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

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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".

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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.

Pinewood/Shepperton have announced that they are going to start doing low budget British films. That is no surprise considering the economic situation and all round general crap that comes out these days and costs a fortune. Films don't and shouldn't need to be high budget CGI if you have good storylines, good scripts ect. Actors in general are nearly always good and not really part of todays problem. It' s the scripts, direction and storylines that count. Give a good actor a rank bad script and it doesn't matter how good they are.  But bear in mind that films nearly always reflect society and what it wants at any given point in the present, so don't get too excited because society today is more or less in a state of flux and general vomit.

In general, you need to appeal to the audiences that have disposable income or are pre-disposed to going to the cinema in the first place. In short, a lot of the time you have to pander to the texting moron brigade. Low budget films can put that to bed because a lot of the revenue can come from other sources apart from the cinema/theatre without the need to gamble on huge cinema audiences that like to text.

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James Horner did Troy, a last minute replacement when the original score by Gabriel Yared was rejected.

[:(] Why am I dragged back into this?... Wasn't my graceless exit good enough for everyone?

Tanuj,

Indeed you need to go to university or do the equivalent self-study at home in order to appreciate quite a few kinds of music, one of the reasons being that you are not constantly bombarded with examples of them by radio/TV/Internet in order to familiarize yourself with them, get to feel their structure and sensibility repeatedly, be able to discern the better works from the rest, etc.

Saying that "good music speaks universally" presupposes all things being equal. They are not. Due to the propaganda tools (media), political agenda, the facile nature of pop/folk music, and the increasingly uncultivated public due to continually decreasing education standards (for everyone needs to graduate...), many more people have their car-radios switched to Gaga stations, rather than Mozart ones; it would seem that good music actually speaks very specifically...

However, with what exactly do you disagree from my last post? I decided to throw the towel in the ring of this discussion simply because we were using different terms for different things and there was no common ground for me at least to go on. For example, what you and others refer to as 'electronic music' is the bottom of the barrel stuff! People mentioned like Reznor, the guy that digitized the Bond gun-barrel opening, and Faltermeyer, they are to 'electronic music' what Hans Zimmer is to Bach and Wagner in 'instrumental music'; i.e. those others above, like 'Z', are not original at all, they just use the most basic precepts of serious 'electronic music' that happens elsewhere, and only appear original and talented to people who are not familiar with the strata above them. If the names of Chowning, Cope, Risset and so many others mean nothing to you, then I am sorry, we cannot have a discussion because you haven't been to university, or nevertheless,  because you don't have the necessary background. And that's just one example of why discussion is fruitless unless we all share a similar amount of information on a subject.

You say "we have departed from the era of Herrmann" (I would say Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky). You add "that's just a reality that exists" and that whenever you come to this forum you see negative comments etc. Why should I not consistently try to avert further descent into awfulness by screaming out charlatans of the industry? Why sit passively back and accept deterioration? If your body deteriorated through disease that came with age, wouldn't you go to the doctor to halt an otherwise natural progress? The fact that we have chronologically moved forward doesn't necessarily mean we have progressed in all areas...

And don't forget, this thread had nothing to do with everybody's freedom to like whatever they choose according to their taste, or non-exposure to more sophisticated material (like you suggested). the thread had to do however with the supposedly highest award for film-music in the western world. Those people's criteria are supposed to be more discerning than the common folk's.

@vibrato said:

Errikos,

I may not agree with what you say but I respect your views. You are free to think and write anything of course! I am not stopping you from writing here.

For the record I did my bachelors in Music, Technology and Innovation where I studied all things to do with electroacoustic music - Piere Schaeffer, Dennis Smalley and was even taking lessons under Simon Emmerson, Leigh Landy and of course we had many visiting faculty from around the world. So, when I talk about electronic music, I have some grounding. You are right in saying that Reznor's score was not hardcore electronic music but I thought it was good film music - perhaps not good enough to win an Oscar. I dont really care about who wins.

However, saying Reznor's music is the bottom of the barrel, is certainly not right in my view.

I dont want to say much further because we are both tied to our views and rightly so in our own worlds. While we may not agree on musical taste on this occassion, I am sure there are some things both of us like.

You are not going to change the industry by screaming in this forum. You can with your music may be, one day! So, rather focus on that and I would say - take it easy! You seem too frustrated with many things!

Peace out!

Tanuj.

Tanuj,

I've already answered the points you made; you did not do the same, you just say you disagree - that's your choice. On this post, I don't really see where you disagree with me except on some aesthetic grounds regarding Reznor' place in the 'electro-acoustic' world, but you seem to agree that his tracks were probably not Oscar worthy. Since you seem to know the said discipline through your studies, this high regard of Reznor's output on your part seems incomprehensible to me. Still, I'm glad you agree with me that "Reznor's score was not hardcore electronic music" so some others here may be able to remove the glue from their eyes and wax from their ears, and find out that serious electronic music did not originate, and does not take place in dance clubs.

As far as me being frustrated with many things, you are of course correct; I'm proud to be sharing this trait with most of the great historical personalities and geniuses I respect. I never said I could change the world by "screaming on this forum", I entertain no such delusions. I admit it's more of a venting outlet for me and a milieu for sharing those frustrations of mine with some like-minded people. Of course one should try and effect changes as much as possible through one's work, as talk is cheap. However, don't think that my "guts" are reserved exclusively for this safe forum. I fight real and similar battles every day in my country, making some allies but mostly enemies in the world of music here which cost me dearly career-wise, but I don't compromise on my principles. My face both in this forum and professionally is one and the same; not many people can say that, especially when they march against the current grain...

 mike,

Horner... yes.  Thanks for that correction.

 .

When is Hans going to win an oscar? That's what I want to know so I can have huge bet. If you can win an oscar for a bollocks film about the internet or romcoms with a cast of fucking moose that sound like ducks running around the screen, surely Hans can win an oscar? and btw....

I WON'T STAND FOR ANYTHING SAID AGAINST HANS!!!!!!! 

OR TREVOR!!!!!!

I have to admit some puzzlement regarding the Academy's reluctance to shower Hans with a whole Round Table of sword-wielding statuettes, considering his enormous popularity and unrivalled pre-eminence in film-music for the last 10-15 years, but actually that is not so. Even nominations have been relatively scarce (excepting those comedy/musical nominations). Maybe, after all is said, he is only a legend in the minds of giftless mouseters, looping and arpeggiating '1-bar symphonists' - who give Philip Glass a good name, that can finally exclaim "At last! Film-music that I can write!".

The same cannot be said of Trevor who is of course on his way to many more awards, recognition, recordings from Simon Rattle and Neeme Jarvi of his Concerto for Semiquavers and Orchestra, and most importantly,

Paul Robbins' music Hall of Fame.

(You shouldn't have brought me back Tanuj [;)])

Many of the choices for both nominations and wins have been really baffling.  I could see if the awards were going to either "best" or "most popular" but many times it seems to be neither.

And Zimmer did win an oscar for Lion King.