First, and I hope I don't bore you, I'd like to say a few things about myself. It shouldn't be a surprise to you when I tell you I'm a soundtrack nut. I have been since the late 80's early 90's and will remain so for a while. As most of "us", I'm a big fan of orchestral scores. As with a constantly fluctuating part of "us", I also like the Zimmer sound. I don't care how he and his composing apprentices write the music, or how complex the music is, I just like their music. What I also really appreciate are innovative scores such as Battlestar Gallactica and smaller scores by the likes of Rachel Portman and Adrian Johnston. Finally, what I don't like are cheap synth sounding scores such as the latest not to bad reviewed Superman Doomsday soundtrack. To sum it all up my purchasing habits might help. I buy a lot of score CD's. Very often I am disappointed by the CD as a whole, but I always dig at least one track and that makes it an okay purchase. The phrase "it's a collector's item" often justifies such a purchase. I don't mind song albums, but I don't collect them. Every now and then I buy one just because it's a good sample album. To end the stuff on my persona, I'm not a fan of downloadable scores. That would be the reason I don't have Debney's LAIR in my collection. Whether this is old fashioned or not is up to you. I'd actually be glad if somebody could convince me in downloading tracks.

Damn, I almost forgot why I posted this. Ah yes ... the message board. As mentioned above, I frequently (1-3 times daily) check out the board, mostly because I'd like to be up to date on what's happening in the soundtrack world, i.e. to find out about score assigments, upcoming releases and especially opinions, discussions and short reviews of new releases. Most of my posts are actually related to these topics. What I don't have time for are threads such as the LOTR: EE one. Don't get me wrong, I am interested but that particular post is just too long for me and you can't read everything. I also rarely if at all participate in composer bashing threads.

What I wanted to say is that lately, or maybe even for quite a while now, I am missing postings on specifics soundtrack releases ... and I'm not talking about the latest Harry Potters, Pirates of the Caribbeans or other blockbusters. I'm talking about scores that don't get a lot of or even any reviews at all, the ones only people like us would or should be talking about. Varèse Sarabande, Intrada, BSX, Perseverence Records, Lalaland Records, Moviescoremedia, Prometheus, ... are regularly releasing 500-2000 copies of some really interesting scores.

I remember opening a thread about Carlo Siliotto's NOMAD, which in my humble opinion ranks as one of the best scores of the recent past. I didn't get a lot of replies. I do realize that the number of replies doesn't say anything about people reading posts, but the least I would've expected is that some people would mention NOMAD in that specific or other posts (e.g. "What did you buy in ..."). Something like "Thanks for the tip. I got it. Great score. It sucked, dude." Here some other examples: ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING (J.A.C. Redford), PARTITION (Brian Tyler), THE TUDORS (Trevor Morris). Even looking at limited releases, we mostly talk about releases such as PREDATOR and SUPERMAN BLUE BOX. Okay, they are great scores and you can make some money on eBay but it's nothing new. Same counts for other releases and re-releases. Again, I'm not saying we can't discuss them, but we shouldn't only discuss them.

I'm not sure about the reasons these little known gems hardly get mentioned around here. Is it because you're not interested? Shouldn't I be expecting to read opinions of those scores on this board? Do you only purchase scores to well known movies or from well known composers? Is it about the money? Am I overreacting and not really accurate with my statements?

I don't know. I just felt like getting this off my chest. Thanks for reading it. I hope I didn't bore you. Anyway, I'll be wandering the board ... and looking out for news and opinions.

Over and out.

Kris

As for NOMAD, I've never heard it--only in hindsight do I even recall it--and I'm not into Siliotto's music anyway. I think that may be part of the reason you didn't get much response to that particular thread, but by all means don't let that discourage you from writing about unsung scores.

Also, modern film music doesn't excite me the way it did in the 90s, and the only modern film music that does is the scores which bring back memories of those earlier scores. I do listen up whenever Beltrami has a new offering though. 3:10 to Yuma had some fantastic highlights. Regardless, this is why I focus more on catching up with older releases.

I recently got Alex North's Les Miserables and really enjoyed that brilliant Barricade cue, which was so engaging I could practically feel the neurons and synapses firing away at each other in my head. I just don't get that feeling of excitement from most modern scores. So I'll probably get Viva Zapata sooner or later, hoping for that same experience.

I'm mostly into Herrmann at present, though, so I've been listening to McNeely's North by Northwest and Tribute's Mysterious Island. And that trend probably won't change for a while, at least not until after I pick up Tribute's Fahrenheit 451.

For me, the feeling of discovery I used to get in the 90s occurs in listening to music further and further from present day.

That said, everyone has different tastes and different levels of interest in things, not to mention different budgets. I try to listen to a variety of scores, but man -- for most people, and in some cases myself included, the film music fan has to take a lot of risks just to see if they'd enjoy something. Sometimes it's a yes. Sometimes it's a no. Always it's a case where ya just don't have unlimited funds to take risks on everything, but you do know everything you will want to purchase, so that "risk" window is a different size for everyone.

And lastly, people talk about what they know, for the most part. I haven't spent much time getting to know Siliotto's work, and The Punisher didn't really grab me. First impressions are important, whether they are conclusive or not, fair or unfair. I could be totally losing out by having not given NOMAD a chance. Honestly, like Al, I'd never heard of it before this post; I don't even remember your thread, not b/c I didn't care - I probably just didn't see it. This forum reads a lot like a newspaper. You log on to the forum and scan the headlines for something interesting or that catches your eye. There's A LOT to read, like you said, so you've got to appropriate your time wisely. I probably just skimmed past your post. Just something to keep in mind.

Jeron