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But that's why I stress my sentence: "It's all about personal taste" ;-). You can discuss it endlessly, but it's also quite useless at a certain point I think :-).
That's quite a rhetorical question. But to answer it in all honesty. Movie scores have never been really money-makers in the first place....chart-wise. They never bring in huge chunks of money. So while we can discuss which composer is more popular: Thomas Newman or David Arnold...or whatever kind of composer, the fact is not many people care :-).
But I truly like Thomas Newman :-).
What about the Shawshank score? I listen to that one all the time!
Another one that didn't register...
I didn't hate Newman's score but I don't think it's all that great. I've done a tally of what I think is good, bad and alright. I'm surprised their were more tracks I liked than disliked. But I really hope Newman incorporates more Bond theme into SPECTRE's score. Craig's Bond has more than earned it. He's begging for it.
Tracks I like(14)
Grand Bazaar, Istanbul.
Severine
Brave New World
Silhouette
Modigliani
Komodo Dragons
The Chimera
Close Shave
Enquiry
Breadcrumbs
She's Mine
Mother
Old Dog, New Tricks
Tracks I don't like.(12)
New Digs
Shanghai Drive
Day Wasted
Quartermaster
Enjoying Death
Health and Safety (I absolutely hate this track. It belongs in Wall-E)
Granborough Road (DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN that's all I hear.)
Skyfall (not Adele's song.)
Kill them First
Welcome to Scotland
The Moors
Adrenaline
Tracks with mixed opinions.(7)
Voluntary Retirement
Jellyfish (I don't care for the beginning but when Bond is sneaking in the glass rooms that's where the song picks up.)
Someone Usually Dies.
The Bloody Shot (don't care for the first minute but the rest of the track is solid.)
Tennyson
Deep Water.
Post of the day.
Open shot of Shanghai
Bonds arrival at Macau by boat
Bond and Severine on the boat approaching Silvas island
New digs
The Aston driving through Scotland
There are others.
There are enough people on this thread, myself included, who are not convinced of this after listening to 11 years of his work on Bond. I just heard regurgitation, and not incorporation and finessing. Even George Martin and Bill Conti did a far better job of weaving the theme into their own compositions in their respective one shot endeavors.
Arnold just wasn't good enough for many of us. Music is, as @Gustav_Graves said, a matter of taste, and while there is universal praise for Barry, there isn't for Arnold. The recent Soundtrack Elimination Game proved it yet again. As I've said, he was not, for the most part, worthy of this high stakes job.
I'd rather EON shake it up post-Newman and go with someone else (even if it's a change for every movie) than go back to Arnold.
I personally preferred every new composer they've brought on (including the legendary Marvin Hamlisch) to David Arnold's entire body of work for James Bond, except of QoS. There were far more memorable action scores in other movies during his Bond tenure, and that was particularly disappointing for me, when the franchise set the standard for so many years.
I prefer Arnold to Newman, but am not bowled over by either of them.
Why didn't we hear any of this in SF, instead of the mostly bland stuff he churned out? At least I know he has it in him now to pull out a decent tune, I hope he turns it around for SP.
I think if you look at my posts you'll see I'm no Newman fan boy I was mostly underwhelmed by his score for SF and would have probably preferred Arnold to do it in hindsight but I only think that DA has come into his own with CR and QOS.
I'm just not impressed with much after TLD, fine you like Brosnan, I don't. I actually think Arnold would probably have produced his best Bond score if he'd done SP after the promise he showed with QOS but the Brosnan scores are just pastiches or techno beats to me. He actually started to show some restraint by CR and then produced his best Bond score with QOS.
Arnold at the moment is a better Bond composer but then again he's had 5 Bond scores to proves it and some would say that to them he hasn't proved nothing. I'm neither a Arnold hater or a fan boy, I'm kind of not convinced on the whole, he's had his moments though.
Barry was just too damn good at this for a bunch lowly pretenders to take up the baton but while EON have upped in many departments they seem to accept hired hands like Davey boy or the directors choice. I hope that the directors going forward aren't just allowed to impose the composer of their choice like Mendes has been able to.
Anyway Newman has another chance to impress us but if I was going for any factor of SP that is going to be underwhelming then the score would be no. 1
So I am neither damning Arnold or promoting Newman but I just don't want the JB theme for the sake of it. I think Arnold did his best weaving in the CR score when he couldn't use the JB theme but it was there only subtle but he also created a great theme with the YKMN instrumental, pity he couldn't use it again, maybe he'll get a chance before DC's era plays out.
Just listening to the TLD soundtrack. A masterpiece. Why are we even having this debate? No one comes close to Barry. His orchestrations, melodies, themes are incredible.
Arnold is a pail imitation, although his CR and QoS scores really showed significant signs of improvement. Newman is a nonentity when you compare him to Barry - he just brings zilch to the table. Sorry to offend the Newman fans, but he's a complete nonentity compared to Barry.
Newman is also a bit of a nonentity when compared to Arnold too, IMO.
On this I disagree. I think it's too early to write him off after only one critically acclaimed and underivative shot.
I have no problem with those wanting someone other than Newman post-SP but I don't agree with those holding up Arnold as that choice. He had his 5. He improved, but like Brosnan, to me, it was a case of too little, too late. The majority of his 5 remain sub-standard to me and that is not on.
Time for something, and someone, new post-Newman imho.
--> 1 Grammy win
--> 1 BAFTA win
--> 1 ASCAP Film Music Award win
--> 1 International Film Music Critics Award win
--> 1 BMI Film Music Award win
--> 1 Indiana Film Journalists Association Award win
--> 1 Oscar nomination
It's all rubbish, and doesn't tell us anything about the tiniest bit of love for the score outside this MI6-forum :-).
Where are the sincere, respectful and grateful congratulations towards Thomas Newman about the SF score :-)?
Did I say that? Or imply that? I don't think so...
So if awards really stood for the quality of the composer and his music, then this means Newman's score for SF is far superior to anything Barry ever wrote for Bond.
Yet we all know this isn't true in a million years, which is why we can easily disregard these meaningless awards because they mean absolutely nothing, other than a goodwill gesture on a film which was received well by critics, and an inevitable but well-deserved acknowledged nod to a 50 year old franchise of cinema.
If you think otherwise, and believe Newman really deserved to bag all the awards he did compared to John Barry's unappreciated efforts, then I think you are deluded.
2 of his Bond songs were nominated for Golden Globes, AVTAK & FRWL. He's won 1 GG for a non-Bond score and been nominated for 9 more.
He won a BMI Film & TV Award for TLD. Was nominated for a Grammy for GF and won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Soundtrack Awards.
He's not exactly been snubbed.
You didn't read what I wrote. I said snubbed for a Bond film. All the nominations you listed for Bond, spanning over 20 years and countless movies is nothing short of embarrassing and disgraceful, when compared to what dross Newman served up and was then subsequently awarded for SF.
8-|
He certainly shouldn't have received a nomination for SF. That is just laughable.
I agree about the Brosnan films, but I felt Arnold really came into his own with CR and QoS, which for most part were up there with the best of the Bond soundtracks.