Intrada Soundtrack Forum

My hit-to-miss ratio was higher when I was a young collector... I would just go into Barnes and Noble, look through the soundtracks, and pick up whatever looked really interesting. Now, I go read all the reviews, and rarely ever purchase I cd I don't like.

There's certain composers that I have large collections of, and purchase anything of theirs that is released. Others, I buy a lot of their stuff, but not all of it. And others, I don't really get most of their stuff, but if there's something that interests me exceptionally (like say, Klaus Badelt's "The Promise), I'll pick it up. My collection is up to just over 500 cds at this point, and there are maybe 50-60 I'd like to sell/trade, but I don't have an Ebay account or anything like that.

As for composers I own a lot of, well...

John Williams
Jerry Goldsmith
Danny Elfman
Alex North
Ennio Morricone
Elmer Bernstein
Hans Zimmer
John Powell
Brian Tyler
James Horner
John Barry
Basil Poledouris
Randy Newman

At some point, I'd like to sell some of the cds I never really listen to, and use the money to purchase scores I know I'd really listen to. I agree with Anakin's earlier thoughts about hanging onto scores you like that don't stick with you right away. I've got quite a few scores like that, which I didn't really remember too well after the first couple listens, but I eventually grew to love them... "Beyond Borders" and "War of the Worlds" are a couple of recent examples. Anyhow. Nice topic.

Back at ya later

Interesting topic; expect a somewhat lenghty and rambling reply.

I first noticed film-music in 1993/1994. Star Trek - The Next Generation and Aladdin both had my ears pick up some things here and there. In August of 1994, I first saw Star Trek - The Motion Picture. Despite its flaws, the film bowled me over, and no small part in that had Jerry Goldsmith's momentous score. At the same time I fell in love with the theme for National Geographic documentaries.

Star Trek I one fell under the category "tape-it-off-the-TV". In 1994, my family had only 9 TV channels (4 German, 2 Austrian, one each for Swiss, French, and Italian) and stuff like this film had to be taped by a friend of mine with a dish.

Anyways, Star Trek I gets the honor of opening my ears to the wonders of film-music. That summer, each week offered a new Star Trek film, so I became familiar with the names Horner and Rosenman as well.

While I had a tape of the German version of Menken's Aladdin since Christmas 1993, my first real CD purchase came about after I'd seen The Lion King at the end of 1994. The opening sequence left me in shambles, and I consequently saw the film another three times, and at Christmas that year, I got my first soundtrack CD ever. Two, in fact. Both the German and English version of The Lion King, so kudos to HanZ for that!

I was a fourteen year old kid at that time (who already had unusual hobbies such as volcanoes and insect-eating plants!), so listening to soundtracks fell in this category as well. Mind, these were pre-Internet days, so the only way to notice new (or old) film music was by watching the respective film or series. Sci-Fi scores were favored, though, Babylon 5 scores in particular. Sometimes I'd stumble about a score I didn't know about in a CD booklet, but the problem was always that it was often difficult to get these releases in a normal store over here in Germany.

That all changed when the Internet arrived in our parts (mid to late 1997). My first Internet order was, of course, a bunch of Babylon 5 CDs. I always tried to order CDs and have them shipped to somebody I knew in the States, so that I could avoid higher shipping costs and customs. in August of 1999, I placed my first big order (something of 12 CDs, I think). Also, I encountered the world of review sites in April of 1999 with Filmtracks, and after that, my purchases of CDs rose dramatically.

By the way, here's a breakdown of my CD acquirements in a given year (inlcudes presents, CDr trades etc.):

1994: 1 / 1995: 4 / 1996: 3 / 1997: 22 / 1998: 30 / 1999: 52 / 2000: 44 / 2001: 44 / 2002: 81 / 2003: 64 / 2004: 59 / 2005: 78 / 2006: 15

At the moment, I stand at 495 CDs, with an additional 16 that got replaced over the years (for example, exchanging the shorter version of Conan the Barbarian with the longer Varese release or exchanging one I'd lent to a friend... ).

And when I dissect that list by the year a score was written, it looks like this:

2000s: 110 / 1990s: 187 / 1980s: 61 / 1970s: 20 / 1960s: 19 / 1950s: 7 / 1940s: 8 / 1930s: 3 / Compilations. 42

Mr Feigelson said something about formative years. This very well documents where my preferences lie. However, before I get ripped limb from limb for not giving Golden and Silver Age scores their due...some of my favorite scores (Alexander Nevsky, Kings Row, Citizen Kane, The Ten Commandments) come out of that era. I simply can better connect to more recent scores. However, unlike some folks of our hobby, I know about what great stuff came out of the decades before the 90s!

Why that is? I cannot really say. I'm not a very "musicological" person, but I like music very much (not so rock or pop, though). I tried, quite unsuccessfully, to play keyboards; I gave that up for singing in a choir, and these days, I sing in my university's Russian Choir. One could say that I'm a passive person when it comes to music, meaning that I spend way more time enjoying and listening to it than doing it myself.

As for my preferences, when I appreciate a lot of the older stuff, I don't really play it a lot. I think that having heard a score is more important than actually owning it, too. I think that, since I have for example, Alfred Newman's The Robe and The Greatest Story Ever Told, I really don't need a lot of his other religious epic scores, no matter how great they might be. Same thing with romantic dramas or historic epics with scores by Miklós Rózsa. In my ears, sooner or later, they kind of begin to sound the same to my ears (which isn't true, of course, but that's how it is in my case). Newer decades have yielded more diversity in that regard, in my opinion.

As for deciding what to get...I have these huge lists of CDs that I intend to buy sooner or later. What goes on there depends on many things...I might have heard the score in a movie, read a review of it, got a recommendation by one of my Internet friends, made a mp3 copy of it at Jonathan Broxton's and decided to get the real thing myself etc. These lists continually change, some items have been on it for four years before I finally acquired them! I also am not a hard-core collector when it comes to special or limited releases, as I often jump at these I'm vaguely interested in only when they slowly go OOP. Some releases, like Intrada's Capricorn One I buy because I recognize it as an important release which would look good having in my collection, not because I really like the music very much.

Favorites? Shore's scores for The Lord of the Rings trilogy are at the top of many of my lists. I still like Zimmer scores, although he's gotten a bit disappointing in recent years, as has Horner. Williams is the one composer I believe to almost single-handedly keep good film-music alive these days. Goldenthal, Elfman, Shore and Thomas Newman are the most interesting these days to my ears. But I think that nobody has pushed the limits of what film-music can do or be more than Jerry Goldsmith.

So what makes me like or get a score in the first place? Use of good melodies or themes is always a major plus, though I like non-thematic scores (like...uhm...yes) too. Use of a choir gets high marks almost always. I like fresh approaches (Shore on LotR, Yared on Troy etc.) as much as tried approaches (Zimmer's uber-anthems throughout the years), and sometimes I find great delight in the unoriginality of today's choral-heavy trailer-music). Only the atonal or overly romantic/melodramatic (like a lot of Rózsa's scores I have) leaves me somewhat cold.

A final note: film-music, via Internet message boards, has gotten me many friends over the years, which in turn led me to fly to concerts in the US and UK and meeting these people. I even met the odd composer here and there,with good or bad results . About all other things, this is why I am thankful that i found film-music as a hobby.

- - - - -

It's a very multi-faceted topic to be sure. Right, I've lost myself in my tangle of thoughts, so I'll stop here. Everybody, enjoy your weekend!

Christian

Ready for Part Two?


DVDs...

First, I do have a lot of recordable tapes, and several movies i bought on VHS, but not that many, mostly because for a long time, getting anything in English was tough here; it became easier with the advent of NTSC-compatible VCRs, but we didn't get one until '91-2.
And it was expensive.
I passed on Laserdiscs. It looked great, but it was expensive, rather cumbersome, and to me, only a first step: it seemed obvious the format was bound to get much better (smaller, and able to hold one average-length movie on one single-layered disc).

I upgraded to DVD in 2000 or so.
I have been buying steadily but not compulsively, and I have learned a few lessons, like waiting for the now inevitable, more complete edition-- I love "making of features"; I have always found these fascinating.
I have bought a few upgrades, but definitely not systematically; I got X-Men 1.5 (the first one was a bargain), as well as Tombstone, Silverado and Unforgiven (wonderful movies; having enhanced picture & sound, plus more features, was a good incentive).
I only ordered the horribly-named Alien Quadrilogy set during DeepDiscountDVD's 20% sale a week or so ago (I should receive it in about a week); the first set was very good already; since I love the movies (the first two in particular; the third one is pretty good too) and, here also, there are more features, I eventually ordered it, but I had been waiting for a good bargain. And you bet I'm keeping my first set, with Goldsmith's isolated tracks! Even if that music were released on CD (complete, with alternates and all), I would keep it.

DVD "collecting" has gotten trickier with all those SE, CE, DCE, EE, UE, ..., the studios keep releasing.

As for CDs, I'm only getting those movies I already know and love, or those I'm sure I'll like, based on intuition and what i have read, or what I know of the director.
The Old Dark House was a great blind buy, for instance, based on Whale's name and, I think, some good words I had read on it.
In the 20% sale batch, I received The Shadow, which I had never seen. I have never read much good of it, but I love Goldsmith's score, and the character & film intrigued me, especially with the comics I have been buying. Well, I watched it two days ago, upon receiving it, and I liked it! There is room for improvement, but I didn't find it that terrible, and rather enjoyable; Goldsmith's score is sumptuous, and deserves a complete release. My only regret is that the only time I didn't check it was Widescreen, I picked the Full Screen version! Since the DVD was already unwrapped, I couldn't exchange it. Oh well, it was about $5, minus 20%, and a good 1h50 fun.

Here we reach a natural intersection for us film lovers, and a new angle to Roger's question: why do you collect the DVDs you collect?
Is it solely for the movie?
Is it for the composer?

I know some people buy some DVDS solely out of composer completism: not just because it's the only way to hear the music, nor out of curiosity, but because they feel the need to have everything by that composer, including the movie-- which does have some logic, and might even actually be considered the primal form of film music loving: enjoying the music as a score, in the context it was written for.

I don't feel that urge. I am sometimes tempted, and I will watch or tape something just because the music is by XYZ-- but buy? Only if I think I'll like the movie and want to play it again.

That 20% sale was the opportunity to get such movies I have always loved: special editions of The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, The Sting, ..., which I have watched many times over as a kid. Browsing through The Sting last evening was a bit odd; oddly, this didn't struck me for the other movies, but then I realized it was the first time I was hearing the original English version.

This sale was also the opportunity to make one-eyed purchases: blind in that sense I haven't seen the movies, but not totally because I knew they were "important" movies, because I found consistently good reviews-- several Westerns (yes, including some whose score I have; but I checked how good the movie is generally considered to be, first), one Marilyn movie (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).

Then, among all those SE, there are those that include collectibles. I passed on the Matrix edition featuring a bust, but "had to" have the TLOTR 4-DVD boxes with the statuettes.

Collectibles are a funny thing. It's a bit like having part of the movie, or a sort of embodiment of the movie.
Two days ago I bought a few figures from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies (Barbossa, a serious Jack Sparrow in coat, and the amazingly-designed Davy Jones), plus four Johnny Lightning Star Trek ships.
Why? Because I love the movies, because I love those designs.



More broadly speaking, but collectibles are the best example: isn't it funny how people consider you, depending on the size of your collection?
If they see a dozen comics on your desk, or a few figurines, some will make fun of you, consider you childish, puerile.
Multiply this figure by ten, show them a wall of comics, shelves and display cases filled with collectibles, and you become a Collector with a capital, some sort of curator of a (pop) culture museum. And indeed, some of these collectors are considered experts (rightly, I suppose), and are now longer made fun of (well, of course, there are still people who deride this, but you get the point).

Say you like film music, and you're odd.
Show people a collection that runs in the hundreds, and you're no longer that weird curiosity (still a bit, because film music remains an odd thing, but you've earned the cpiatal "C").
Tell them, show them, many of these CDs are signed, and even more, that a lot of them are releases that were limited to a few thousand, sometimes even only a thousand or so, and you've gained respect.

Odd.



Well, who cares?
I love reading, whether literature or comics, while playing film music, and I like my little figurines and die casts.

At the heart of this, whether CDs, DVDs, comics, boks, collectibles, there surely is a "childish" quality-- in the good sense; there's a child's enjoyment and pleasure in getting a new CD, a SE DVD, a nice figurine, a rare comic.
See how people expect the announcements of new limited releases: guessing, dreaming, staying up late or getting up early to catch a glimpse of Santa, to see what he's got in store, unwrapping your presents.

The enjoyment is primarily in the listening. The diversity in the various composer styles. Force of habit? Been at it for a terribly long time it seems. Purchased my first lp in 1958. Now why do I recall that...?

I know it is a little bit off topic but I couldn´t help it, Do you guys collect something else than filmmusic (and films)?

I collect keychains and own almost 2000 (two thousand!) different ones and my collection is the third largest keychaincollection in Sweden
I have put up (all of) them on the wall in a "special" room for just this collection, kind of a little minimuseum

but I have not yet got a keychain with a filmmusic connection, I have several keychains with filmconnection that I got from my local videostore such as The Fast and The Furious and King Kong related keychains

sorry for being off topic but...