Once you put “what composer should I do a rundown for next” in a Facebook poll with unlocked entry fields, it’s only a matter of time before you get someone who you don’t have a ton of works by. But you gotta give the people what they want...
I’d liked most of what I’d heard from Armstrong, but he’d never showed up on my Composer Targets list or featured in any concentrated purchasing binge (unlike, say, John Scott). I didn’t have a good rationale for why this was the case.
When I started this effort I owned eight Armstrong works; six were **** and two were ***½. Given the relative paucity compared to collection sizes from other recent rundowns (that French dude, Jerry, BaPo, etc.), I elected to also listen to a bunch of scores I hadn’t heard before.
It is entirely possible that my aggressive double-staffed work schedule (a nice carryover from my Delerue rundown) contributed to some of the cantankerous commentary below, though I doubt it. It is also entirely the fault of me catching up on 2021 scores in January and February that this assessment bled into 2022.
At the start I decided to skip over Moulin Rouge. The film’s great (or at least I thought it was 10+ years ago), but the album situation wouldn’t have been easy to navigate.
Warnings of abundant dialogue scared me away from the Romeo + Juliet album cuz unless it’s Walton’s Henry V I’m not gonna go through that with a film I haven’t seen.
Also, I would not be shocked if a lot of Armstrong’s music was either in the temp for the earlier Halo scores or was an influence on Marty O’Donnell and occasional Armstrong collaborator Neil Davidge for Halo 4. Certainly some string parts and solo piano moments are similar to CA’s earlier works (stylistic nods rather than thematic lifts). Warning - don’t try Googling for proof; most search results were for the lengthy, depressing legal battle between Marty and Bungie, which, like, ugh, right?
MOVING ON!
Scores
***
15. The Most Reluctant Convert
14. Me Before You - Outside of the opening track (the deciding factor in this placing ahead of TMRC), I found the album sufficient if rather slight.
***½
13. Bridget Jones’s Baby - Do I have detailed reasons for why this is demonstratively better than the aforementioned score? NOPE. Just liked the album’s energy more.
12. Plunkett & Macleane - Christopher Young once joked that people liked Jennifer 8 so much that he was asked to write Jennifer 9, 10, and 11. One has to wonder if the same applies to this work which introduces many distinctive elements for Armstrong - the intersection of orchestra/choir/electronics, recognizable progressions in moments of slow string-driven drama, and so on.
This is perhaps the only score that gives you South Asian percussive vibes followed by club music followed by a jubilant string ostinato followed by an ultra-modern groove with a wailing female vocalist. I realize to some people that’s basically catnip.
Redemption comes with some romantic passages, entrancing choral passages (predecessors of The Golden Age), and the ass-kicking duo of ‘Unseen’ and ‘Escape’ which for some people will also be catnip.
11. In Time - It’s a fun halfway point between his stylish early works and the action beats of Hulk, but it’s also a strangely forgettable work.
10. World Trade Center - Appropriately restrained, and with a main theme that strikes the right balance between mournful and resilient, though the score does start to lose your attention after the umpteenth statement of said theme (as this site says, the album does run too long).
9. Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Half of it’s awesome and the other half is...fine (and in a few places dull). I like what both composers did, but the combination of their efforts is bizarre and creates even more of a Frankenstein monster than the Age of Ultron album.
8. The Quiet American - A lot of impressive dramatic builds. Cool East-West fusion textures. Haunting solo vocals. All positives. But gosh, the sound still feels a bit anachronistic for the period the film takes place during. Though, when a guy’s hired on a film in part because Michael Caine and the director liked The Space Between Us, what else can you expect?
7. The Bone Collector - In contrast to P&M, this work is maybe TOO consistent. It feels like it’s either very similar progressions or the same propulsive urban rhythms for 40 minutes. And the few deviations from that mold aren’t too fun (the source-like ‘Mackenzie’, for example).
Still, the overarching tone of the work is often compelling, and the opening track and ‘Pier Pressure’ are mighty. Armstrong’s style elevates what could’ve been functional thriller music. And it’s an easier listen than Plunkett.
6. The Incredible Hulk - This one toes the line between a high-end ***½ work and ****. It gets its current rating after I force-ranked all the MCU scores and said “hey, I return to this a lot less than I return to the other 4-star ones”. The thematic intelligence, occasional thrills, and grand highlights mostly offset an overlong listening experience.
I did find it a bit odd to not hear any trace of choir or vocals...maybe a budget thing?
****
5. Far From The Madding Crowd - Even with an abundance of source music on the album, the romantic highlights of this relatively brief score still win out (though I slightly prefer Richard Rodney Bennett’s score for the 1967 film).
4. Victor Frankenstein - I overrated this a bit when it came out, but it still represents a strong intersection of his romantic and action modes. Highly entertaining.
3. Love Actually - Originally I wrote this: 20 minutes (the 8-track promo) is the perfect length for stuff like this. It may be (by far) the most memorable score from a song-heavy ensemble rom-com. As of 2003, this had by far the most affecting melodies of Armstrong’s career…might still be the case.
And then the album was finally released commercially less than a week after I wrote that. OOPS.
It’s certainly more music. There aren’t really any net new highlights. BUT it doesn’t overstay its welcome at greater length, and the liner notes in LLL’s CD are an entertaining and informative read.
****½
2. The One and Only Ivan - Probably underrated this a tad when I first heard it in January. Lovely from start to finish.
1. The Great Gatsby - I only heard the score album when it came out in 2013. It got ****, but it wasn’t a “best of year” contender. I do wonder if my frustrations with the film, which starts as a joyful mishmash and then halfway through turns into a boring “normal” movie, carried over to the score.
There’s a rich level of orchestral detail that hadn’t really shown up in Armstrong’s scores before, like the fantastically layered brass in ‘Let’s Go To Town’ (those muted trumpets!) or the Hisaishi-like prancing textures in some of the early tracks. Unlike some earlier Armstrong works, many of the themes prove rather malleable and get spun through a variety of variations. A few moments are almost overwhelmingly gorgeous, namely the romantic middle of ‘I Let Myself Go’.
Does it resurrect that descending secondary motif from Hulk? Sure. I’ll live.
THIS TIME I finally listened to the jazz album. It’s a treat, mixing arrangements of Armstrong’s themes with new arrangements of classic songs and some (gasp) fun arrangements of the more anachronistic, Armstrong-free pop songs that otherwise plagued the film.
I also finally listened to the four songs that Armstrong had a hand in. ‘Young and Beautiful’ straight CLOWNS most of the pieces on Armstrong’s solo albums, and it is commendable how fluidly Armstrong integrates components of this song as well as pieces of ‘Together’ into the score. The Florence + The Machine song doesn’t seem to interact with Armstrong’s score, though I’m happy to be corrected on that point. The Nero collaboration ‘Into The Past’ is the sole sour note here, even if it does inform the finale.
Reevaluating this score, one that shockingly was not covered by most score review websites in 2013 despite the film’s box office success, made this whole project worth it. So I guess I owe Robert and his voters one. My later histrionic outburst about another album still stands though.
Other stuff
The Space Between Us (1998) - ***½
The album does taper in its second half, but overall this is an enjoyable debut.
As If To Nothing (2002) - **½
I don’t get it, and gosh darn it, I’m gonna say why.
That’s a bit glib, as I know the album is not quite classical and not quite pop by design. But I read a review somewhere saying that Armstrong’s string arrangements for others’ songs helped elevate “tuneless” material to something slightly more compelling, and you get that effect here.
This is another all over the place album, though I suppose the South Asian sounds of ‘Miracle’ are no more out of place than they were in P&M. At times there’s friction between the orchestral compositions and the electronic accompaniment, almost as if someone was asked to “remix” the music ala Constantine.
Frequently the same mass of strings shift through similar chords with an occasional woodwind solo piercing through. Also, there are several tracks that feel inefficient - sure, there’s nothing wrong with the ambient folk leanings in ‘Wake Up In New York’ or ‘Sea Song’, but did the latter really have to be SIX MINUTES LONG?
And a few moments are absolutely maddening; the unceasing multilingual spoken word part in ‘Waltz’ ruins the album’s loveliest arrangement, while the remix of the U2 song ‘Stay’ sucks all the excitement out of the material.
There are some standouts that somewhat salvage the listening experience. ‘Inhaler’ (not too far from the sound of Moby’s ‘New Dawn Fades’ remix from Heat) is uber-cool. ‘Ruthless Gravity’ provides a magnificent crescendo, though its beeps and boops are about as pleasant as the ones in the end credits for Bear McCreary’s Everly. ‘Amber’ duplicates the urban feel of The Bone Collector. ‘Stay’ and ‘Let It Be Love’ could’ve been awesome credits songs for a film.
My exploration was pretty much chronological, and at this point my attitude was quickly becoming “take the pop/orchestral fusion of David Arnold, strip out any trace of bombast or Nicholas Dodd, and derive the personality more from texture than from themes...and you pretty much get this.” DId subsequent albums fix my mood? Yep. Am I gonna change this section? Nope.
Memory Takes My Hand, One Minute, and Immer (2008) - ****
Memory is exceptional. The one-movement concerto Immer is quite striking at times and recommended for fans of the virtuosic portions of Far From The Madding Crowd. The series of 15 one-minute pieces is a bit of a non-event. The album averages out to being very good.
Orlando (2010) - *
Not just the least pleasant listening experience I had in 2021. It’s possibly the worst art I’ve explored since that bizarre ‘Antigone’ play I saw in Chicago in the early aughts.
To paraphrase Roger Ebert (and thus double down on the Chicago connection)...I Hated, Hated, Hated This Album.
It’s Nearly Tomorrow (2014) - ***
It should be called “It’s Nearly Redundant.” Nothing bad, but the album covers very familiar ground. I may have gone overboard writing about As If To Nothing, but at least it had its distinctive moments.
Sun on You (2018) - ***
Sure, this piano-heavy work lacks the highs of As If To Nothing, but it definitely also lacks that album’s lows.
The Edge of the Sea (Ballantyne + Martyrdom) (2020) - ****
These two works, both collaborations between Armstrong and Gaelic singer/composer Calum Martin, pair well together. The slowly shifting blocks of sound that the chamber ensemble and voices create in Ballantyne are often hypnotic, while Martyrdom’s solo violin effectively conjures the feel of the highlands, albeit in muted form.
You could almost see this as kind of a low-stakes dare for the most niche market possible - “what if we could achieve the sense of listening to Gaelic church music, but do it with instruments.” Recommended for those who like quasi-liturgical music and/or those who liked the more traditional moments of Bear McCreary’s Outlander but wanted them slowed down 300%. Jokes aside, this is probably my favorite of the non-score albums.
And even if you find this music a bit, uh, snooze-inducing (it’s basically the polar opposite of ‘Let’s Go To Town’), I still feel it’s interesting how this collaboration came to be -
https://www.hebrideswriter.com/2016/08/24/hollywood-composer-craig-armstrong-speaks-of-beauty-of-gaelic-psalm-singing-ahead-of-ballantyne-world-premiere/
Like some right-leaning American officeholders and political talking heads I will be eschewing democracy - the next rundown will be John Scott!
(Message edited on Thursday, February 24, 2022, at 8:01 a.m.)
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