> 1. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1
> 2. Avatar: The Way of Water
> 3. God of War Ragnarök
> 4. Turning Red
> 5. The Batman
> 6. Jurassic World: Dominion
> 7. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
> 8. Ms. Marvel
> 9. Bullet Train
> 10. Strange World

This reads like the most mainstream of lists... until Bullet Train.

> Composer of the year: Michael Giacchino

Hmm, two titles in your Top 10... yeah, it checks out. Admittedly Giacchino was in the front-running for a long time until McCreary completely stole the show later in the year. Oh, and Howard Shore delivered two great genre efforts. Can't forget Vik's Shore Chant.

> My runner-up is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. 1-5 got *****. The
> others got ****½.

> My apologies to the other ****½ scores that didn’t make the cut: Doctor
> Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Black Adam,
> Lightyear, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Interview with
> the Vampire Season 1, Super Furball Saves the Future /
> Supermarsu 2, and Top Gun: Maverick, the latter the year’s most
> improbable great score.

Glad to see Multiverse of Madness and Interview... ranked highly with you. Never got around to Furball 2 and still haven't seen Top Gun 2, but the commercial album didn't endure it nearly that highly to me. Fun, but not 4.5/5 worthy.

> Owing in part to the franchise imperatives that
> drive films and television these days, there are a lot of colons in the
> aforementioned 18 works. The proctology jokes almost tell themselves.

Heh.. ha.. heh... ha.. heeeeeee

*yes, I recently re-watched The Dark Knight for the first time in years. Why do you ask?*

> My top two are boring picks because many others like one or both of them,
> so I can at least take comfort that the rest of my list is a tad eclectic.

*looks at John's list*
*looks back at his own list*

"Eclectic", huh?

> Ragnarök was better than its predecessor. If you’d told me at the
> start of the year that my #4 pick would feature more new jack swing than
> any score in history has, I’d have said you were high. Dominion and
> Dumbledore are threequels that have to juggle an insane amount of
> legacy melodies, somewhat at the expense of their new themes, but their
> many strengths outweigh their weaknesses. Ms. Marvel is the only
> MCU score that can even be in the same conversation as Black
> Panther. I thought Wakanda Forever was the weirdest major score
> of the year, and then I heard Bullet Train. Watching Strange
> World helped a lot with understanding how it was one of the year's
> most dextrous scores when it came to varying its melodies to represent
> characters as well as story themes.

> Anything I could say about The
> Batman would run the risk of just being the same thing over and over
> and over.

Oh you clever, clever man.

> The **** occupants of my top 20 are Legend of the Forest and
> Moon Knight.
>
>
> 2022 specialty releases
> Lotta goodies. Spider-Man added solid material. The
> Godfather finally overhauled the wretched sound of its original album
> release. I’ve already raved here about Tomorrow Never Dies. How
> To Train Your Dragon 2 proved there perhaps is a way to improve
> a perfect score album. The Weather Man filled a notable gap in
> Zimmer’s discography. The last score of Miklós Rózsa’s career got a long
> overdue complete release. Mary, Queen of Scots turned out to be
> even better when heard in full. The L.A. Confidential and
> Matinee expansions both earned their scores another half star from
> me. Becket was a revelation, the best “I have no idea what this
> sounds like, but here goes” release of last year, though it took me until
> early 2023 to get around to listening to it.

> But nothing can hold a candle to Intrada’s all-powerful expanded release
> of Willow (1988), which easily wins on the basis of the 11-minute
> stretch across Willow Captured, Arrival at Snow Camp, and
> The Sled Ride at the end of the first disc. The latter track’s back
> half is an unstoppable freight train of musical thrills. The release
> catapulted the score into my all-time #6 entry. I honestly don’t remember
> listening to anything else in the month of July.

> And yes, I hate that I now have to specify the year thanks to the new,
> truly desultory Disney+ legacyquel series not even bothering to have a
> different name. Kasdan’s brother at least had the decency to do that on
> his Jumanji movies.

Remakes/legacy sequels with the same name as the original has annoyed me for years, though I've (unfortunately) gotten used to having to include the year after the title for clarification.

> Almost the same note as last year: If the full set of Rózsa Polydor
> recordings (maybe my sole remaining “holy grail”) gets released in 2023,
> it wins the year. Game over. It’s in the rulebook.
>
>
> The best older works I discovered in 2022
> ****½
> 1. Home (2015) - Lorne Balfe

> 2. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) - Michiru Oshima
> 3. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) - Michiru Oshima

These two make my little G-Fan heart happy. Glad you discovered & enjoyed these!

> 4. Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) - John Barry
> 5. Walkabout (1971) - John Barry
> 6. The Haunted Mansion (2003) - Mark Mancina
> 7. Presumed Innocent (1990) - John Williams
> 8. Zulu (1964) - John Barry
> 9. Only You (1994) - Rachel Portman
> 10. Toy Soldiers (1991) - Robert Folk

> **** runners-up:
> - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Don't Tell Tales (2017) -
> Geoff Zanelli

*ahem*

"Dead Men Tell No Tales", you mean.

> - Kong: Skull Island (2017) - Henry Jackman
> - Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) - Julian
> Nott, Rupert Gregson-Williams, Jim Dooley, Lorne Balfe & Alastair
> King; produced by Hans Zimmer
> - And, to throw Riley a bone, Flyboys (2006) - Trevor Rabin

> Not scores, but still great:
> - Tapestry of Nations (1999) - Gavin Greenaway
> - Dream & Variations (2007) - Don Harper

> This is the third straight year I’ve decided to call out a score discovery
> that rated below 4.5 stars but provided at least one addictive track, with
> last year’s being the Western-infused romp The Bad Guys / Hit Me / Car
> Trouble / Flying High from Looney Tunes: Back in Action and the
> first instance being the groovy medieval jazz in the suites of The
> Monks of St. Thomas Affair from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Season
> 3 (RIP Gerald Fried). This year’s winner is Guns from The
> Rundown, which is about as badass as film music gets.

> Full breakdown:
> Newly heard scores - 227
> - Part of MV/RC rundown - 188 (Zimmer 29, HGW 18, Jablonsky 17, Balfe 16,
> Rabin 15, Powell 12, Djawadi 10, Morris 9)
> - Others - 39 (Jerry Goldsmith 5, Barry 3, Beltrami 3, Horner 3, Mancini
> 3, Oshima 3, Tyler 3, Waxman 2)

> Catch-up on 2021 - 48, the best being Benedetta, Eternals,
> Fear Street Part Two, Spirit Untamed, and Succession
> S3

> Expanded releases - 20, the best being The Godfather, HTTYD
> 2, Spider-Man, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Willow

> Non-score works - 5 - Gavin Greenaway’s IllumiNations: Reflections of
> Earth and Tapestry of Nations, Elliot Goldenthal’s Fire
> Water Paper, Don Harper’s Dream & Variations, and Craig
> Armstrong’s The Edge of the Sea

> Concert recordings - 2 - The Wings of a Film and Hans Zimmer:
> Live in Prague

> Compilation re-recording - 1 - The Golden Age of Hollywood

> Finally owned legitimately - 1 - Star Trek III
>
>
> 10 favorite tracks, in no particular order
> - The “oh snap, is the track of the year out already?” wows of the
> Galadriel suite, the floor-shaking Numenor-centric duo of White
> Leaves and Sailing Into Dawn, the beguiling True Creation
> Requires Sacrifice, and the seductively haunting Where The Shadows
> Lie from The Rings of Power (had to limit myself to five).

> - The relentless The Batman and the whispers of John Barry in
> Catwoman from The Batman.

> - Suite, Suite Dino Revenge from Jurassic World: Dominion,
> mainly due to that out-of-nowhere 90s Goldsmith arrangement of the new
> Satler / Grant love theme.

> - The jazzy, elegant opening track from The Outfit.

> - The dazzling Make or Brake from Bullet Train.

> The next batch: The thrilling thematic summary in the Main Titles
> from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness; the glorious
> build-up in Wyvern Rescue and the emotional explosion in He
> Sought to Kill, I Sought to Protect from Fantastic Beasts: The
> Secrets of Dumbledore; the giddy nonsense of The Aunties and
> the absurd synthesis of traditional music, boy bands, and beatboxing in
> Pandas Unite / Nobody Like U (Reprise) from Turning Red; the
> bustling Main Title Theme from The Gilded Age Season 1; the
> cultural fusion in the Ms. Marvel Suite and the gorgeous tension in
> Answered Prayer from Ms. Marvel; the moving End
> Titles from Notre-Dame on Fire; and Lorne Balfe’s energetic
> take on the Top Gun Anthem for the end credits of Top Gun
> Maverick.

> The next batch: The bombastic Getting Through from Doctor
> Strange; the mystical and playful Giantess of Ironwood from
> God of War Ragnarök; the lovely Payakan and the rampaging
> Na’vi Attack from Avatar: The Way of Water; the stylish
> Tentomushi from Bullet Train; the abstract ecclesiastical
> beauty of The Banished Angel and the powerful Love Across
> Worlds from His Dark Materials Season 3; the striking
> Constellation and the awe-inspiring Welcome Travelers from
> Moon Knight; and John Williams’ marvelous Obi-Wan theme from
> Obi-Wan Kenobi.

> Honorable mention: One of my favorite tracks from The Gilded Age Season
> 1 which astonishingly didn’t make the album was a piece from the
> season finale that started as source music for a dance, evolved into full
> score, and dramatically ended right as a carriage door slammed.
>
>
> Every other score I gave a rating to
> Other **** - Babylon, DC League of Super-Pets, Emily,
> The English, Enola Holmes 2, The Fabelmans, 5,000
> Blankets, The Gilded Age Season 1, Glass Onion: A Knives Out
> Mystery, His Dark Materials Series 3, The Lost King,
> Luck, My Father’s Dragon, Notre-Dame on Fire /
> Notre-Dame brûle, Outlander Season 6, Paws of Fury: The Legend
> of Hank, Polar Bear, Slumberland, The 13 Lords of the
> Shogun / Kamakuradono no 13-nin, Violent Night, Wednesday
> Season 1, and The Woman King

> ***½ (round up to 4) - Amsterdam, Blueback, Death on the
> Nile, Frozen Planet II, Ghost Book / Ghost Book
> Obakezukan, Nope, The Outfit, Prehistoric Planet,
> The Railway Children Return, Thor: Love and Thunder,
> Ticket to Paradise, and The Time of Secrets / Le temps des
> secrets

> ***½ (round down to 3) - The Book of Boba Fett, Devotion,
> The Faith of the Three Kingdoms, The Gray Man, Petra de
> San José, Redeeming Love, The Sea Beast, See How They
> Run, The Serpent Queen Season 1, She-Hulk: Attorney at
> Law, Thai Cave Rescue, Till, and Werewolf by
> Night

> *** - Ambulance, The Bad Guys, 1883, The Ice Age
> Adventures of Buck Wild, The King's Daughter, The Last
> Warrior: Emissary of Darkness / Posledniy bogatyr 3, The Legend of
> Vox Machina Season 1, The Lost City, The Witcher: Blood
> Origin, and Wolf

> Eh - Ice Age: Scrat Tales

> Meh - Dying Light 2 Stay Human, Man vs. Bee

> Oh dear - Thankfully nothing this year!
>
>

For some reason I always forget you're the one who goes all-in with the listing/categorizing/tallying of everything and thus am constantly shocked when you do one of these massive breakdowns. Oh and they're really fun to read as well.

> One other random thought
> I truly despised the Halo series on Paramount+. It was maybe the
> worst season I’ve ever watched from start to finish, and I’ve seen
> Fargo season 4! But it is surprising that Sean Callery’s music
> still hasn’t received an album release, especially since the
> streamer’s YouTube channel featured a making-of video with the composer.

I remember seeing something about a Halo TV series and then hearing absolutely zero else about it. Guess that speaks to the shows quality.

----

Great and thorough summary as usual, John! A fun read and looking forward to seeing more of your work and opinions around the Scoreboard this year!