The point is that why on earth can't the producers of the soundtrack albums make their albums in the narrative order of the movie ? BTTF PART III is a very "good" example of simply horrifying sequencing, placing the dramatic rejection of Doc (by Clara) BEFORE their kiss under the starlit sky, and - as I already mentioned - the finale track gets somewhat buried amidst all the crazy sequencing in the middle of the program...

The same goes with the promo release of the original BTTF score, where some of the tracks are placed in an obnoxious order.

...And another thing is the misguiding track titles - Heavens, why can't the composers/producers name the tracks in such a way that they would actually represent the movie's narrative ?

Simply said, movie music albums need to be MOVIE MUSIC ALBUMS where one can swiftly find the favorite moments in the movie's score.

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Originally posted by Ken S:
The point is that why on earth can't the producers of the soundtrack albums make their albums in the narrative order of the movie?

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Simply enough - because sometimes it doesn't lend itself to being a good listening experience.

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...And another thing is the misguiding track titles - Heavens, why can't the composers/producers name the tracks in such a way that they would actually represent the movie's narrative?

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Well, that really depends on what the composer/producers are going for. See Don Davis's tracks for BOUND for an example. I'm sure that album would drive you crazy!

Now I'll tell you what I don't like. I don't like when a soundtrack is put together with 30-40 tracks of really short cues. For example....Children of Dune and Moby Dick. That is not my idea of a great listening experience, each track is so short, it doesn't delevope into anything and sounds like short little soundclips of a larger work. These types of soundtracks are the ones that need the "Album" format releases, like The Dark Crystal, and The Fury.

And maybe this explains the producer's dilemma... they know we will probably buy anything, so maybe anything will do.

Just a thought.

NP High Road to China (Barry)

I will go back to my Face/Off example, how can a composer/producer tell you what order the tracks are in when they're mixed together? Would they be like "from 3:04 to 3:45, that should be track 29" or something like that?

That said, I think there are, indeed, many albums that successfully rethink the music. Trevor Jones' The Dark Crystal and Thomas Newman's The Player are perfect examples of albums that work better than the complete scores (although I like having both available in the case of the former).

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Originally posted by Swashbuckler:
There are certain album producers who restructure their scores for their albums in a way I hate. The most prominent example of this is John Williams. While I like his re-recordings, when he releases an original soundtrack recording and shuffles the cues around and remixes them for his albums, he often removes the overall structure from the music. I have [b]never heard a restructured John Williams score that didn't sound better chronologically presented.[/B]

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Not even The Phantom Menace? Disc Two of the Ultimate Edition which slavishly followed film order was an horrendous listening experience. I'm not saying there wasn't good music there (in fact one of my favorite motifs from the film, Qui-Gon Jin's, only appears on that disc), but the chronological presentation does the music no favours, particularly during the Battle of Naboo, which raised the bar on tracked film scores. (After the Battle of Geonosis in Attack of the Clones, one could, a la Joel Silver, say there no longer was a bar.)

TPM and AOTC would also be effective rebuttals against an earlier poster who suggested films be re-edited to make a better visual experience. It sounds like a pretty dubious idea in the first place, but George Lucas has already demonstrated that not only does it fail to lift the film, it often takes a fine score down with it, when the original score is tracked over the new action.

NP Glassworks (Glass)

However, stories written for the cinema today can be somewhat radical in their structure, which the scores must adapt to, and if they do so successfully, then perhaps it is the listener who should adapt as well?