tunequest

James Horner is a hack. That's my opinion. Some people think he's a good or even great composer. I don't. I happen think he has precisely 1.5 Good scores to his credit, namely Star Trek 2 and 3. Those two score, I also happen to think, are among the finest score of the late 20th century, with an asterisk. (the asterisk being that the highlights of each ...

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So I recently listened to Louis and Bebe Barron's avant garde and experimental score to the 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet. This soundtrack was one of the handful of Records That Time Forgot columns that I wrote in a previous life. I reprint it here for your reading enjoyment. In 1956, science fiction as we know it scarcely existed as a genre. Adventures in space were mostly ...

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In the pantheon of composers who have worked on Star Trek, none are more prolific than Dennis McCarthy, who has been working with the franchise since the debut episode of The Next Generation to the final episode of Enterprise. Of course, whether you think that's a good thing or bad depends on your opinion of his music. With the rather large caveat that Mr. McCarthy's composing abilities ...

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One of the advantages of having your own website is that you get to see what keywords are bringing people to it. I recently took notice when somebody stopped by the tunequest looking for "Hedwig's theme rock version." Being both a fan of both John Williams' Harry Potter scores and off-beat cover versions, I set out to learn more. It didn't take much effort before I had ...

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cinco de mayo was a bit of a bust in my neighborhood, despite the rampant multi-culturalism. i've got a lot of mexican neighbors and was expecting a more raucous celebration or even some kind of block party with fireworks, maybe a pinata, or if i was lucky, some mariachi music. granted the weather was iffy for most of the day, but it had cleared up by ...

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Though the movie was somewhat disappointing (Ii’m not a rabid Star Wars purist, but I do admit the film could have been better), John William exceeds expectations, filling his own very big shoes for the score to Episode I: The phantom Menace. Like any good Star Wars music fan, I bought the album when it was released and had most of it memorized by the film’s ...

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John Barry, a renowned musical master delivers a most sweepingly sentimental score to the 1995 IMAX film Across the Sea of Time, a visually impressive (so I've heard) love letter to New York City, past and present. At a time when Barry's output had slowed to a trickle, this project was done by special request of his son. It's clear that he put lots of care ...

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65 looks like an impressive number, but today it's not. whereas the 66 songs from yesterday represent just over 5 hours of music, today's 65 only amount to 3.5 hours. this is partially because the severed dreams soundtrack is only 33 minutes for its 22 songs, while mahler's 6th from yesterday clocks in near 90 minutes but counts as only 4 songs. in any event, i ...

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