Yours truly has just made a very nice Shore compilation CDR for the novices out there (primarily hornerfan -- hehe, he's an ass, too).
I didn't include everything I wanted, but that's okay. this is a nice sampling.
and I have a lifetime to gather what else I need.

free for the taking, if you dare (or until I run out of CDRs).

19 tracks, each from a different score.
78 minutes. Plain Jane packaging -- what else you expect for free?

notice: "suites" are typically just two cues edited together. so, not really suites in the traditional sense.

1. Big suite 6:41
2. The Truth About Cats and Dogs 2:02
3. Before and After, end credits 4:20
4. The Cell, suite 5:00
5. Cop Land, "All Dressed Up in Blue" 4:20
6. Crash, title theme 3:36
7. Dead Ringers suite 4:57
8. Ed Wood, "Elysium" 2:16
9. eXistenZ, "eXistenZ by Antenna" 3:07
10. The Fly, main title 1:54
11. The Game suite 4:56
12. Looking for Richard 4:09
13. M Butterfly, title theme 2:02
14. Naked Lunch suite 4:34
15. Nobody's Fool, "Fool's Triple" 1:08
16. Se7en suite 7:35
17. Silence of the Lambs, Finale 4:53
18. Videodrome, "Long Live the New Flesh" 3:26
19. The Yards, suite* 7:29

Total Time: 78:39

*contains excerpt from "Saturn" by Gustav Holst

this compilation gives you an overall feel for Shore: jazzy, dissonant, epic, electronic, pastoral, cute, emotional, disturbed, moody.

there you have it. lemme know.

It's a very tough call to make on Seven. It's a very creepy crawly, utterly dark and claustrophobic score, with almost no way out. It's not real "tuneful" either.

my best advice is to rent the film first and see.

I've been unexposed to Howard Shore for the most part...only exception being his really great score for The Cell...yes I am rather quite wet behind the ears

You would probably have to go back to Spartacus, Ben Hur and Cleopatra to find the old epic score.

"Saturn" is apparently used in a couple of dream sequences in the film, rather than original music. Which is fine; just license the real thing rather than have Shore copy it.

The piece is conducted by Shore himself, in a rather nice reading if I do say so myself.
The Yards is a fine score if you ask me.

anyway, if you want a copy, just send an email with the word "Shore" in subject line, so I can keep them grouped together.

For me, the last truly great, epic, sweeping score was as recent as John Barry's Dances With Wolves in 1990. It really captured the vast grandeur of the American west, with nice use of characters' themes.

You may be interested to know that Howard Shore performed the score to 'Crash' live, here in my home city, Melbourne.

It was part of the annual Cinesonic conference which focuses on sound and score within film. http://media-arts.rmit.edu.au/Phil_Brophy/CNSNC98/Cinesonic.html

If I had known about it at the time, I would have attended...especially considering its only a mile from where I live.

Even so, I was quite unfamiliar with Shore at that point and even know am awaiting for my first score to arrive (Seven). Athough, I did listen to 'Silence of the Lambs' some weeks ago.

Regards & regrets,
Rochelle

either that or Naked Lunch, I forget.

I'd be interested in that compilation, JJ, except that I have so much to listen to at the moment, I couldn't fit it in (and I have a few other trades to do, too, which I already promised some people weeks ago).