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Now come on EON and do the right thing to correct this madness, and bring in the only man fit for this job - David Arnold.
No other composer gets Bond (and Barry) like he does. Arnold should be the first person on the crew list every time a new Bond film is made. To me he is just as important to Bond as Daniel Craig is.
WHAT?!!!
Moroder’s score for SCARFACE is perfect! It’s a movie deeply rooted in the early 1980s and the synth score perfectly compliments it. Just like the OHMSS theme grooves with the moog synths of 1969.
A gangster epic with a theme, that sounds like it was lifted from a porn-movie?
What’s next, no Sicilian themed music for THE GODFATHER?
Scarfacial? 😏
16 Min. of his work on M:I-6
You are comparing violins, strings and mandolins with a Moog synthesizer?
If John Barry had a more strictly classical approach to music, we wouldn’t have the very Bond theme that opened DR. NO.
Strings, horns, moog, drum machines? All valid instruments that can make great music.
+1
I like Lorne and I like that score but I wouldn't want him anywhere near Bond.
Maybe used for establishing an international locale. Like LA.
Harmonica https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB-yz58Ril8
Banjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSfAtFu_LdA
"Thunderball", Johnny Cash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSfAtFu_LdA
"James Bond Theme", Robot Quadrotors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sUeGC-8dyk
"James Bond Theme", Boomwackers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwK9IvF7N5s
No one is advocating the use of banjos and harmonicas, so I don’t see what point you’re making there. John Barry seemed perfectly content with experimenting with the Bond sound as far back as the 60s, which I can’t blame him given the many times he had to score and find new ways of keeping them feeling fresh. Because of his more liberal use of instruments we got great pieces like this:
If you rather Bond films stick to a more conservative orchestra, fair enough.
Whereas some need to appreciate what Newman did, I think is SF score has some real inspired moments but I definitely found Arnold's CR and QOS score more memorable.
It's down to, does the composer set the mood and accompany the scene appropriately like Barry did, although Barry also made it memorable and melodic.
It seems composers can only do one or the other these days and not both like Barry could.
Arnold didn't have nowhere the hit ratio that Barry did but then Barry was an innovator, its like comparing Oasis to the Beatles. Maybe that is harsh because at least Arnold has varied his sound rather than banging out the same old tired sound since day one.
Trying to please us all is an impossible task at the end of the day.
Barry worked in different times. He could allow himself to write much less music for the whole film. I prefer this approach a lot, but I don´t blame Arnold for his overscoring, because he is very aware of the producers´ demands, it´s a symptom of the times.
Why? Because of the elevator music in some action scenes? I find that music very amusing. But most of the time the music doesn´t sound that much different from other Bond films. The bass line I think when Bond enters the hotel in Cortina is one of my favorite Bond sounds of all times.
1st generation synthsesizers? What was it then that Pink Floyd and Jean-Michel Jarre used ten years earlier ;-)?
It´s out of the question that a) Arnold is much more limited in his talent than Barry (saying this as a huge fan of Arnold´s music!), and b) the film music business has totally changed, Arnold lives in an age where film composers are much more hired to merely accompany a film and enhance the already existing mood, rather than (as Goldsmith described it) adding to the film what is not there without the music. Another thing is that we live in a derivative time, where every composer is supposed to be able to emulate every major composer of the past, so that film producers can demand, "give us something that sounds like Williams" or "like Vangelis", so that naturally more pastiche is produced by demand of the producers. Of course it doesn´t help that Zimmer and his armada openly embrace their role as (as Zimmer or Lorne Balfe on one occasion indirectly formulated it) Hollywood whores.
It´s a shame, because I think it´s a gross misconception. I´m sure that a strong, self-contained film score would sell at least as well as what we usually get these days.
The second quote that you have credited to me , concerning the Synthesizer, is not mine.
Either way, the score to FYEO shows the danger of doing a score that is too current or trendy..
That's why I am rooting for Arnold to come back. Here we have him blending classic sound with modern (from 01:32) and more than 20 years later it still sounds fresh:
They are, with CR and QOS being even better. 😏
DAD and QOS are really the only Arnold scores I find myself revisiting the most. DAD for basically being Arnold "let loose", and QOS being his most cohesive work. Forster assigning Arnold to base the writing of the score on the script rather than dailies did wonders.
Everything else I wouldn't be upset about never hearing again.