Is it just me or does it seem like that reviewer is only otherwise familiar with the score for the Star Wars saga?

To be honest it was this line where I stopped taking him/her seriously:

"Much though it will likely pain die hard fans, the original releases do, for my money, still contain all of the best bits of certainly the first and third scores, The Two Towers being a touch too dark and introspective for much of its running time for highlights."

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the rampant completism of the Complete Recordings doesn't really show the scores in their best light.

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There's definitely plenty of material omitted from the originals that is worth hearing, but also a lot that wouldn't be a huge loss if it weren't on disc.

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So, completism hurts a score? That's certainly an "original" perspective.
I'm sorry, but nobody should omit material from a score just because it isn't highlight reel material.

Like Doug said in his splendid RotK review, a score can't only consist of pull-all-stops orchestral splendor a la Hans Zimmer. The "lesser" score parts are sorely needed to flash out the highlights.
That's why I find it hard to listen to the old soundtracks because they're basically a glorified highlight reel.
I would think the music enormously profits from the expansion, I can't imagine listening to anything but the complete pieces anymore.

@ Gorbag

To me it more seems like the reviewer isn't too familiar with the broader concepts of film music in general.

Then again, his comments about the melody for Gollum's Song not being used shows his ignorance quite well. The fact is, Shore seems to enjoy doing variations on themes, to the point that sometimes it's hard to recognise the theme - especially on the first listen. Gollum's Song is nothing more than an extension of Gollum's other themes, is it not?

To be honest the whole article comes off as a backlash critique deliberately set against popular opinion rather than a review. He barely says anything positive, despite his conclusion which essentially says, "But please, don't let me put you off buying it."

I am interested in GK's comment about the original scores, though. Personally I have had them in my playlist along with the complete recordings all year - Fellowship OST, Fellowship CR, Two Towers OST, Two Towers CR, Return of the King OST. I like how some of the music is different from the CR, or just differently arranged.

It has brought me to a strange and wonderful conclusion, which now that I think about it is actually true for many films and soundtracks for me: much as I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, I actually love the music more.

I think it's a matter of accessibility, as well as how long the emotional attachment can endure; it's far easier to listen to music ad infinitum than to watch a film again and again, and my attachment to the music only increases over time, whereas my emotional reaction to a movie seems to be dulled with each watching.

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Originally posted by Gorbag:
On another note, hopefully ROTK: CR will have a case that can close properly unlike the Two Towers fiasco. I don't think its too much to ask for.

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Originally posted by Thorf:
much as I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, I actually love the music more.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

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I feel the same way, Thorf. Though it took me some time to realise it. I watched the movies over and over again (about 40 times - each. *sigh* I know, I'm a geek...).
I haven't seen FotR since the FotR-CR were released and I stopped watching TT the day I finally got my precious TT-CR. I don't think that's a coincidence

I still think the movies are great, but every time I decide to watch them again, I put the CR-Audio-DVD into my DVD-Player instead - no nasty dialogs that spoil the nice music

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hopefully ROTK: CR will have a case that can close properly unlike the Two Towers fiasco

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Oh, and that reviewer should *listen* to the CR before he reviews them!!

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Originally posted by Incanus:
Here is a rather critical review of all the three Complete Recordings sets from Soundtrack- Express: http://www.soundtrack-express.com/osts/lordoftheringscomplete.htm

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I made it pretty far--all the way to "too often it trundles along loudly, but without a great deal of musical purpose."

It isn't a slam. (For one of those, try the following google search: "site:www.filmscoremonthly.com tilton kaplan" - the mailbag on RETURN OF THE KING's Oscar worthiness.)

It isn't written in ignorance. Daish is probably more musically aware than most of us. (How many of us have recorded our compositions with the City of Prague Philharmonic?)

Nor is it there to offend you. The reviewer doesn't particularly care what you think - he's simply voicing thoughts he's obviously had while listening to the music. Now if he hadn't said what he thought, that would be dishonest or self-censorship or something. A shocking possibility: perhaps he really doesn't think that most people who are interested in the music of the films will enjoy the longer albums more!

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
So how does it feel to take a fairly light critique of someone else's work so personally? Because that's all I can see here since a link to Tom Daish's review was posted.

It isn't a slam. (For one of those, try the following google search: "site:www.filmscoremonthly.com tilton kaplan" - the mailbag on RETURN OF THE KING's Oscar worthiness.)

It isn't written in ignorance. Daish is probably more musically aware than most of us. (How many of us have recorded our compositions with the City of Prague Philharmonic?)

Nor is it there to offend you. The reviewer doesn't particularly care what you think - he's simply voicing thoughts he's obviously had while listening to the music. Now if he hadn't said what he thought, that would be dishonest or self-censorship or something. A shocking possibility: perhaps he really doesn't think that most people who are interested in the music of the films will enjoy the longer albums more!

[Message edited by franz_conrad on 10-24-2007]

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Great points.

I find it quite interesting that most of the aspects of the scores/complete recordings that he criticises are, in fact, the very aspects that I love so much. To each his own.

Just some words of, er... wisdom? I don't want to see things turn ugly because someone used a word that is unfavorable to the virgin qualities of perfection that seem to exist here regarding the scores....

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Originally posted by gkgyver:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=1 face=arial>
So, completism hurts a score? That's certainly an "original" perspective.
I'm sorry, but nobody should omit material from a score just because it isn't highlight reel material.
To me it more seems like the reviewer isn't too familiar with the broader concepts of film music in general.

[Message edited by gkgyver on 10-24-2007]

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I need to tread carefully here in light of PeterK's post, but c'mon... think about what you're saying before you say it. The reviewer has about a thousand film music reviews at his site... he has written film scores himself... to suggest he's not familiar with the broader concept of film scores is not a well-considered hypothesis.

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Originally posted by StarlessWinter:
I find it ridiculous that the reviewer claims the music feels more like "musical markers than actual storytelling" and that Star Wars is a worthier example. LOTR is the perfect example of musical storytelling. I'm guessing the reviewer has no idea that there are 80+ plus themes woven into the score and only realizes themes when they are played out in full form.

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I really don't mind people with different opinions, but to complain about a lack of development of themes (for instance) has nothing to do with different taste. Developments are part of a score or not - and it's your choice whether you like them.
I'm sure he is 'more musically aware' than I am - the only thing I know about music is what I like and what I don't like. But even I can hear developments of themes (not all of them, I bet). So if he would have written 'the development of Theme A is cr*p' or 'Theme B's development is insipid', it would have been his opinion (again, I don't care - as long as he doesn't bar me from listening to it). But to say that there are no developments *is* ignorant!

-Sabsi, who is too tired to proof-read her post...

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and he thinks the music of The Lord of the Rings does not do the same because, by your own admission, you need to pay minute attention and listen countless times to pick up on the nuances - then is that the fault of the reviewer, or of the music?

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Originally posted by Earl:
Well, as far as I know, David Salo was the only one who provided translations for the movies and so I find it odd that he had to give this a listen to determine the Elvish lyrics.

So I wonder where Howard Shore got these lyrics from and hence I'm waiting for something official in the AS.

Edit: Official English and Elvish lyrics highly anticipated

[Message edited by Earl on 10-24-2007]

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Originally posted by Thorf:
It has brought me to a strange and wonderful conclusion, which now that I think about it is actually true for many films and soundtracks for me: much as I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, I actually love the music more.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

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Look, if you don't like Howard Shore's style, his voicings, his thematic writing, that's fine, nobody is forced to love it; but, as Doug wrote in his RotK review, just because you don't like it doesn't mean you should deny it its lineage and qualities.
The reviewer is a composer, alright. Does that automatically mean he knows as much about music as Howard Shore, or even more? Can he appreciate music more than us? Is it even relevant? Surely not.
The reviewer appreciates Star Wars more because it has more obvious, more linear themes. Fine.

But that doesn't mean a film score can't aim for more subtlety, more development and more complexities, and even elevate it to a level that is more than slightly above film music.

The reviewer mentions he finds it hard to listen to TTT because it's too dark, too much introspective. Fine, he finds it hard. But book and film require darkness, and it's pretty amazing for a film of this magnitude to feature that kind of introspective writing. Of course he doesn't see that.

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Originally posted by Southall:
A philosophical question, then - if the reviewer thinks the music of Star Wars tells the story of the film perfectly because it has obvious themes, a clearly-defined musical structure - and he thinks the music of The Lord of the Rings does not do the same because, by your own admission, you need to pay minute attention and listen countless times to pick up on the nuances - then is that the fault of the reviewer, or of the music?

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As gkgyver said, it's not a 'fault' at all. Instead, it has much to do with just how each individual person experiences and appreciates music.

Myself, I've come on a long musical road to a point where my chief aim is not to seek out music that is easy to listen to, emotionally satisfying, or even pleasant... but rather that which challenges and stimulates my mind. Thus, I would take Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, or Schönberg most days over the more approachable and infinitely more easily listenable composers of the past and present. (This often causes most people to think I'm either a total downer or a sick, twisted mind based on what I usually listen to, but I really couldn't care less.)

Of course, this probably has a lot to do with my personality as well; I'm a quite serious person in most aspects of life, and I take music - far and away my favorite art and foremost study - just as seriously.

So, to each his own... but I doubt I'll ever cease to esteem The Lord of the Rings as among the greatest musical accomplishments of the last hundred years or more.

[Message edited by NeoVoyager on 10-24-2007]

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Originally posted by gkgyver:
The reviewer mentions he finds it hard to listen to TTT because it's too dark, too much introspective. Fine, he finds it hard. But book and film require darkness, and it's pretty amazing for a film of this magnitude to feature that kind of introspective writing. Of course he doesn't see that.

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It's a pity this message board doesn't allow for raised eyebrows, as that statement is surely worthy of them.

If I were asked by my Tolkien/Jackson enthusiast brother whether he should purchase TTT:CR, I would say much the same thing. Because that audience (ie my brother) is not going to be terribly interested in the progression of 'Perilous Journeys' motif (or a nice adaptation on the hobbit pensive settings for Merry and Pippin in Fangorn, or a solo horn foreshadowing of the Gondor theme as Aragorn reveals his heritage to Eowyn), I wouldn't recommend to them that they purchase it. You write for an audience, and I suspect that Tom deliberately writes the reviews of 'big' titles for a more general audience. That audience probably seeks highlight music to remind them of the films they love so much. Primarily, they seek a listening experience though - the on-screen development isn't of great interest to them.

Reviewers always write for an audience, but you've mistaken that authorial perspective for a lack of reviewer intelligence in this case. If I were still editing Film Music on the Web and reviewing the new release, I would understand that my readership was largely (i) British; (ii) people who had much more than a passing interest in classical music (because we were attached to Musicweb); (iii) old enough to count Star Wars as a middlepoint in their lives, not a coming-of-age point. And my review of ROTK:CR would speak to that group, and since I was the editor, I would probably sneak in a bit of opinion from my perspective as well (a more film-focused perspective). But that's a more specialised audience. (Our readership numbers were woeful - not enough to keep going at it.)

I also notice around here that there's a bit of an attitude about the Williams scores being less subtle than Shore's. Consider: (i) when you're drawing on Korngold, you're definitely not trying to be subtle; (ii) Williams has his own musical architecture - it may not come with 80 groups of 3-6 note motifs working their way in here and there, but it can be masterfully concise, emphasize exactly what needs to be said, and also be beautifully hummable to the average person (the last aspect is a way he improved on Korngold). His later scores for SW are characterised a lot more by the introspection that is above seen to be unique to the music of LOTR, interestingly enough, and by a much less obvious use (indeed, occasionally confusing) of themes. Those more recent scores, like the LOTR scores, suffer from the modern fantasy/spectacular film-maker's over-scoring bias.

For those who'd like to hear a very interesting leitmotif score more in the tradition of Wagner, I recommend Christopher Gordon's MOBY DICK. Yeah, it's a tv movie, but the writing is absolutely marvelous. Just marvelous. It has the breadth the story needs, but also the depth of composition that any adaptation of Melville demands. (Except for Queequeg's material alas - one aspect that just doesn't quite fit in.)

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If I were asked by my Tolkien/Jackson enthusiast brother whether he should purchase TTT:CR, I would say much the same thing. Because that audience (ie my brother) is not going to be terribly interested in the progression of 'Perilous Journeys' motif (or a nice adaptation on the hobbit pensive settings for Merry and Pippin in Fangorn, or a solo horn foreshadowing of the Gondor theme as Aragorn reveals his heritage to Eowyn), I wouldn't recommend to them that they purchase it. You write for an audience, and I suspect that Tom deliberately writes the reviews of 'big' titles for a more general audience. That audience probably seeks highlight music to remind them of the films they love so much. Primarily, they seek a listening experience though - the on-screen development isn't of great interest to them.

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I don't quite get where you are heading with this. That film composers should sell themselves out to the general audience that demands more and more Remote Control?

If you're trying to say that the Tolkien fan who is not so much into music in general and just wants the "highlights" (the obvious ones) doesn't absolutely need the Complete Recordings, then you're right.
But then a reviewer shouldn't go as far as saying half of the rest is uninteresting and doesn't need to be there. What does that lead into? "The Almost Complete Recordings"?
The uninteresting rest that man talks about is neither redundant, nor uninteresting for those who understand it.
I absolutely don't see why someone should fire against the cake around the icing, or omit it from the release, just because it isn't feasible to the mass audience.

Quite frankly, Lord of the Rings was done not to feed that mass audience, but to do Tolkien's work justice.
To dismiss half of Howard Shore's music because it isn't easy on the ears is in my eyes very disrespectful to the man who had artistic integrity in mind, in the film scoring process, and these complete releases.

This is being sold on the basis that this is Howard Shore's complete vision of a coherent musical storytelling of the Lord of the Rings saga, like it or lump it.
Nobody said it was a light listen, nobody said it was an easy listen.
It may be confusing to some because it is attached to one of the most successful movies in history, and they don't expect such subdued and atmospheric writing.
But that fault is indeed not with Howard Shore, but rather with the listener.

There are also plenty of highlight CDs for Wagner's Nibelungen, but those don't showcase the true value of the whole work, do they?

And I don't know where you find a hint that the frequent posters on this thread have a tendency to find John Williams' work less subtle than Howard Shore's - that's utter nonsense. It may appear like that to you because you may have only followed the last two pages.
Some said they find Lord of the Ring more subtle than Star Wars; that's a big difference.
Personally, I find LotR ten times more subtle thematically, but Star Wars clearly superior in complex compositions. Of course it takes alot of compositional skill to merge and develop 50+ leitmotifs, too, so on balance, I find LotR a wee bit superior to Star Wars.
But that's not the matter of interest here.

If you hope to find confirmation here for the prejudice that big LotR fans dismiss Star Wars, you will be dissapointed.

Sorry if this appeared "flamey" and harsh, but it was tingling in my fingers.

What I dislike about the review, and also your latest comments in this thread, is the assumptions both you and the reviewer make about the audience. These are assumptions that continue to mould the soundtrack industry - namely, that people who buy soundtracks want, as you put it, "highlight music to remind them of the films they love so much". You refer to this as the feelings of the "more general audience".

Who knows if this is true or not? The audience really has very little choice in the matter, as soundtrack fans generally get what we are given. It's my opinion that what we usually get is NOT what most people want; I believe that most people want to hear the music from their favourite bits of the movie pretty much as it was in the movie, and in the order it appeared in the movie. I can't count the number of times I or another soundtrack fan has lamented over the "missing pieces" of an OST.

So I would argue that people such as your brother might well be more interested in the complete recordings than you may think - and not necessarily for reasons of complex analysis and "high level" musical appreciation (whatever that is). I can argue this because I myself am always on the look out for complete soundtrack releases, and Lord of the Rings apart there is nothing special to separate me from your "general audience".

As it currently stands, most "complete" releases come after "regular", one disc OST releases, so it's very hard to judge their potential popularity. I'm sure many people think, "I already have that, I don't need to buy it again." But that's not to say they wouldn't have preferred a more complete collection in the first place.

Also, most complete releases have various problems and hurdles to jump, as can be seen with for example Star Wars Episode I, which is criticised (I assume) because the extremely faithful back-and-forth edit of the music exactly as it was in the movie makes it a little jarring for some. At the very least, the OST retains its value because of its compartmentalisation of themes into their own tracks. Lord of the Rings on the other hand incorporates music that wasn't even in the films, which I can see might not interest some people. Then again, a large number of OSTs do that anyway, due to their production schedule being concurrent with final editing.

To sum up: I would love to see more complete releases, preferably as standard - replacing the current one disc releases. And I don't believe that I am alone in thinking this.

And by the way, I am far more of a John Williams fan than a Howard Shore fan. Lord of the Rings is the first soundtrack that has attracted me to Howard Shore, and although it will undoubtedly lead me to investigate his other works, I am still very much in love with John Williams' music. That includes both Star Wars trilogies - I really enjoyed the music from the prequel trilogy as well as the original trilogy. I don't think there's much to be gained from comparing Star Wars and Lord of the Rings - apples and oranges, anyone?

(Edit: Added three paragraphs starting with "As it currently stands...")

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Originally posted by gkgyver:
[B]
I don't quite get where you are heading with this. That film composers should sell themselves out to the general audience that demands more and more Remote Control?

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No. Just that he wasn't writing for you, and you shouldn't assume he doesn't know what he's talking about because he didn't focus on what you would have preferred.

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But then a reviewer shouldn't go as far as saying half of the rest is uninteresting and doesn't need to be there. What does that lead into? "The Almost Complete Recordings"?

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I'm sure there's a happy middleground he had in mind.

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Quite frankly, Lord of the Rings was done not to feed that mass audience, but to do Tolkien's work justice.

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I don't think from an assessment of New Line Cinema's history that they have ever done anything that was not intended for the mass audience. Fortunately, unlike Miramax, they were less meddlesome in the project from its foundations. I know wasn't your point, but do you really think much money was spent by rational people who cared only for the realisation of the work of a dead author?

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To dismiss half of Howard Shore's music because it isn't easy on the ears is in my eyes very disrespectful to the man who had artistic integrity in mind, in the film scoring process, and these complete releases.

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And that reviewer would probably not say that to man himself, accordingly. But he wasn't writing to Howard Shore.

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There are also plenty of highlight CDs for Wagner's Nibelungen, but those don't showcase the true value of the whole work, do they?

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One might say the 'long-run' (now more than a century) has preserved interest in the work, and led to a rather different situation for a musical work in a genre where the music is the point. It's a grandiose comparison that gets thrown around a lot, but it's a little early for that.

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And I don't know where you find a hint that the frequent posters on this thread have a tendency to find John Williams' work less subtle than Howard Shore's - that's utter nonsense. It may appear like that to you because you may have only followed the last two pages.

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... and in the last couple of pages, somehow it occurred to me to have that impression. Which is why I said 'there seems to be an attitude', rather than 'Damn you all - you're fanatics!' You're right - I don't read every page of this thread. All I've seen in the last day or so on is this page or the previous one. But I didn't say frequent posters on this thread feel that way, only that 'there seems to be an attitude'... and perhaps now it would be truer to say 'there seems to be no attitude'.

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If you hope to find confirmation here for the prejudice that big LotR fans dismiss Star Wars, you will be dissapointed.

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Originally posted by Thorf:
These are assumptions that continue to mould the soundtrack industry - namely, that people who buy soundtracks want, as you put it, "highlight music to remind them of the films they love so much". You refer to this as the feelings of the "more general audience".

Who knows if this is true or not? The audience really has very little choice in the matter, as soundtrack fans generally get what we are given.

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That's a pretty big issue - one of the few that I suspect, if the right people contributed, would lead to a thread larger than this one. Suffice to say that I am glad to live at a time when more of these soundtracks are available than ever, but that I'm one of the only moviegoers or film-makers I personally know who cares. I don't mean to sound like Ford Thaxton or anything, but a dash of realism is possibly not a bad thing.

(Obviously I'm not counting internet messageboard relationships. On a soundtrack forum where a couple of hundred of the less-than-10,000 regular soundtrack purchasers worldwide, it could be said the odds were strong that interest was heightened relative to the 'general audience'. There's that word again.)

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Originally posted by Thorf:
So I would argue that people such as your brother might well be more interested in the complete recordings than you may think ...

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
That's a pretty big issue - one of the few that I suspect, if the right people contributed, would lead to a thread larger than this one. Suffice to say that I am glad to live at a time when more of these soundtracks are available than ever, but that I'm one of the only moviegoers or film-makers I personally know who cares. I don't mean to sound like Ford Thaxton or anything, but a dash of realism is possibly not a bad thing.

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I take it you are referring to the fact that score fans are somewhat of a minority? Absolutely, I have to agree with you, and I'm sure most people who are really into soundtracks have the same experience. But I don't really see why that should dictate that most releases should be rearranged and cut music, out of chronological order. It seems to me that either those making the CDs misunderstand their audience, or I am not after all a member of the "general" audience. Perhaps a discussion like you mentioned could help answer this question.

In any case, yes, it's a big issue - probably too big for this thread. So I will leave it for now.

(By the way, who is Ford Thaxton?)

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(Obviously I'm not counting internet messageboard relationships. On a soundtrack forum where a couple of hundred of the less-than-10,000 regular soundtrack purchasers worldwide, it could be said the odds were strong that interest was heightened relative to the 'general audience'. There's that word again.)

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I agree with the idea that message boards are not necessarily representative of the audience, but less than 10,000 regular soundtrack purchasers WORLDWIDE? Surely you must be joking. If that were the case, there is no way that you would be able to find soundtrack sections in small town music shops. Or are you saying that most soundtrack purchasers are irregular?

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In this case, I know he's not, because I offered him a few highlight cues off FOTR:CR that weren't on the albums I gave him for his birthday, and he was happy with what he already had. (Quote: 'It's hard enough to find the time to listen to the other albums as it is.') I understand that's not the general situation as you see it, but I personally feel those shorter albums will remain the stronger sellers for New Line Records.

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Perhaps you misunderstood what I was saying, because I fully agree with your last point - of course the 1 CD, vastly cheaper and already well-established OSTs are going to continue to sell better. My point was rather that the release of most OSTs in this way effectively prevents any later "complete" releases, except in the case of the most popular films. On the other hand if they scrapped those and released complete soundtracks from the start, the situation might be rather different.

As to your brother, obviously you know him better than any of us! ;-) But who knows how common his reasoning is. People use music in a lot of different ways, and I suspect that for many time is simply not a factor.

The less-than-10000 figure is a generalisation, but perhaps not too far off the beaten track. There's a couple of indications this might be the case:
(i) Robert Townson of Varese Sarabande (probably leading dedicated soundtrack retailer) indicated a few years back that 5000 sales on a soundtrack was exceptionally strong. Now I imagine that number has been dented a bit by internet downloads, and many enjoyers of the music are 'hidden', that's pretty telling. (Famously, in the case of one particularly fine score from 2000, the obscurity of the composer and the project manifested in a grand total of 70 sales in its first year of release).
(ii) a recent renegotiation of reuse fee (the fees players earn for having their performance 'reused' for a soundtrack album after being use on the film soundtrack) named 14,999 sales as a cap before regular reuse fees applied, enabling more expanded soundtrack releases in recent years (compare the average length of a soundtrack album over the past 10 years - if it hasn't increased by at least 15 minutes, I'd be surprised. Why that number is telling is that if 15000 is an effective cap, and we're seeing lots of albums released that take advantage of this cap to provide more music, then practically no score CDs are selling more than 15000 copies;

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Originally posted by Thorf:
I agree with the idea that message boards are not necessarily representative of the audience, but less than 10,000 regular soundtrack purchasers WORLDWIDE? Surely you must be joking.

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I do not know about you but I think Tom Daish's and his review's influence on potential buyers of CRs might not be that huge What comes clear from the review is that he thinks that the CRs are not as visceral listening experience as the OSTs. He is surely entitled to his opinion even if it is not as praising as ours here. I guess his review was in a way an examination of these releases from the point of view of the everyman who might not have listened to this music so much as we have. Although a person buying the CRs is not your average person is he/she? This release is clearly directed to those LotR fans who have a burning passion for the music. The so called casual listener will certainly go for the OST and does not even want more. I know this from experience as many people I know own the OST but do not have the slightest need to hear the rest of the music. They are perfectly happy with the highlights.

And remember that this same reviewer still gave the FotR and RotK OSTs 5 stars and 4½ to TTT so he can't hate the music. He just does not want so much of it as we do

Edit

Possibly the only thing that made me little annoyed in the review was the way Mr. Daish questions the validity of the release of complete recordings. I found this little odd. Why would a soundtrack fan be somehow disappointed by the release of any complete score? I for one am happy each and every time a score gets such treatement and twice as happy when my favourite ones do

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Originally posted by Magpie:
David Salo did the translation. That's how he knew them. He had to listen to the music because he needed to know which song we were wondering about. It's also possible that he had never heard the recorded song. He didn't 'determine' the lyrics by listening... he 'recognized' them.

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Originally posted by Incanus:
Why would a soundtrack fan be somehow disappointed by the release of any complete score? I for one am happy each and every time a score gets such treatement and twice as happy when my favourite ones do

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You must meet the man they call... THOR.

There are three people in the soundtrack world who everyone should know:

- Dan Hobgood is philosophically opposed to any score involving more than theme. Even not being written by Jerry Goldsmith is a disadvantage.

- Ford Thaxton is philosophically opposed to being polite. Even not having his opinion on anything is a disadvantage.

- And Thor Haga is philosophically opposed to any soundtrack having a 'complete and chronological' release. Even having more than a summary suite is a pretty big disadvantage.

I'll be waiting for a review of this performance from whichever one of you feels enthusiastic enough to put your feelings into words here [/B]<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would count on Sabsi for that (if she will come to the concert, it is almost outsold already, many LotR nerds here in Sweden ) because she has better english then me, I guess. :P
I have my own tickets in my hand right now, feels veeery good.

Edit: Why doesn't the quote work for me? Doing something wrong I guess...

[Message edited by Ralo on 10-25-2007

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
- Ford Thaxton is philosophically opposed to being polite. Even not having his opinion on anything is a disadvantage.

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I did a Google on him when you mentioned him. Wow. Quite a history there.

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- And Thor Haga is philosophically opposed to any soundtrack having a 'complete and chronological' release. Even having more than a summary suite is a pretty big disadvantage.

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This is so ironic. His opinion in this regard is absolutely diametrically opposite to mine, and yet we share the same name. (My real name is Thorfinn.) If we ever met, perhaps the whole universe would cease to exist. ;-)

Incidentally, I'm assuming you mean the online forum world of soundtracks...? I've been a soundtrack fan for many years, but it's only very recently that I've looked at anything about soundtracks online - starting last year in this forum, in the previous versions of this thread.

Some of you might have seen Michael's name mentioned on my website. He was part of an early band of LOTR soundtrack fans who were a great support to many items on my website. I drew heavily on his TTT movie analysis and his patient, well stated explanations of more than one theme allowed me to find them when they had been (up till then) invisible to me. I've also quoted more than one of his comments on themes (like Nature, for example) that really resonated with me.

How's that Sil screenplay coming, Michael?

and for what it's worth on the CRs for the average listener... when asked for an opinion, I am very hesitant to recommend them mostly due to the cost. That cost is spread out over a lot of features that many people would never appreciate or use. But I do know more than one general LOTR fan who feels they 'must' have them. But then, many LOTR fans tend to feel they must have everything so I don't know how much that drives their desire.