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I always finds retrospectives about the 1960's interesting. And the sounds that defined the 60's etc.
One of the greatest exponents of defining the 60's in sound was NOT pop groups in general - but in fact John Barry.It's no good someone born in 1971 coming on TV and saying otherwise - because they were not F****** there!
@Errikos said:
People smirk and condescend on such TV today, since Ally McBeal, Law and Order, Sex and the City, CSI, etc. are not fully patronizing and are much more relevant today (right...). If that is the case, why is the music which is supposed to heighten that "depth" (yeah...) and "sophistication" (sure...) so freaking base? Why oh why does TV music slurp so vehemently today (excepting Star Trek TV and a couple of other shows)? O.K., say that I am biased since I hated those shows with an immortal passion... In that case, I found House MD's first few seasons generally quite intelligent (you may disagree). At the same time, I was confounded by the inappropriateness of the title and dramatic musics (you may not disagree). If you can't score for - what is intended - a highly brilliant and complex, suffering personality and your music sounds like powering up a studio's gear, get the F.A.Q. out of here and give me the job!
As I said in my original post to William’s original post, is it bad composing or is it show producers who desire bad composing. It seems to me that it’s the later because I’ve noticed that more and more TV show themes are not themes at all but sound designs; block chords, peppered with eerie synth arpeggios treated with a delay effect, BLOINKS! BLOOPS! And FASHIZZLES! And, of course, everything is drowning in way too much reverb. The show producers at some point have to listen to this stuff and make a decision, right? “Absolutely brilliant! The way those FASHIZZLES and BLOOPS whirl around in your piece are so characteristic of our protagonist. This is what we’ve been waiting for.” What I fear the most is that this is some kind of cultural paradigm shift in television music. Or what is more commonly referred to as a “generational thing.” Maybe the kids nowadays just don’t dig good TV themes.
On the other hand, it could very well be bad composing and that’s what I hope it is. I’ve also noticed a few TV shows are licensing top 40 pop songs to be their themes as well. Didn’t used to be the other way around? I remember some really good TV themes becoming Top 40 hits like, The Rockford Files, Greatest American Hero, Bosom Buddies, and, I think Cheers. Perhaps there are some musically inclined show producers out there who have heard the BLOINKS and BLOOPS and have said to the so-called ‘arteest’ composer, “dude, I’m not paying for something that you just shat out of your DAW in five minutes.”
These things tent to be cyclical though. I hope we go back to the basics like melody harmony and counterpoint soon because it sure is getting hard to do BLOINKS BLOOPS and FASHIZZLES with my mouth every time I play ‘Name That TV Theme’ with my friends.
These are really interesting comments. It makes you realize how little this area of music is ever dealt with.
I don't think that composers today are worse than in the past. But what has happened in TV is the lowest common denominator is in complete control. In the TV days of Goldsmith and Herrmann and those other great composers, the business was not as efficient. So they would hire someone who did an artistically good score just for the hell of it. But today, the suits know that you don't need art for "product" and you can create "product" with exactly those bleeps and bloops almost automatically. So the total efficiency of the businessmen in charge is responsible for the drop in musical artistry, not the composers.
It must be a combination of $-driven 'suits' who don't view any series (no matter how good or base) as drama or opera anymore, but only as terminally dumbing drivel that happens between commercials, AND really BAD composers who are trying so hard to qualify for, and be recognized as DJs, the higher rank these days - and not of David Holmes quality. I know I would do a proper job unless the producers/directors threw it out the window and demanded I DJed, in which case - surprise! - I would walk out, stuff the money if that crap is to be credited with my name on the screen...
Meaning, that I only want music of quality to be publicly available under my name, of as much quality as I am capable, and I think all the memorable past composers wished this, as well as anyone today worth the title. That is why I also blame the compos(t)ers. If they say "why sweat it, this assignment is not worth our 100%", I say listen to the greats; they don't care about the quality of the project (if they really need money they take it, sure), but they never drop the standards of their own work - from Prokofiev to Rose, the serious ones, the ones that have bled to acquire their art and only use the technology as convenience (not dependence!), they care what they leave for posterity, they care about being able the following day to look colleagues in the eye, they care about those learned colleagues saying "great work that track yesterday"...
A great score won't rescue a crap tv program - period. Neither will a crap score completely ruin a great tv program. It's fair to say that there are probably more good music writers out there today than good tv program makers. But you could say the same thing for editors and cinema-photographers too etc etc.
Take the Coen Brothers films for instance. They occasionally make good films. They have a great cinema-photographer they've more or less used for years - and they have a musician they've also used for years. One of them earns his dough - and the other one seemingly does very little to earn his. It's the way of tv and films.
Yes, of course it is - it is the famous Funeral march of a Marionette by Gounod who I remember had the gall to criticize Cesar Franck - an immensely better composer - for using an English Horn in his D minor symphony, telling him you can't use that instrument in a symphony!!! But anyway I was not talking about the main title theme of that program. Bernard Herrmann wrote the internal scores for the later seasons, using those unique instrumental combinations I was speaking of.
BTW the most famous Theme of the Twilight Zone was not by Herrmann but by an avant garde composer whose name i can't remember. Can you? But Herrmann wrote another theme for the same show that was used and it was actually much better, though not as weird in the doo-doo-doo-doo way everybody likes to mimic when something strange happens.
@William said:
BTW the most famous Theme of the Twilight Zone was not by Herrmann but by an avant garde composer whose name i can't remember. Can you? But Herrmann wrote another theme for the same show that was used and it was actually much better, though not as weird in the doo-doo-doo-doo way everybody likes to mimic when something strange happens.
Speaking of the Twilight Zone, does anybody know what instrument made that famous doo-doo-doo-doo phrase?
I'll take an a mile of block chords over the guy who scores about seventy percent of today's major releases. Over the past five or six years he's come on like (and with) blockbusters... Anyone know much about him? He goes by the name of "Various Artists."
As for TV-- my girlfriend watches a lot of medical shows and those Sunday night melodramas. If I can't escape the room, I'll read a book. But I've yet to block my ears to the soundtracks, an endless procession of soft folky songs sung in serious soft voices, mixed just low enough that not a single lyric is understood, which, I suppose is the point, as they're supposed to sound wise and keenly aware of the point of the scene, whatever that is, and most likely would not if we could hear them.
Is there actually a name for that relatively new genre of songwriting being cloned from one series to the next? The same lame/basky acoustic guitar and even lamer, pathetic, aesthetically excruciating, reeking vocals that accompany it? A snotty youngster who has no right to be in the same building with a microphone and a recording device supposedly "touches" the "moment" and us, while it's always the same music and tone of voice whether it's scoring death, dilemma, relationship problem, poor grades, pseudo-existentialism, destitution, AND EVEN sharing a bottle of wine with a loved one in front of a fireplace, family reunion, recovery, resolution of sorts, etc. It's incredible! The same track for sadness, anxiety, contentment and release! If the genre has been identified, is there someone credited for its inception? I'd like to get a contract out on her/him.
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