> 1. Masters of the Universe: Revelation
> 2. Tale of the Sleeping Giants / Tunturin tarina
> 3. Coppelia
> 4. The King's Man
All in my top 20 as well, two in my top 10. Our psychic music taste connection remains strong.
> 5. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
I didn't really give this enough listens to evaluate past "This won't make my top 20," but to repay the favor when you respond to some of my more outlandish picks,
Hahahahahahahaha no.
> 6. Rumble
> 7. Encanto
Damn, appeasing me AND Riley on the animation front.
> 8. WandaVision
> 9. Hawkeye
> 10. Lost in Space Season 3
Fine I'll relisten to Wandavision and Hawkeye.
> ***** for #1 & 2. ****½ for the rest (#3-5 would round up to 5 stars;
> #6-10 would round down to 4).
> My **** runner-up is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - it
> is ENTIRELY because of this site’s review that I even bothered giving that
> album a second chance.
Sigh...
> The Curse of Turandot and Jungle
> Cruise were also in contention.
Nice.
> The rest of my top 20 - Black Widow, Benedetta, Call of
> Duty: Vanguard, Eternals, Foundation Season 1, The
> Last Duel, Qinghai: Our National Park
Good call waiting for Benedetta. Lot of good scores here.
> Other **** - Buckley’s Chance, Claret, The Cook of
> Castamar, Fear Street Part Two: 1978, Finders of the Lost
> Yacht, Gunpowder Milkshake, Luca, Lupin, The
> Potato Venture, What If…? - and Spirit Untamed which I
> didn’t get to until Feb. 10th…oops!
Yeeeeee
> ***½ (round up to 4) - Camellia Sisters, The Claus Family 2,
> Don't Look Up, Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island, Godzilla
> Singular Point, Julia, June Again, No Time To
> Die, A Perfect Planet, Raya and the Last Dragon,
> Reach Beyond the Blue Sky, Star Wars: Visions, 30 Coins
> Season 1, This Game Means Murder, The Wheel of Time Season
> 1
And here we drift into things you heard that I didn't.
> ***½ (round down to 3) - The Age of Awakening, Army of
> Thieves, Being the Ricardos, The Champion of Auschwitz,
> Cruella, Fear Street Part One: 1994, Fear Street Part
> Three: 1666, Halo: Infinite, The Last Warrior: Root of
> Evil, Loki Season 1, Mortal Kombat, My Country My
> Parents “Windriders” segment, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart,
> The Red Sleeve, Spider-Man: No Way We’re Putting Fewer Than 3
> Villains In This, The Starling, Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1
> Part 1, To Olivia, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Wish
> Dragon
Loki should be higher but that's my only quibble.
> *** - The Arctic: Our Last Great Wilderness, The Artful
> Escape, The Choice 2: Men of Shadow, The Courier,
> Delicious, The Green Knight,
Bruh...
> The Last Letter from Your
> Lover, Man of God, Masquerade Night, The Most
> Reluctant Convert, Reminiscence,
BRU--no I'm kidding, no one else is going to have Reminiscence as high as I did.
> Ron's Gone Wrong,
> The Rose Maker, Silent Night, The Tomorrow War
> Eh - Secrets of the Whales
Dang.
> Meh - DOON
Don't you mean DUNC(an Idaho)?
> Oh dear - Rurouni Kenshin: The Final, Rurouni Kenshin: The
> Beginning
> Not a score, but still got a lot of airplay - Minima_Rhythm IV
> Not music, but still a terrific read - Picture by Lillian
> Ross. Bronislau Kaper shows up a few times!
>
>
> Composer of the year
> Bear McCreary - score of the year + two in my top 20 + 2021’s
> strangest album.
> Christophe Beck (two in my top 10), Panu Aaltio (three
> strong scores), and Lorne Balfe (lots of goodies) contended.
Lennertz!
> Unlike last year, there was no temptation to write ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> instead.
>
>
> Random thoughts
> What a back-loaded year! 7 of my top 10 didn’t come out until after
> Thanksgiving, and an 8th I didn’t get to until that period as well. Three
> of them were discovered while driving cross-country (basically doing the
> John Madden bus drive along I80) after testing positive for COVID on a ski
> trip.
I'm unfamiliar with this, wasn't Madden a big train guy?
> It was tempting to place 30 Coins higher given that I prefer my 77-minute
> highlights playlist to the “Goldsmith nostalgia bait” fun of Fear Street
> Part 2. But there’s an upper bound to how high I can rank a score I have
> to cut 4 hours out of to tolerate.
Harsh but fair lolol. There's a reason Justice League, despite all that I love from it, was nowhere to be seen in my post.
> 2021 was arguably the best year for Marvel thematic continuity ever, even
> with my (our?) disappointment with No Way Home (where you still get token
> Elfman/Horner nods, a Mysterio cameo, and one kickass Dr. Strange track -
> AND a surprise IFMCA nomination).
AND a surprise IFMCA win??
> - Beck referencing Giacchino, Silvestri, and Balfe themes
> - Jackman revisiting his own material
Civil War set the bar real low on this front lolol
> - Karpman putting new spins on, like, everything (and writing a Doyle-like
> Thor / Jane love theme) - bring on The Marvels!
The Marvels sounds like it should be another WandaVision sitcom pastiche. Maybe a 50s screwball comedy homage instead? Are Nia DaCosta and Megan McDowell big Billy Wilder fans?
> 3 Fast 3 Spiders wasn’t the year’s most disappointing score though.
This made me think of Game of Zones haha. "Uh, triple Dirks? We could do Triple Dirks." Probably on my mind since Porzingis just got traded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOx2XgmR8Uk
> That
> honor goes to Masquerade Night, the score that took “Sato sequel score cut
> & paste” to its Übermensch stage and almost tricked me into putting
> its penultimate track on my favorite tracks runner-up list until I
> realized it was a carbon copy of a track from its predecessor.
> I would not have predicted that 2021 would have a non-Ghostbusters score
> using an ondes martenot.
Which one?
> - 10) The Message from Tale of the Sleeping Giants. It’s a hoot!
Ayyyyy
> 2021 specialty releases:
> 2021 had a few re-releases of great scores with minimal-to-no new music -
> Legend, Lionheart, The Matrix, The Private Life of
> Sherlock Holmes (with the first CD release of a Rózsa Polydor
> recording!), Rio Conchos, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of
> Khan.
Yes but it's nice to have Matrix back in print so people like me can hear it in full. Even if "Ontological Shock" became the biggest revelation for me? Which...I had already heard?
Anyway, I have Rio Conchos saved in my spotify library to check out, I guess the new release isn't significantly different?
> But in the end there were only a few contenders:
> 3. The complete release of Glory.
> 2. A tie between La-La Land’s The Diary of Anne Frank, one of the
> best-sounding original recordings of an Alfred Newman score ever released,
> and the same label’s absurdly comprehensive Fiddler on the Roof
> release.
> 1. The Deluxe Edition of Paycheck, which took a “this has its
> moments” high-end ***½ work to an “ermahgerd” ****½ work that might’ve
> gotten the most airtime of anything I bought in 2021.
Paycheck is still sitting on my shelf. Considering getting Fiddler for nostalgic reasons. Glory is on the list.
>
>
> The best older works I discovered:
> *****
> 1. In Search of Peace (2001) - Lee Holdridge
> 2. Fiddler on the Roof (1971) - John Williams adapting
> 3. Since You Went Away (1944) - Max Steiner
> ****½
> 4. The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) - Alfred Newman
> 5. Incognito (1997) - John Ottman
> 6. Portrait of a Lady (1996) - Wojciech Kilar
> 7. Tours of the World, Tours of the Sky / Tours du monde, tours du
> ciel (1991) - Georges Delerue
> 8. Titus (1999) - Elliot Goldenthal
> 9. Pan Tadeusz (1999) - Wojciech Kilar
> 10. Murder in the First (1995) - Christopher Young
Nice. 6-10 are all fab.
> Runner-up: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Season 2
> (1992-1993) - Laurence Rosenthal & Joel McNeely
> Other ****1/2 scores:
> The Black Dahlia (2006) - Mark Isham
> The Fountainhead (1949) - Max Steiner
> A King for Burning / König der letzten Tage (1993) - Wojciech Kilar
> The Leper / Trędowata (1976) - Wojciech Kilar
> The Most Dangerous Game (1932) - Max Steiner
> On the Beach (1959) - Ernest Gold
> The Roots of Heaven (1958) - Malcolm Arnold
> Son of Kong (1933) - Max Steiner
> Winning my second annual The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Monks of St. Thomas
> Affair Award for a score discovery that rated below 4.5 stars but provided
> some highly addictive tracks is Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
My brain got a hangover trying to make sense of this sentence.
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