Does the author of this review have a bias against Hans Zimmer?

He consistently credits "Hans Zimmer/Various" in the Zimmer scores reviews, he consistently writes about "Zimmer's crew", etc. even when speaking about themes that are known to be composed by Zimmer (for instance the Wonder Woman theme).

But when it comes to Danny Elfman, he seems to ignore the presence of 3 ghostwriters, plus a few additional arrangers/orchestrators.

In other terms, Geoff Zanelli helping on a Zimmer score is unacceptable ghostwriting and makes it impossible to attribute any merits to Zimmer himself, but the very same Geoff Zanelli helping on an Elfman score is OK?

Anyway, the score by Danny Elfman and his army of ghostwriters (I had to write that, sorry ) accompanies the movie well enough. It successfully suppresses any kind of epicness/danger/tension/seriousness/boldness/theatricallity that Joss Whedon's rewrites/reshoots forgot to erase. It blatantly shows how childish and weightless the movie is, something that a Zimmer or Junkie XL score would have partly hidden.

I might be completely wrong, but Zimmer seems to collaborate extensively with his ghostwriters. If you look at the cue sheets, many of them are responsible for major cues and sometimes even thematic material.

Generally speaking, if you look at the BMI repertoire, Elfman is solely responsible for the majority of cues in his scores - with the apparent exception of Goosebumps and Avengers. And the cues he tends to farm out are generally (though not always) minor.

Halli Cauthery is credited for additional music for Hellboy II, and he wrote around a minute or so of music, for example. Lindgren got an additional music credit for Oz, and all he wrote was a short source piece that one of the characters plays for a few seconds. On the other hand, Bacon seems to have had a very large role with Goosebumps.

There's also the fact that Elfman needed no help on The Girl on the Train, End of the Tour, The Circle...which suggests that it's an issue of time. I remember an interview for End of the Tour where Elfman said one of the reasons he was so excited to be apart of it was because he could do it all himself.

T.J. Lindgren, who tends to help Elfman a lot, uploads his cues/arrangements to his soundcloud. They're generally minor, and in the case of Alice 2, never even made the album.

> Does the author of this review have a bias against Hans Zimmer?

110%. I've been reading this site for years, and the only thing he seems to like is if a score sounds like John Williams farted it out. Not to detract from the greats like Williams, Goldsmith, Goldenthal, etc... but the site reviewer HATES Zimmer for some indescribable reason. IMHO, this Justice League album is a lazy, boring hodge podge of trash.

> He consistently credits 'Hans Zimmer/Various' in the Zimmer scores
> reviews, he consistently writes about 'Zimmer's crew', etc. even when
> speaking about themes that are known to be composed by Zimmer (for
> instance the Wonder Woman theme).

> But when it comes to Danny Elfman, he seems to ignore the presence of 3
> ghostwriters, plus a few additional arrangers/orchestrators.

> In other terms, Geoff Zanelli helping on a Zimmer score is unacceptable
> ghostwriting and makes it impossible to attribute any merits to Zimmer
> himself, but the very same Geoff Zanelli helping on an Elfman score is OK?

> Anyway, the score by Danny Elfman and his army of ghostwriters (I
> had to write that, sorry ) accompanies the movie well enough. It
> successfully suppresses any kind of
> epicness/danger/tension/seriousness/boldness/theatricallity that Joss
> Whedon's rewrites/reshoots forgot to erase. It blatantly shows how
> childish and weightless the movie is, something that a Zimmer or Junkie XL
> score would have partly hidden.

> 110%. I've been reading this site for years, and the only thing he seems
> to like is if a score sounds like John Williams farted it out. Not to
> detract from the greats like Williams, Goldsmith, Goldenthal, etc... but
> the site reviewer HATES Zimmer for some indescribable reason. IMHO, this
> Justice League album is a lazy, boring hodge podge of trash.

It's not that indescribable of a reason, except that his choice of words comes accross as a bit too venomous at times. In the end tho, i mostly agree with him, although in less harsh words.
Not a too big fan of Danny Elfman anymore, but when I gave Justice League a listen, I cannot disagree with you more.
Interestingly tho, in this case the situation is reversed. So often, a composer was replaced by some Remote control guy or Zimmer himself. Said composers fans get angry and the Zimmer fans say, that's the way modern scoring is. Now it's the other way around and comments that the music is utter trash and generic compared to Junkie XL's work.... yeah ...