Think about when orchestral scores came back into vogue and what the film was that featured a flat-out orchestra. And also try to understand how the oscar academy works. I can't go on repeating this shytte.

Bernard Herrmann won an oscar in 1940 not for Citizen Kane but a now very much lesser known film called The Devil & Daniel Webster. Very clever scoring with the use of 4 overdubbed solo violin performances. Highly original as was the score to Citizen Kane. From thereon, to 1974 Herrmann never won another oscar for filmscoring. Why? Because they didn't like him as a person. They thought he was a rather common, rude person from New York and in Hollywood, talent doesn't really mean anything when it comes to awards. 

Talented people only really come to the fore years after the original project has been done and dusted and is then rediscovered by new generations. Why anyone would care about baftas or oscars is beyond me, unless of course you are the recipient and your salary/fee goes up.

If those wankers in Hollywood are telling me that Herrmann was only worth one oscar in 34 years of filmscoring and for instance, John Barry was worth 5, then I'm telling them their oscars are nothing more than a payscale fix.

You're right Paul in that the Oscars are not some kind of ultimate designators of the highest standards, not just in music, but in most categories. And yes, Herrmann deserved many more awards, as did Goldsmith, Morricone deserved at least one if not five or six ('Cinema Paradiso' with an opening title which is arguably the most inspired melody ever composed for film wasn't even nominated), and a host of others. And there have been innumerable occasions when one score should have triumphed over all others and didn't.

However, until this year there has never been such indigence of talent, such penury of originality and character (at least among the nominees), where it made sense to give the award to something different, rather than select one among the yet again tawdry symphonic scores. That I considered a well-deserved and long over due slap in the collective face of composers. And I don't mean that the winning soundtrack must by definition be symphonic; it could be traditional, regional, black metal, anything as long as it served the film and was inspired and characteristic (as opposed to *#&$(@^ generic). I would have wholeheartedly awarded Ocean's 11 and 12 in lieu of something interesting in the orchestral domain in the relevant years.

Jasen, would you care to elaborate regarding the music unions? I don't understand how they can force a producer to hire live musicians as opposed to just have the token Z-clone press buttons. I hope you're right by the way, I just can't make sense of it.

@Another User said:

Sure - that's why in 1980 'Fame' beat 'The Empire Strikes Back' for the award of Best Original Score. Take off the rose-tinted spectacles...

@Another User said:

Sure - that's why in 1980 'Fame' beat 'The Empire Strikes Back' for the award of Best Original Score. Take off the rose-tinted spectacles...

I heard the no.1 track on the wretched YouTube before I posted this thread, and wasn't impressed at all! However, I admit my haste to have judged a book by its cover, so following your question/admonition I went back and listened to a few more tracks. Although it is not my cup of tea and I didn't hear anything characteristic no matter how many styles this consummate composer threw in the music, I certainly heard a lot of fresh writing; this man has more talent in one braincell than 'You Know Who' has tracks in his most obfuscated and turgid mix. At last, someone with technique to spare, although judging from his penchant for too much eclecticism and popish rhythms he must be young, which means he could mature into an extraordinary composer in today's climate. So, with all contrition I withdraw this score from my list of current 'run of the mill' soundtracks.

However, I maintain that this year's Academy Award for music is the biggest slap ever delivered on current film-music's ugly face, and that the 1980 aforementioned example is the only one that comes near it. All the other "injustices" were far less outrageous when compared to 2011 (twenty eleven).

@Errikos said:

Jasen, would you care to elaborate regarding the music unions? I don't understand how they can force a producer to hire live musicians as opposed to just have the token Z-clone press buttons. I hope you're right by the way, I just can't make sense of it.

Hopefully, somebody a little more knowledgable in the subject than me will correct any erroneous information that I may post as I don't claim to be an authority on this but the way I understand it is the players unions have agreements with the major studios wherein if a composed score requires acoustic instruments then the studio must hire living breathing musicians (union members) to perform.  They are usually on contract with the studio anyway.  Although the composer may use sample libraries for mock ups the studio can not then use those mock ups as the master score recording to be synced to the film.  There are some rare exceptions here and there; Danny Elfman has been known to use samples in his scores.  Now I'm probably overgeneralizing this but that's how I understand it.  There are similar agreements for live theatre orchestras too.

AFAIK this just applies to the major studios such as Disney, MGM, etc.  Smaller independent studios and producers are free to use samples, mock ups or whatever.  Generally, smaller studios hire nonunion players where they can anyway.  In fact, if they can afford it they tend to go overseas, especially Eastern Europe.         

I'm sure glad to hear what you say but only insofar as it preserves live playing in a way. On the other hand it sounds totalitarian to enforce any private party to hire people when they weren't planning on hiring any. Come to think of it I believe there are some of us who would be ecstatic to hear that orchestrators decided to go on strike (if only) like the writers did a few years back. That would certainly illuminate the new "emperors'" clothes we've been forced to admire for the past 10-15 years since those charlatans wouldn't be able to resort to their musical wheelchairs (Cinescamples etc.) according to your theory...

I was personally hoping that John Powell's score would win for How to Train Your Dragon.  I loved the music and the film.  It worked really well together, and the music is enjoyable and entertaining on its own--separate from the film.

As far as Zimmer is concerned, whom I tend to, I guess, despise, I have to say that I liked the film Inception, and I like the music with the film.  But unlike Dragon, the music does not transcend the picture, which to my mind makes Dragon a better candidate.  Zimmer's music was powerful, but it had no heart to it, no real earnestness.

As far as Social Network, again the music works with the film, but apart, it's just loops and textures that don't mean a lot without something to look at.  Am I the only one who feels a similarity between the Social Network's main theme and the song "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie?  It's those piano notes...

He didn't say they were stock loops.  I'm sure Reznor took the time to create his own loops, but that doesn't change the fact that they are loops.

I agree that creating new synth patches is an art.  However I didn't notice any that were remotely original in the film, maybe he took lots of time to create new sounds from scratch but the end result was patches that sounded like a million other existing synth patches.  Reznor does have some amazing work under his belt.  But a score should be judged on its merits, not given a pass based on past work.  There's plenty of NIN material that I'd consider award quality, but this soundtrack wasn't even in the same league, a major step down for him.

@vibrato said:

Its very ignorant of you to say that Reznor's music is just loops and textures as if you were in his studio to see that he was just chopping off loops and using stock Omnisphere textures.

Fair enough.  How about if I said, "modern minimalism isn't my cup of tea" instead?  I didn't mean to imply he used prefab loops, as was indicated, and I don't own Omnisphere--probably couldn't afford it right now anyway--just that he seemed to repeat himself a lot.  Perhaps there was a reason for it and he was playing upon the filmmaker's suggestion of borderline Asperger's that Zuckerberg exhibited, and the kinds of repetetive ticks associated.  It worked with the film--I'm not arguing that, just that I personally and subjectively felt that it doesn't translate to the enjoyment of repeated listenings separately from the film in the same way that Dragon does.  I had an emotional connection to the musical material that transcends the movie, and I didn't with the Social Network.

@Another User said:

Everyones opinions are respected! I am usualy suspicious of the tone other people write off electronic music with. I just dint think that Reznor's score was not deserving at all or anything like that.

Who's writing off electronic music?  I think electronic loops playing over and over are as mind numbing as a 100 piece orchestra playing the same chord progression over and over again.  Vangelis is one of my favorite composers.  Gorgio Morodor's score for Scarface gets plenty of air time in my mp3 player as well. 

Regarding Reznor.  As I said before I don't have anything against him I just think he's over rated a bit.  When I composed electronic music exclusively people like Nicky Ryan were more of an influence on me while all my contemporaries were worshiping Trent Reznor.  I never quite understood it.  Who the hell is Nicky Ryan?  He's one third of Enya.  He's her producer and the one credited for creating her distinctive sound.  Now there's a master composer of synth pads.  He's uses nothing more than Enya's voice heavily processed through some antiquated samplers.  And you won't hear any mindnumbing loops in her music, electronic or acoustic.     

Time again for some perspective in this forum...

Orchestral music ranges from Beethoven's 9th to the occupant of the bottom rung of the talent-ladder from Hell of 'You Know Who'"s imitators; they both score/d for orchestra; but what an immeasurable difference... And may I also mention the almost immeasurable amount of composers that fill the void in between?

Same goes for electronic music. I'm sick and tired of people referring to electronic music as the domain of "creative DJs" and so-called "sound designers", "producers", whatever, who buy the truly illustrious Omnisphere and because they tweak a couple of knobs which change the sounds they delude themselves into believing they're creative??!! If you think you know anything about synthesis start from a raw sine wave in Csound or a simple sample and impress me without using other people's algorithms; that's exactly what all those composters are doing with those ready-made orchestral chunks on the other side of the spectrum. They use their mouse-riding index finger to trigger already sequenced aptly orchestrated blocks and just put them together with maybe an asinine "melodic" line of their own on top of other people's work; bravo!... bravo!... What invention!... Same with those insignificants that lay down a beat slightly filtered and keep adding loops (even their own - who cares really...), and by twisting a knob every few seconds, or drawing automation (you need a Ph.D for that) they create musical modulation, i.e. interest... bravo again.... I wonder do any of these people have any idea what real inventive electronic music sounds like? What uncharted vistas of sonic universes are possible? Would they have heard the names of Xenakis, Lansky, the work at IRCAM, etc.? 

As long as we know what we are talking about maybe we can get somewhere in a discussion, so long as people broaden their academic horizons a little and learn how to apply nomenclature. Yes, the quirky, "cool" score of the Faecebook film was electronic music as there were no acoustic instruments involved, but let's not taint that enormous and important musical genre by elevating such basic, puerile and marginal works as representatives of that genre; we might as well refer to Giacchino's Star Trek soundtrack as a token example of 'Classical Music' because a live orchestra was employed...

Perspective!

P.S.: Yes, a lot of us hate the 'Z''s music, but I don't think we hate him specifically, as a person. However, I hate his imitators more (pilferers), and most of all, the directors that hire them and keep them from immediately starving in the anti-Darwinian fight for "survival of the unfittest" (actual destroyers of culture).

I'm a big nine inch nails fan. But i have to admit this in no way deserved to win. Honestly, if you are familiar with Trent Reznor's body of work, and can discern his "style" of writing (the way he composes, his own song-writing "traps" he falls into), this sounds like basically just an average NIN song, except without insanely distorted drums, bit-reduced metal guitar riffs, and angry singing. In the same way that many of us could pick out a Zimmer tune within 5 seconds, this (to me) is just pregnant with typical Reznorisms.

Again, i really like NIN (for pop/alternative) music, but it seems to me that whoever votes on this stuff is fairly uneducated in actual MUSIC, and simply voted for it more on a whole as an element of the film. Maybe in that sense, it was a "good" score. But it begs the question....  is the category then simply an award to "Music That Best Fit the Film it was In," or is it actually best *MUSIC*?? Seems to me they are leaning toward the former.

-michael

.

Forget oscars and America's obsession with royalty.

Go and watch Ironclad with Paul Giametti playing King John. A proper bloody King who killed peasants for fun. A king who robbed the poor instead of giving them benefits. A king who had no interest in the likes of Robin Hood and his band of dirty scum. A king who would sign the Magna Carta and then piss on it 3 months later. That's what I call a king! Not like his brother, a brown hatter who spent 9 months in this country during his reign. Not some stammering twerp who wanted to stay at home with his kids while taxpayers paid for it. I'm talking about King John who would cut your bollocks of as soon as look at you! That's a real KING!! Not Elvis - but the real deal.

That's the film that should have won an oscar.

And Natalie Portman can't act btw.

Okkkayyyyy.

Not meaning to take a left turn or be obtuse for the sake of it but my overall feeling is that the western world's music culture is in decline and has been for the past 5 or so years. It's happened in the pop world as well. Never has there been such descpicable, bereft of creativity bilge.

I read somewhere that the Cohen brothers said they made "No Country For Old Men" because they felt that it was a common phenomenon for men in their 50's or thereabouts to feel strongly that the world had lost it's moral compass and was decending into a bad place.

I mean, are we just getting old?

The track your referring to in my opinion is not bad. But it's not great. Not even close to great. There is a lot of celebrating mediocrity these days.

Perhaps many of the potential great  writers ended up taking a different career path.

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@mplaster said:

it seems to me that whoever votes on this stuff is fairly uneducated in actual MUSIC, and simply voted for it more on a whole as an element of the film. Maybe in that sense, it was a "good" score. But it begs the question....  is the category then simply an award to "Music That Best Fit the Film it was In," or is it actually best *MUSIC*?? Seems to me they are leaning toward the former.

-michael

One other thing, I'm sure it was the case over 20 years ago that except in the category of 'Best Film', only relevant professionals were eligible to vote for their own categories, ex. designers for design, make-up artists for make-up, and composers for original score. Has that changed? For I just can't compute how even the current throngs of uninspired and untrained mouse-riders would have voted in their majority for a score like that...

@vibrato said:

Creating unique electronic sounds and any other kind of beat or rhythm is as creative as writing a symphonic piece of work.

Agreed! Take a Listen:

However, getting an Oscar for the alternate version of the menu music for the "Cliffhanger" DVD (not to mention "Vertical Limit") is just flat-out wrong, especially in light that this was just a gussied-up consolation prize.

We need a return to imagination and not just "toys".

.

If we don't share approximately the same amount of musical knowledge, hence can't have similar frames of reference, and can't agree on nomenclature - again for the same reason, most of the discussion takes place on different levels; ergo, no corollaries can be extrapolated that will lead to possible conclusions. In other words... Hot Air!

Keep your Bareback Mountains, your Portmans, and your Reznors; they go very well together and represent very accurately the glorious film-making, acting, and scoring of today. Just as creative - and demanding of mental faculties and technique I might add - as writing a symphony....

I'm SO out of this thread.