps it recalls to him some old romance back in the olden days in his hometown of Los Angeles ... And I hadn't thought about it, but THE EDGE and POWDER DO have similar opening sallies ... but the same is true of many of his themes of the past several years (especially their shapes). Sometimes this is all to the good ... THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS, for example, is thematically and orchestrally quite similar to the previous CONGO, but definitely superior to CONGO (which I didn't hate, but God, the movie was so VERY bad that it took me a long time to warm up to what was good about the score ... still like that mammoth end title, with its lyrical additions by Lebo M.)
posted 09-11-2000 02:33 PM PT (US)

Howard L Oscar® Winner	Question: Was the song's insertion his idea or the writer's and/or director's? I thought it was only too convenient that the Jamie Lee Curtis character happened to have a Billie Holiday CD in the house; stretched the old suspension of belief a bit too far.
posted 09-11-2000 05:28 PM PT (US)

AaronR1074 Oscar® Winner	quote: Originally posted by jonathan_little: Just FYI, my order for a copy of Powder has been "processing" now for 3 weeks at barnesandnoble.com. If I was you, I wouldn't buy Powder from them. NP: 13th Warrior You do know that the actual Barnes & Noble stores can special order CD's from the music dept right? You might get better results that way. Although I'm not sure if they get `em all from the same warehouse.
posted 09-11-2000 06:31 PM PT (US)

JJH Oscar® Winner	about this technical glitch in The Edge: I never really hear it, and I fancy myself as one who has pretty good ears and decent enough speakers on my Aiwa. the glitch is not THAT big of a deal in determining whether to buy it or not. In fact, I never noticed it until someone pointed it out. I still ignore it. NP -- []bConcerto Antico for Guitar and Small Orchestra[/b], Richard Harvey; Mvt III, 'Cantilena' is just gorgeous
posted 09-11-2000 08:50 PM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	I recently got Powder from www.express.com , you might want to try getting it from them. [Message edited by Marian Schedenig on 09-12-2000]
posted 09-12-2000 09:05 AM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Howard: I think "The Very Thought Of You" must have been Goldsmith's idea, and since FOREVER YOUNG was his second picture (following WARLOCK) with director Steve Miner, Goldsmith would have had a good enough rapport with him to have suggested it in advance. Composers are usually brought in during preproduction -- not so much to write the music as to make sure they'll be available when the picture's done. (Hence all these announcements of composers that fall through because schedules change.) Goldsmith has actually said many times that he'd just as soon come in when the movie's already completed, and the hell with reading scripts, but that's not the way it's done for the most part. NP: CHINATOWN
posted 09-12-2000 10:48 AM PT (US)

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