So I got home and put the CD in... and immediately noticed that, like A.I.'s album, has been sequenced for music's sake, not for recreating the experience of the film. Ugh... so damn annoying. The least composers could do is put something in the liner notes about which order the pieces go in with the film.

But here I am again, beseeching my fellow score buffs for someone crazy or resourceful enough to post the correct sequencing.

And after the week I just had, I think I deserve to take it a little easy.

Of course, I could be wrong - it's been 2.5 weeks since I've seen the film, and my memory is a little hazy.....

Thank you James Horner!

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Originally posted by Big Bear:
Last try here... does anyone care to try and decipher the track listing of the FF CD?

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Umm... Ignore the track titles - listen to the MUSIC. I saw the film again on Monday, and could swear it was pretty much in film order.

And even if it weren't, does it make THAT much of a difference?

dave

NP - Silence of the Lambs

quote:

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:
Umm... Ignore the track titles - listen to the MUSIC. I saw the film again on Monday, and could swear it was pretty much in film order.

And even if it weren't, does it make THAT much of a difference?

Dan

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Well... yes it does make a difference.
And the album is "pretty much in film order" but with many of Goldenthal's cue titles, you can't figure out which is where.

Here's the order:

1, 3, 7 (You hear this one all throughout the movie, so it's split into tiny pieces), 4, 12, 11, 8, 6, 9, 14, 5, 15, 10, 16, 17, 18.

Track 2 isn't in the movie (although you can hear motifs from it in other places of the score) and I don't remember hearing Track 13, although it could be in there somewhere.

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Originally posted by wistiti:
Well... yes it does make a difference.

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Of course - but not for the better.

Goldenthal sequenced the CD in that particular order to make it a more enjoyable listening experience. To present the tracks in film order might not be as enjoyable to listen to.....

quote:

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:
Goldenthal sequenced the CD in that particular order to make it a more enjoyable listening experience. To present the tracks in film order might not be as enjoyable to listen to.....

Dan

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quote:

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Originally posted by wistiti:
whenever the composer screws around and messes up the sequence

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What?!

You're kidding, right?

Composers might "mix up" the order of the tracks to make the album more listenable. It's that simple. MANY film scores don't play very well in the film order.

And ya know, they'll title the tracks any way they please.

Why don't you just consider these scores a "challenge"! Remove the track names (so you're left with numbers) and rent the movie and figure out the sequence. You'll feel like you accomplished something!

In this sense, it really ticks me off when composers rearrange the music from a film on the soundtrack. I would be fine with it, in this day and age, as long as somewhere in the liner notes they saw fit to print the correct sequencing.

Now if a composer's score got jerked around in the editing, well... that's another story. In that case, I say let the composer present the music as it was intended to go in the picture.

quote:

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:
What?!

You're kidding, right?

Composers might "mix up" the order of the tracks to make the album more listenable. It's that simple. MANY film scores don't play very well in the film order.

And ya know, they'll title the tracks any way they please.

Why don't you just consider these scores a "challenge"! Remove the track names (so you're left with numbers) and rent the movie and figure out the sequence. You'll feel like you accomplished something!

Dan

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It's much easier to program a CD player to play the tracks I like in the way I like them and in the way it gives a more enjoyable listen, than to figure out the exact film order of an album and program the player to play accordingly. Especially when the track is titled "Adagio e trasformazione - Meastoso pero con fuoco" which is totally meaningless.

Also to be considered is that many movie scores develop themselves and evolve as the movie progresses. And their true depth cannot be felt on CD if everything is a mess.
Take the Phantom Menace. The first album was total junk. And it bored me to sleep, more than anything else. The second album has its flaws, but it reminds me scenes from the movie, and by listening to the music progress in the film order, I can reconstruct the movie in my mind. The only thing that I could reconstruct with the first album, is that very strong attraction to the Skip Disc button.

If film composers want to mess around with their music, and arrange it any way they want, then maybe they should not put out Original Motion Picture Soundtrack albums, but rather "Composer's Cut Concert Suite Based on Material from the Movie Album". Then I could understand if the music does not follow the film's order.

PS: I have more important challenges to handle than to figure out what the composer was smoking when he/she titled the tracks and mixed up the film order.

quote:

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Originally posted by wistiti:
It's much easier to program a CD player to play the tracks I like in the way I like them and in the way it gives a more enjoyable listen, than to figure out the exact film order of an album and program the player to play accordingly.

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Then do that! That's a very viable solution.

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If film composers want to mess around with their music, and arrange it any way they want, then maybe they should not put out Original Motion Picture Soundtrack albums, but rather "Composer's Cut Concert Suite Based on Material from the Movie Album".[quote]

Ah - you mean like most Williams albums since the 1970s?

[quote]Then I could understand if the music does not follow the film's order.

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You know, I just got the new Exornation cd, and damn it - it didn't follow the same order that they played in their concert!!

This is silly. Composers re-arrange (or even merge!) cues to make it more listenable on a CD. If they didn't, it would probably be BORING. I wonder how many CDs you have that would bore you if they were in film-order. Chances are, quite a few.

I still maintain that 99.99% of all scores are best heard in their original film sequence. True, there may be little bits and bridges and things that are best left out of an album (not that I mind them), but which scores actually play better in a rearranged form?

The only real 'rearrangement' I can stand is the sort of thing Mr. Williams sometimes does, and that is to put an overture of-sorts at the head of an album where none appeared in the film. (E.g. Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot... hell, that first Patriot track is usually as far as I can get into that CD).

But enough of your empty talk, Dan! I want some names of scores!

How gorgeous is this score? It makes me imagine such a better movie.

I find Williams' recent track orders more than just annoying. Sure, put the end credits music twice on the disc, at the end and at the beginning. That way, we don't have to wait for musical development, we can hear it all right away.

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Originally posted by Big Bear:
But enough of your empty talk, Dan! I want some names of scores!

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Here are some off the top of my head, that I think work GREAT on the album - which is out of film sequence:

- Final Fantasy (obviously)
- Mulan
- Willow
- The Hunt for Red October
- Jurassic Park
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- Jurassic Park III
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- The Living Daylights (and other Bond scores)
- Austin Powers: Scores, Baby!

I'll try to come up with more later on - but I'm not going to make it a priority. See ya tonight!

Dan

Which one? The official?

- The Hunt for Red October

I don't know the film order. I find that the droning synth/percussion stuff at the end gets a bit annoying, but that would probably the same in the film order.

- Jurassic Park

Works very well, though I wonder why "Welcome to Jurassic Park" is in fact the end title music? I was never too happy with the "Raptors" cue so early on the CD, and I think the second half of "Incident at Isla Nublar" (sp?) might work better where it belongs - when Dr. Sattler finds the cars and wonders where the Grant and the others went. Also, I still miss the T-Rex Car Chase cue very much.

But it works much better than many more recent Williams albums.

- The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Agreed.

- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Works very well, but there's a lot of important music missing. As a full score, it might work better in film order or re-sequenced, we'll have to wait until they finally release the whole thing.

Most of the time though, I believe that there's musical development in a good film score: Themes are introduced, developed etc. I had long discussions about this with Thor at the FSM board. Basically, moving around parts of a film score seems to me to be similar to moving around the parts of the movement of a symphony. It can work at times ("classical" composers often changed the sequence of their works when they found their original ideas didn't work as well), but I don't think major changes work, like Williams putting the fully-developed versions of his themes right at the beginning. Read Rosenman's liner notes for the Intrada LOTR release, where he has more or less the same point (though the original release of that score was exceptionally mis-ordered ).

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Originally posted by Marian Schedenig:
Which one? The official?

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Yes, the official one. For the purposes of this discussion, I will not address bootlegs and "expanded" bootleg scores... which leads me to say that regarding Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, yes, a lot of music is missing - but for the legitimate release, it works better in the order it's in - and not in film order.

Dan

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:
Yes, the official one. For the purposes of this discussion, I will not address bootlegs and "expanded" bootleg scores...

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Sure, but doesn't the official Mulan have just a few score tracks (w/ the suite track)? You can't do much film order/custom order arranging there, I think.

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Originally posted by Marian Schedenig:
Sure, but doesn't the official Mulan have just a few score tracks (w/ the suite track)? You can't do much film order/custom order arranging there, I think.

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Well, you CAN... but it doesn't work that well - hence my statement. If we're going to be nitpicky about what CDs can or can't qualify for "re-ordering", then this whole argument is moot.

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I have the theory that the more music there is in a score (and on the album), the better the film order works in comparison to custom re-ordering. Particularly if it's based on leitmotifs.

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Possibly - but I suggest to you that AUSTIN POWERS (for example), a great THEMATIC score, is rathe unlistenable in film order (now I AM referring to the bootleg of the complete score) for the VERY REASON that it's so thematic that we hear the SAME THEMES over and over again - it's not very listenable.

But what Clinton did by reordering the tracks, merging them, and making them into mini-suites, it's MUCH more palattable.

quote:

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:
Well, you CAN... but it doesn't work that well - hence my statement. If we're going to be nitpicky about what CDs can or can't qualify for "re-ordering", then this whole argument is moot.

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A valid point.

quote:

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Possibly - but I suggest to you that AUSTIN POWERS (for example), a great THEMATIC score, is rathe unlistenable in film order (now I AM referring to the bootleg of the complete score) for the VERY REASON that it's so thematic that we hear the SAME THEMES over and over again - it's not very listenable.

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I don't have the CD yet, and I've seen the films only once, but from what I remember, the score is mainly based on the one main theme. My comment above referred to leitmotif scores, i.e. scores using many themes. If a theme in a leitmotif score pops up frequently during a particular portion of the score (like the force theme in the middle of the first Star Wars SE CD), I believe this is as it should be on CD. For scores that are primarily based on one single theme, this point does not apply.

Another example is The Omen, basically using two main themes, I think. The CD alternates between "evil" tracks (with the first theme) and "relaxing" tracks (with the second theme). I have the full score in film order, and didn't notice that it plays much better. The same "alternating tracks" approach was used for Jaws 2, and while I never tried to play that score in film order, it works very well the way it is.

I suppose it is all a matter of taste, as every 'rearranged' score you mentioned irritates the sh*t out of me on CD. I mean, I listen to them... but I get annoyed with them for being out of sequence.

Especially stuff like Last Crusade... when I sit down to listen to that music, I want to relive the adventure of the film. Doing that requires hearing the music in the order it was meant to be.

I still can't always tell what end is up on the original Phantom Menace disc.

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Originally posted by Big Bear:
Mr. Williams has the nasty tendency of cutting tracks together that are out of sequence, though.

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True - he does "massage" his recordings to make them...*gulp*.... "more listenable".

Dan

quote:

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:

Here are some off the top of my head, that I think work GREAT on the album - which is out of film sequence:

- Final Fantasy (obviously)
- Mulan
- Willow
- The Hunt for Red October
- Jurassic Park
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- Jurassic Park III
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- The Living Daylights (and other Bond scores)
- Austin Powers: Scores, Baby!

I'll try to come up with more later on - but I'm not going to make it a priority. See ya tonight!

Dan

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Don't forget Graeme Revell's Red planet! A prime example of a composer screwing around with the music. Though, in this case, for the better!

I also disagree that the Mulan album benefits from its track arrangement. To me, the underscore from the Burned Village sequence, great as it may be, is a pretty lousy way to end the presentation of Goldsmith's score. I think the Overture would have been a better way to round out the Goldsmith portion of the CD.