http://filmmusicreporter.com/2021/11/05/the-wheel-of-time-soundtrack-albums-announced/#more-83878

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> http://filmmusicreporter.com/2021/11/05/the-wheel-of-time-soundtrack-albums-announced/#more-83878

I know that as a film score fan I shouldn't think like this but man do I hate the excessive amount of album releases for every goddamn show and series. It actively destroys my desire to actually listen and explore the music; I don't want to have to buy or stream multiple albums and then make my own playlist of the good stuff. Unnecessary cash grab...although is there really a huge market of people that buy all albums of music for series? Do you think there'd be more sales for single curated albums (like there fucking should be)?

I am an active non-fan of Balfe, and a situation like this will encourage me to just not even explore the music.

> I know that as a film score fan I shouldn't think like this but man do I
> hate the excessive amount of album releases for every goddamn show and
> series. It actively destroys my desire to actually listen and explore the
> music; I don't want to have to buy or stream multiple albums and then make
> my own playlist of the good stuff. Unnecessary cash grab...although is
> there really a huge market of people that buy all albums of music for
> series? Do you think there'd be more sales for single curated albums (like
> there fucking should be)?

> I am an active non-fan of Balfe, and a situation like this will encourage
> me to just not even explore the music.

Beats having to make a document detailing all the music not on the sole album for a 5 season show and only available through DVD rips and few soundcloud uploads.

> I know that as a film score fan I shouldn't think like this but man do I
> hate the excessive amount of album releases for every goddamn show and
> series. It actively destroys my desire to actually listen and explore the
> music; I don't want to have to buy or stream multiple albums and then make
> my own playlist of the good stuff. Unnecessary cash grab...although is
> there really a huge market of people that buy all albums of music for
> series? Do you think there'd be more sales for single curated albums (like
> there fucking should be)?

> I am an active non-fan of Balfe, and a situation like this will encourage
> me to just not even explore the music.

I agree, it's too much. I usually like Balfe and his music, but even I won't bother listening to 4 albums.

There's a good chance I'll stick to the first album, which will contain all the themes and suites. This should be the most interesting album anyway.

The other albums, it will depend on whether or not I watch the show and spot some great cues which are not on the 1st album.

> I know that as a film score fan I shouldn't think like this but man do I
> hate the excessive amount of album releases for every goddamn show and
> series. It actively destroys my desire to actually listen and explore the
> music; I don't want to have to buy or stream multiple albums and then make
> my own playlist of the good stuff. Unnecessary cash grab...although is
> there really a huge market of people that buy all albums of music for
> series? Do you think there'd be more sales for single curated albums (like
> there fucking should be)?

> I am an active non-fan of Balfe, and a situation like this will encourage
> me to just not even explore the music.

It's really tiring, and typically brings down what otherwise might be considered excellent work (ie Underground Railroad, perhaps). Consider the Banos series--a favorite composer, and I can't seem to get excited to listen through it all. I don't get it. I guess a happy medium is actually the Zimmer approach (a curated score release, matched with a release of the longer sketch material). Or a more traditional 2 disc series score. This shotgun stuff is just, idk, lazy.

> It's really tiring, and typically brings down what otherwise might be
> considered excellent work (ie Underground Railroad, perhaps). Consider the
> Banos series--a favorite composer, and I can't seem to get excited to
> listen through it all. I don't get it. I guess a happy medium is actually
> the Zimmer approach (a curated score release, matched with a release of
> the longer sketch material). Or a more traditional 2 disc series score.
> This shotgun stuff is just, idk, lazy.

Underground Railroad was definitely on my mind. Britell wrote a fantastic score, but there's, what, 3 albums and each is over an hour? No thank you. I don't have the time for that or the energy to make a playlist off of it. And I hate that that is the case.

Take my score of the year from last year, Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I hate that it was only released as a complete score, at something well over 3-hours long. That's so much music. (Great music, but still.) I spent 3 days curating a playlist to get it down to just about an hour that is an amazing listen. There is no way in hell I am doing that for every show that decides to release music this way unless it is an unabashed masterpiece like Ori. (And even then, Ori is just about the only score I've really every done that with, or more importantly, NEEDED to do that with.)

I guess in this case the first album (the 14-track one mentioned in the press release) can be considered the curated version, and the other three are more like expansions for the super-fans. It can be frustrating to listen to an album that's entirely theme suites, though. I'm not such a fan of Balfe's His Dark Materials "Anthology" albums for this reason, every track on it feels like it follows the same structure and it gets samey even though there are a ton of different themes being explored. The score albums for those are more dynamic but also feature a lot of less interesting tracks, so in the end you are left with a choice to either playlist-craft or just shrug and move on.

"I am an active non-fan of Balfe" made me laugh though.

My bigger concern with Wheel of Time specifically is that the music that's been released so far has this glossy pop-ish overproduced sheen to it that I really don't care for from my fantasy scores. It's reminding me of (a better version of) the music for the ill-fated Shannara series from a few years back, which is about the last thing I want for this adaptation. Hope the score itself sounds a bit more authentic, but then again, Balfe scores generally don't.

> 'I am an active non-fan of Balfe' made me laugh though.

I don't like to post about or talk about Balfe, because I think he's just terrible. Admittedly, I'm still offput and soured on him by an interview he gave years ago (and that I just can't track down, but I did talk to Broxton about it at Christopher Young's house something like 8ish years ago (what a wild sentence)). I, for better or worse, legitimately do not listen to his music anymore. I realize that this makes me an unreasonable person and somewhat of a hypocrite (how can I criticize his music when I don't listen to it?), but I don't care.

It's like my love for HGW. A bit unreasonable, but even his thriller scores I really enjoy. There is an intelligence and emotionality to his music that just isn't there with most other composers, especially in that thriller/electronic mode.

> I don't like to post about or talk about Balfe, because I think he's just
> terrible. Admittedly, I'm still offput and soured on him by an interview
> he gave years ago (and that I just can't track down, but I did talk to
> Broxton about it at Christopher Young's house something like 8ish years
> ago (what a wild sentence)). I, for better or worse, legitimately do not
> listen to his music anymore. I realize that this makes me an unreasonable
> person and somewhat of a hypocrite (how can I criticize his music when I
> don't listen to it?), but I don't care.

What did Balfe say in that interview that soured you so severely? When compared to Zimmer’s occasionally eye-rolling gaffes, it must have been quite something.

I must admit, I’ve really turned around on Balfe this last year. He’s made lot of new scores that I unexpectedly found myself loving between 2018 and now.

> It's like my love for HGW. A bit unreasonable, but even his thriller
> scores I really enjoy. There is an intelligence and emotionality to his
> music that just isn't there with most other composers, especially in that
> thriller/electronic mode.

I feel similarly, haha!

> My bigger concern with Wheel of Time specifically is that the music
> that's been released so far has this glossy pop-ish overproduced sheen to
> it that I really don't care for from my fantasy scores. It's reminding me
> of (a better version of) the music for the ill-fated Shannara
> series from a few years back, which is about the last thing I want for
> this adaptation. Hope the score itself sounds a bit more authentic, but
> then again, Balfe scores generally don't.

Yeah, I've only heard the first track released and was very "meh" towards the Pop-y musical direction. Also...Shannara! Watched the first season of that and can't remember a single thing about the score, though I do remember the story had something to do with a girl turning into a tree and "it's actually earth in the future!!!" being a major plot point.

> My bigger concern with Wheel of Time specifically is that the music
> that's been released so far has this glossy pop-ish overproduced sheen to
> it that I really don't care for from my fantasy scores. It's reminding me
> of (a better version of) the music for the ill-fated Shannara
> series from a few years back, which is about the last thing I want for
> this adaptation. Hope the score itself sounds a bit more authentic, but
> then again, Balfe scores generally don't.

This encapsulates what I was having a problem with Balfe's work on this show, at least with what I've heard and with his output in general as of late. I hope both the show and the music isn't anything like Shannara because I think that was one of the worst adaptations I've ever seen or heard.

> This encapsulates what I was having a problem with Balfe's work on this
> show, at least with what I've heard and with his output in general as of
> late. I hope both the show and the music isn't anything like Shannara
> because I think that was one of the worst adaptations I've ever seen or
> heard.

What are your problems with his output lately? To me, he’s largely never sounded better.

> What are your problems with his output lately? To me, he’s largely never
> sounded better.

I was referring to the "overproduced sheen" Edmund was talking about and it largely exists as a problem for me on Balfe's work for television scores than what he does for films. It was a big thing that keeps me from enjoying most of His Dark Materials. I don't know how to word it correctly so forgive me but It has something to do with either the mix or the synth he uses. As for The Wheel of Time doesn't look too hopeful based on what they have released so far. The cues released don't sound so much as cues or themes as they sound like rejects from a Pure Moods CD.

> I was referring to the 'overproduced sheen' Edmund was talking about and
> it largely exists as a problem for me on Balfe's work for television
> scores than what he does for films. It was a big thing that keeps me from
> enjoying most of His Dark Materials. I don't know how to word it correctly
> so forgive me but It has something to do with either the mix or the synth
> he uses. As for The Wheel of Time doesn't look too hopeful based on what
> they have released so far. The cues released don't sound so much as cues
> or themes as they sound like rejects from a Pure Moods CD.

Fair enough, haha!

> I know that as a film score fan I shouldn't think like this but man do I
> hate the excessive amount of album releases for every goddamn show and
> series. It actively destroys my desire to actually listen and explore the
> music; I don't want to have to buy or stream multiple albums and then make
> my own playlist of the good stuff. Unnecessary cash grab...although is
> there really a huge market of people that buy all albums of music for
> series? Do you think there'd be more sales for single curated albums (like
> there fucking should be)?

> I am an active non-fan of Balfe, and a situation like this will encourage
> me to just not even explore the music.

To be honest, I'm not against having every single bit of music for any film/show available. Without a doubt, there are huge fans of this or that score around and I dont wanna take their experience of listening to as much music as possible from their favourite Score away from them.

That being said, unless the Score in question is one of these rare, absolute Masterpieces, there should be an additional Highlight-Album available that condenses the Tracklist down to something that'd fit on a single CD? Remember Bear McCrearys' BSG-Scores? There was a single CD for every Season, easy to revisit. If they had released every note of every Episode, I likely would not have relistened to these Scores as often as I did, if at all...

> To be honest, I'm not against having every single bit of music for any
> film/show available. Without a doubt, there are huge fans of this or that
> score around and I dont wanna take their experience of listening to as
> much music as possible from their favourite Score away from them.

> That being said, unless the Score in question is one of these rare,
> absolute Masterpieces, there should be an additional Highlight-Album
> available that condenses the Tracklist down to something that'd fit on a
> single CD? Remember Bear McCrearys' BSG-Scores? There was a single CD for
> every Season, easy to revisit. If they had released every note of every
> Episode, I likely would not have relistened to these Scores as often as I
> did, if at all...

BSG is a great example. Great show, great music in every episode. But if that was given The Mandalorian treatment? I'd very doubtfully have explored much of it. Much prefer the 1-CD per season style.