Listening to what is, for me, by a fair margin McCreary's best score to date and a few times the thought "this will probably be Jon Blough's new favorite score of all time" did cross my mind...
> It's going to take longer to have a better understanding of the score (and
> ultimately I'll just have to watch the show), but after two full listens
> I'm fairly confident it's the kind of paradigm-shifting entrant into the
> score conversation that relegates my previous contenders for score of the
> year to second-tier status. It is arguably the only reason I'm interested
> in the show - and that's not to say I'm as adamantly against the show,
> more just that the advertising hasn't really done it for me (though
> neither did the same streamer's Wheel of Time trailers and that
> show turned out alright).
> Let's not screw around. It is transparently a McCreary score. [...] as well as how saturated large stretches of it are with
> the harmonic language and instrumental soundscapes Shore used 20 years
> ago.
This is probably my favorite thing about it. He has managed to walk the "Solo tightrope" really well despite not being allowed to use the Shore themes (not even the new one, which feels very much like a marketing afterthought here btw).
> McCreary claimed all 15 major themes have an A theme, a B theme, and some
> kind of underlying rhythm. He appears to not have exaggerated. It’s an
> astonishing level of complexity, and it’s not all going to be immediately
> transparent the first or second go-round. I only recently started noticing
> that the theme which seems to alternate with Numenor and Galadriel themes
> later in the album was actually the Halbrand theme introduced in an
> earlier suite, but now at majestic volumes instead of its folksy origins.
> And there are definitely commonalities amongst the themes (in a Rózsa
> King of Kings way) - Elrond’s B theme and Galadriel’s A theme share
> some phrasings, for example.
Yeah there are SO many themes. Definitely a lot to dig into and impossible to fully grasp on the first listen, or even first few listens. In a good way. Can't wait for Bear's blog post to help further clarify things!
> I’ve now told myself multiple times (and my wife at least once) that the
> show can’t be terrible if the music is this good. It's at least gotta be
> better than Halo, right?
The music has definitely made me more optimistic about the show.
> - Numenor feels like the Middle Eastern parts of Da Vinci’s
> Demons (or really anything Bear's used the yayli tambur on) realized
> at Godzilla volumes. Exoticism at a gargantuan scale. Its use in
> the full score, along with Galadriel's theme, make for several of my
> favorite pieces - the end of White Leaves, all of Sailing into
> the Dawn
I REALLY like how Bear is leaning into the parallels between Numenor and Ancient Egypt. I wonder if the show will do the same.
> - Khazad-Dum is thunderous, and the choir harmonies in the
> background seem to match some of the secundal stuff Shore was doing for
> the dwarves.
Yeah the dwarf stuff definitely looks back on Shore, including the more noble dwarf identities he introduced in the Hobbit scores. Good stuff.
> - All the Harfoot-related material for the Hobbit ancestors seems the
> halfway point between Bear's Outlander and Shore’s pseudo-Celtic
> sounds for the Shire, and when the Nori theme gets taken up by the string
> ensemble there’s almost a sense of 90s Thomas Newman. Its outburst at the
> end of Nobody Goes Off Trail is a treat
The inclusion of (to my white ears) more African-sounding percussive elements in the Harfoot music is intriguing as well. It's a folksy hybrid not quite like any I've ever heard before.
> - The Stranger is catnip for those who’ve loved McCreary’s use of
> mallet percussion since SOCOM 4. The ambiguous melodic structure
> recalls Caprica, while the vibrant harmonies at larger scales
> suggest Cloverfield Paradox. Based on the structure of the album it
> seems this theme / character becomes more important later in the season.
Okay so this is my favorite of the themes. Not only is it quite intoxicating in its own right and fascinating in how you're never quite sure where its harmonies are going somewhere sinister or redemptive (especially when it shifts into the latter, I thought of Cloverfield Paradox's Ava theme as well). But it's also harmonically linked to Shore's music in a REALLY clever way, not only are the chords that open it ones which Shore used a ton (for History of the Ring, for his Gollum theme, for "Gollum's Song" even), but in the melody itself. Its opening major seventh leap is the inverse of the minor second interval that starts all of Shore's Ring material, including Evil of the Ring aka Sauron's theme. For that reason I believe (and hope, otherwise all of these connections are just me projecting and not McCreary being a genius lmao) this theme is for Sauron's disguise as Annatar, under which identity he helped the elven smiths forge the Rings of Power (before he himself secretly forged the One).
Anyways, no mention of how similar the Elendil and Isildur theme is to Horner's Zorro? Especially the interlude...
> Bear wrote something in his own style that's
> a distant cousin of Shore's music at worst, and that at least deserves a
> tip of the hat.
Probably the best way he could have approached this honestly.
> I can't see this being any worse than a high-end 4.5-star work in my book,
> and that's me being overly conservative. Too many 'holy shit!' moments to
> ignore.
The biggest problem with this album (other than the lack of direct integration of either the old or new Shore material, but that was probably outside of McCreary's hands) is that it sort of fizzles out towards the end, the final 45 minutes or so (while still good, I love the treatment of the Nori material in "Wise One") are considerably more low-key and slow paced than the rest so it seems to me that this album covers the theme suites and perhaps selections from the first half of the season. So if there's a second volume and it sticks the landing with the climax and resolution then I can easily see this being a five-star score. I am already prepared to say it's better than at least one of the Hobbit scores (and I'm a stout defender of those!) with potential to be better than all three. Which would surpass even my most optimistic expectations.
McCreary done good on this one, guys.
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