Tune in to a new edition of On the Score at Film Music Radio (www.filmmusicradio.com) for an in-depth and ultra-rare interview with composer James Horner. In this extensive, on-demand show, Horner gives a candid and completely frank interview about his career, scoring "All the Kings Men" and the controversial music decisions of "Troy" and "The New World." It's an interview that you'll only find at Film Music Radio, the show and station that listens to the words and music of today's top composers.

I saw an interview with James Horner on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on Sept 5. Guess what it was about? It's funny to hear/read Jorner interviews. Make 10s and 10s of millions of dollars and you pretty much can make up and live in any world you want. Can you believe he had never heard of "Katie Couric" when he was first approached to write music for the new CBS Evening News?

Which is more interesting? Yared had a big flair for the dramatic at the time, with his personal messages appearing online and elsewhere. Total exposure from him, very interesting to read.

Being the "replacement," it seems to me Horner wouldn't ever talk about it with more enthusiasm than any other score assignment, especially after what Yared expressed. And there must be some kind of industry respect when talking about the misfortune of your peers... but then again.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Horner. And what makes this interview fascinating for me (and I suspect other Horner lovers and haters) is the in-depth description he goes into the decision to replace the score on TROY, and virtually dump it for NEW WORLD. It's the kind of all-out honesty that you rarely hear from any composer put into these kind of all-too frequent situations. Practially no "outside" publication like the Journal cares about this kind of stuff.

For some of us, maybe just me, my speakers are hooked up to a AV component system that I use to listen to music... and the component system has yet to be hooked up to the computer. So I can't listen to the stream right now. Maybe it's something about poorly encoded files that sound unbearable on a big audio system!

1) Make more money than anyone else on the subject

2) Your work never gets rejected. Never ever ever never!

Peter: Horner's music to Streets Of Fire was rejected.

Of course he was rejected on Streets of Fire. My comments should be an obvious silly thing. He was rejected on The New World, which is what I thought we were talking about. I'll spell it out then....

Someone who has made as much money as Horner (like any celebrity known the world over by name) can make up his own reality (I think I said this already somewhere above). My suggestions about who can be Mr. Arbiter are just as ridiculous as Horner saying Malick and Yared don't know what "real film music" is.

I bet you'd get into a fight with Horner over some of the stuff you listen to that isn't by Horner, because (by Horner logic), he's the only one who knows what "real film music" is all about.

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Originally posted by Dinko:
Uhm... how exactly do you play that show?
WMP, RealPlayer, iTunes, Yahoo! Music Engine and SonicStage are completely clueless as to the *.pls file.
Googling gives me a bunch of noise with little content.

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Hopefully this will help:

If you are having problems listening to Film Music Radio on-demand shows, it
is probably because of one or both of the following reasons:

1. You are behind a corporate firewall that is not allowing streamed music files through. If you suspect this may be the situation, you should check with your computer network administrator or firewall/router manufacturer to
determine if streaming music is blocked for your network.

2. Your MP3 player does not know how to handle MP3 Playlist (.pls) files. You can test this by clicking on the following link for test purposes:
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/lnk/va91web25039/OTS130-James_Horner-128.
mp3/play

(if your email splits this link you may need to rejoin it)

If you can hear this link, then you should check your MP3 player's settings to make sure it can properly work with .pls (MP3 Playlist) files.

Best,

DS

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Originally posted by PeterK:
LOL. I like a lot of Horner scores, but his personality is really way off in so many ways. But like I said, he can be and it won't matter. It's just funny.

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HAHA! Thanks for clearing the air. I know what you mean about his personality: he sounded somewhat insane in his interview with Jeff Bond at FSM recently, and I find Horner's voice disturbing: is he a boy, or is he a man?

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Originally posted by On the Score:
Hopefully this will help:

2. Your MP3 player does not know how to handle MP3 Playlist (.pls) files. You can test this by clicking on the following link for test purposes:

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Originally posted by On the Score:
[B]

Tune in to a new edition of On the Score at Film Music Radio (www.filmmusicradio.com) for an in-depth and ultra-rare interview with composer James Horner. In this extensive, on-demand show, Horner gives a candid and completely frank interview about his career, scoring "All the Kings Men" and the controversial music decisions of "Troy" and "The New World."

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This will be very interesting indeed.

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Originally posted by sean:
is he a boy, or is he a man?

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But of course, he is Manboy!

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Originally posted by PeterK:

Someone who has made as much money as Horner (like any celebrity known the world over by name) can make up his own reality (I think I said this already somewhere above).

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I'm sorry Peter,but i really can't agree with you here,i mean do you really believe that James Horner name is known all over the world??? Sure is known by film score buffs,and a few others but hardly,a name you would recognise instantly.Speaking only of film composers,i bet the name of John Williams is 2 or 3 times over more recognised than James Horner.

And he seems to have a very rigid work style and a rigid attitude towards how to go about things which is why he didn't seem to get along with Malick. I thought Malick's New World was a beautiful film and I had no problems understanding the love story. He seems to think that viewers need things spelled for them like small children do. The comment where he compares the love story in NW to the one in Titanic was absurd! And about Malick's editing style! Does every director have to work the same way? The score he created for the film was nice but it sounded a lot like Braveheart. For all his whining about Malick's way of doing things he could have used this as a lesson in creativity and innovation. No, instead he copies a previous work. I'll bet Howard Shore or Phillip Glass could have worked with Malick.

His disdain for the Wagner piece used in the NW really grates. I think it works very well for the film and is part of what made it a little bit unique. Malick could have simply rejected his entire score right out of hand like Peterson did to Yared. I'm no Wagner fan but his trashing the piece was irritating. He had no problem trashing the Yared score and justifying in his own mind why he thought ti was so bad but he can't seem to accept that another director could reject PARTS of his?

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Originally posted by workaluk:
I'm sorry Peter,but i really can't agree with you here,i mean do you really believe that James Horner name is known all over the world???

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You can argue John Williams is more well known, that's OK. I wasn't suggesting Horner is the most known film composer, but he is well known outside of film score fandom.

11,000,000 Titanic CDs were sold in the USA, which leaves 14,000,000 million copies sold outside the USA. More than the 3,000 score fans out there know his name!

On the flipside, I can safely say there are still places in the world where John Williams' name is not recognizable. But this is not the point. We're talking about Western pop culture. If you consume pop culture served by or in the West, James Horner's name should ring bells. Ok, yaaaaaa, the bells really sound familiar, like something copied, but they are bells nonetheless.

As for all the controversy of his statements about Yared's Troy score,i must say i agree,it does sound like a Golden Age score,and as i can understand that for some this is a wonderful thing,for me (and for the test audiences or so it seems) it doesn't say much,simply because i really don't like the type of "sound" of Golden Age scores,most of them anyway...

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Originally posted by PeterK:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=1 face=arial>quote:</font><HR size=1>Originally posted by workaluk:
[b]I'm sorry Peter,but i really can't agree with you here,i mean do you really believe that James Horner name is known all over the world???<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can argue John Williams is more well known, that's OK. I wasn't suggesting Horner is the most known film composer, but he is well known outside of film score fandom.

11,000,000 Titanic CDs were sold in the USA, which leaves 14,000,000 million copies sold outside the USA. More than the 3,000 score fans out there know his name!

On the flipside, I can safely say there are still places in the world where John Williams' name is not recognizable. But this is not the point. We're talking about Western pop culture. If you consume pop culture served by or in the West, James Horner's name should ring bells. Ok, yaaaaaa, the bells really sound familiar, like something copied, but they are bells nonetheless.

[/B]

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I don't think that Titanic OST,serves as evidence for how well James Horner is known,i think we can safely say that apart from film scores fans,most of the others that have the OST,still think that the music it's from Celine Dion!!! (and believe me,i know a few).

Ok i know that James Horner name must be recognise by many people,but that was not the original point,you said that and i quote "Someone who has made as much money as Horner (like any celebrity known the world over by name)",in which you imply that money=being well knowned world over,but in film composers i don't think that it's the case,James Horner it's the exception that confirms the rule,his made much money simply because of the Titanic phenomenon.

Ok see what you made me do,i'm portuguese man,i'm not suppose to express my opinions in english,and now you got me all confused

Nuno Cunha

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Originally posted by PeterK:

But of course, he is Manboy!

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How utterly REFRESHING to hear someone speak their mind like this. Horner is almost in Elfman league here, which is great. Too bad he's too "shy" to speak out more often.

Now, I NEVER got the impression that Horner was being arrogant or condescending in any way. In fact, he starts off early by down-playing his own talent, saying that he was hired more because of his RELIABILITY in the early days. This happens several times in the interview. Seems pretty humble to me.

As far as his TROY and NEW WORLD comments are concerned, I didn't get the impression that he was being arrogant here either. The only thing that can be levelled against him is an unfamiliarity with non-mainstream narrative modes (which is hardly surprising, seeing as he's worked in Hollywood all his life), so he wasn't able to have an "open" mind in regard to Yared's non-traditional music or Malick's non-traditional sense of cinema. It's a bit surprising, though, for someone with as high an education as himself. Oh well....

As far as the interview is concerned, I wish we could have had more "aesthetic" comments from Horner (on how he scored certain scenes etc.) than just raving on about business-related issues. I also wish the interviewer wouldn't "kiss ass" as much. I never like it when interviewers do that.

I agree with Thor on the aesthetic issue. Why is Horner not willing to talk about this? Is he afraid he'll let others know his secrets, and thereby give away his trade... understanding "real film music"?

*Goes quietly back to listening to All the King's Men*

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Originally posted by PeterK:
Is he afraid he'll let others know his secrets, and thereby give away his trade... understanding "real film music"?

Keep the comments coming. This is good.

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Peter, I love how you're still going on about that "real film music" comment from Jimmy Horner.

And I agree. These comments are good. Half of this is, "Horner's saying what?!?!" and the other half is, "I'm glad that Horner's speaking his mind." I'm in both camps; it truly is good when composers get a good and thorough candid interview like the one found here and on Jeron's thread about the Zimmer interview on SoundtrackNet. It's a blessing to hear the people that we've devoted so much listening time to speak what their heart holds true. At the same time, some of the stuff that comes out of Horner's yapper is half-assed and seems self-absorbing. Is Horner under the impression that even though other composers get canned he is immune from any wrong things regarding his film music? His comments about Yared's rejected Troy score don't seem to be villianous, just moronic. He's unfortunately become a product of Hollywood (just like - SURPRISE! - Zimmer) and that really takes some humbleness out of any hard working individual in the film industry. To me, this is all very sad because he's a standing legend. The guy has a wonderful resume; sure, he's no Goldsmith, Bernstein, or Herrmann, but he's composed wonderful cues that many film score fans listen to frequently. Despite his recent likings in my book, I don't really see Horner going anywhere up in my standards. I'm expecting a good score out of Apocalypto; but that's just it: a good score. Shame, because a great score is something we rarely come by these days.

NP> Mychael Danna's Ride with the Devil (****/*****)