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Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions

Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
JBlough
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Saturday, August 20, 2022 (3:35 p.m.) 

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. I quipped earlier God of War is what got him the job, and that's doubly true now. You could also joke that it’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation without the rock elements and 10 times the budget (and indeed it has a booming concert hall ambience at times, not something I can say about many of his works).

But that would ignore both the connections it has with his other works (in parts it’s Da Vinci’s Demons on steroids, others hit Godzilla volumes, and there are assumed scene/episode-ending brass flourishes that have been a hallmark of his since Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), as well as how saturated large stretches of it are with the harmonic language and instrumental soundscapes Shore used 20 years ago.

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.

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?

Second listen theme reactions
- The theme suite Galadriel I haven’t been able to get enough of since its release weeks ago. Those interval jumps, the whole sense of epic tragedy, and especially that resonant string countermelody in the back half. There’s even a small sense of Joe Hisaishi here, probably just a coincidence. And that underlying rhythm hints at Shore’s elven ideas ever so slightly.

- 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

- 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.

- 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 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.

- The Valinor idea feels like a close cousin of the more angelic material Shore wrote (thinking how Shore's Desolation of Smaug credits piece Beyond the Forest opened).

- Likely coincidence: the Elrond theme has some occasional similarities with the melodic contours of Flying Dreams from Secret of NIMH

There are things that were abundant in Shore’s work that aren't here, namely complex dissonances and certain specialty instruments. One could lament that there aren’t more explicit thematic linkages (or even structural linkages, as there's seemingly an absence of anything in 5/4 time), though aside from the impossibility of getting Shore to write the score in full (the hour-plus of theme ideas plus something like 7-8 hours of episodic music) there’s also the consideration that Shore only really wrote Third and Fourth Age themes and wasn't addressing the Second Age so that's essentially fair game. 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.

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.



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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Peter G.
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Saturday, August 20, 2022 (4:30 p.m.) 

> 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.

Yeah, I am about 2/3rds of my way through the first listen and I agree with your very high praise of this score. I am really looking forward to diving into this score further and this is definitely going to be a strong score of the year contender for me.

Between this, the score about the coolest cat (who is a dog), and the upcoming God of War: Ragnarök, McCreary has a good chance at dethroning Michael Giacchino as the composer of the year too!



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Edmund Meinerts
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Saturday, August 20, 2022 (11:49 p.m.) 

> Between this, the score about the coolest cat (who is a dog), and the
> upcoming God of War: Ragnarök, McCreary has a good chance at dethroning
> Michael Giacchino as the composer of the year too!

Frankly for me he's done it with this score alone.


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Peter G.
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 (11:57 a.m.) 

> Frankly for me he's done it with this score alone.

Fair! Up until this point, Giacchino has been in the lead mostly because of the number of above average scores he has written this year alone. Though I like Lightyear and Thor more than the other two. And the Batman is a score I've liked less with each listen.

It won't take too much to dethrone Giacchino for me and another composer with two strong works, and a similar volume of output will probably do it. If the upcoming God of War score is as good as his first one, McCreary will definitely take the lead!



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Bless you for this! *NM*
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Saturday, August 20, 2022 (4:32 p.m.) 



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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Soundtracker94
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Saturday, August 20, 2022 (8:07 p.m.) 

John, you're posts about scores (whether Zimmer/MV/RC related or not) are so much fun to read.

As for Rings of Power, after my initial listen last night it's a solid 4/5 with the very real possibility of going higher. Highly enjoyed everything I heard and the 2 1/2 hour album is beautifully presented in a way that it easily feels like half that length. I'm eagerly anticipating McCreary's eventual blog post about this to hopefully clear up some of the thematic material for me before trying to review the album.


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Philipp
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 (3:16 a.m.) 

This is certainly a 4/5 score, probably higher. I guess, you just have to disconnect yourself from Howard Shore's work to fully grasp it. However, due to the long-standing possibility that Shore is in some way involved in this score, which in fact was true, the expectations where pretty much that this is going to be some kind of musical continuity of the LotR score.

> 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. I quipped
> earlier God of War is what got him the job, and that's doubly true
> now. You could also joke that it’s Masters of the Universe:
> Revelation
without the rock elements and 10 times the budget (and
> indeed it has a booming concert hall ambience at times, not something I
> can say about many of his works).

> But that would ignore both the connections it has with his other works (in
> parts it’s Da Vinci’s Demons on steroids, others hit
> Godzilla volumes, and there are assumed scene/episode-ending brass
> flourishes that have been a hallmark of his since Agents of
> S.H.I.E.L.D.
), as well as how saturated large stretches of it are with
> the harmonic language and instrumental soundscapes Shore used 20 years
> ago.

> 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.

> 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?

> Second listen theme reactions
> - The theme suite Galadriel I haven’t been able to get enough of
> since its release weeks ago. Those interval jumps, the whole sense of epic
> tragedy, and especially that resonant string countermelody in the back
> half. There’s even a small sense of Joe Hisaishi here, probably just a
> coincidence. And that underlying rhythm hints at Shore’s elven ideas ever
> so slightly.

> - 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

> - 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.

> - 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 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.

> - The Valinor idea feels like a close cousin of the more angelic
> material Shore wrote (thinking how Shore's Desolation of Smaug
> credits piece Beyond the Forest opened).

> - Likely coincidence: the Elrond theme has some occasional
> similarities with the melodic contours of Flying Dreams from
> Secret of NIMH

> There are things that were abundant in Shore’s work that aren't here,
> namely complex dissonances and certain specialty instruments. One could
> lament that there aren’t more explicit thematic linkages (or even
> structural linkages, as there's seemingly an absence of anything in 5/4
> time), though aside from the impossibility of getting Shore to write the
> score in full (the hour-plus of theme ideas plus something like 7-8 hours
> of episodic music) there’s also the consideration that Shore only really
> wrote Third and Fourth Age themes and wasn't addressing the Second Age so
> that's essentially fair game. 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.

> 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.



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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Edmund Meinerts
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 (7:00 a.m.) 

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... big grin

> 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... tongue

> 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. smile


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Ramón
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 (5:03 p.m.) 

> (and hope, otherwise all of these
> connections are just me projecting and not McCreary being a genius lmao)

You're saying this about a guy who wrote a musical palindrome as a main theme, who inverted the intervals of a main theme to turn it into the villain's theme, who mathematically broke down a melody in order to get coordinates out of it, who wrote a theme in stacks of three because the character it was written for had three heads, who...

If there's a composer who would absolutely overthink the shit out of this score, it'd be Bear McCreary.


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
JBlough
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Monday, August 22, 2022 (5:56 a.m.) 

> 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... big grin

LOL. I dunno if I'd go that far, even with how much I like his output on average (17 works ****1/2 or higher). It's got a nonzero chance at cracking my top 100. I refuse to commit to anything higher at this point, though all the new things I'm appreciating about In the Mines as I'm writing this make it tempting to.

But Bear usually only delivers something this good once a decade (BSG Season 4.5, Godzilla), so it's nice to potentially up that frequency.

> 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).

Yep, that Solo comparison crossed my mind 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).

I'm not going to even bother pretending I noticed any of those structural similarities, but, like, wow!

Your hypothesis on The Stranger's ultimate identity seems supported by the metallic percussion (ring-forging). Plus Bear has been using instruments like that for semi-nefarious characters for a while now - think Baltar's season 4 theme in BSG.

> Anyways, no mention of how similar the Elendil and Isildur theme is to Horner's Zorro? Especially the interlude... tongue

Honestly, I missed that on listen 2 and current multi-day listen 3. Maybe on listen 4!

> it sort of fizzles out towards the end, the final 45 minutes or so 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.

This seems to align with the reports over the weekend that we're getting an album release after each episode, meaning we're going to end up with Batman: The Animated Series - Season 1 levels of music by the end of this.



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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Peter G.
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Monday, August 22, 2022 (10:49 a.m.) 

> LOL. I dunno if I'd go that far, even with how much I like his output on
> average (17 works ****1/2 or higher).

Out of curiosity, what are those 17 scores? I need to expand my McCreary collection beyond the last couple of years! Thanks in advance!


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Monday, August 22, 2022 (12:16 p.m.) 

> Out of curiosity, what are those 17 scores? I need to expand my McCreary collection beyond the last couple of years! Thanks in advance!

****1/2 (round down to 4)
17. Black Sails Season 1 - music for the other seasons was never released

16. Outlander Season 1 Volume 1
15. Outlander Season 1 Volume 2

14. Da Vinci's Demons Season 3 - decidedly lesser than the earlier two seasons, but still worth keeping up here for material like The Tank Yard

13. Outlander Season 2 - my favorite season score, mainly for the battle chant introduced in its second half

12. Battlestar Galactica Season 3

11. The Cloverfield Paradox


****1/2 (round up to 5)
10. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 - there are definitely some highlight tracks from Seasons 3-7 but they were never released; as with Foundation and the aforementioned Black Sails one gets the sense a lot of the unreleased music was written by his team

9. Battlestar Galactica Season 4.0


***** but might be ****1/2 if I were to revisit everything
8. The Cape Season 1
7. Human Target Season 1

Both of those have nonsensically jumbled track orders and play much better in series order.


***** for sure
6. Da Vinci's Demons Season 1

5. God of War

4. Da Vinci's Demons Season 2

3. Masters of the Universe: Revelation

2. Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 - a top 80 all-time score and my pick for the best season of live action television scoring ever (though that may now be at risk)

1. Godzilla: King of the Monsters - a top 50 all-time score and my #6 score of the decade (I underrated it in my 'best of decade' post...shame on me).


Just missing the cut:
- 10 Cloverfield Lane with the credits piece arguably one of the 10 finest pieces by the composer

- The absurdly entertaining video game scores Dark Void and SOCOM 4

- BSG: Blood & Chrome and the ass-kicking Last Battle of the Osiris

- The third season of Outlander...good, just not as good as its predecessors



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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Peter G.
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Monday, August 22, 2022 (5:08 p.m.) 

> ****1/2 (round down to 4)
> 17. Black Sails Season 1 - music for the other seasons was never
> released

> 16. Outlander Season 1 Volume 1
> 15. Outlander Season 1 Volume 2

> 14. Da Vinci's Demons Season 3 - decidedly lesser than the earlier
> two seasons, but still worth keeping up here for material like The Tank
> Yard

> 13. Outlander Season 2 - my favorite season score, mainly for the
> battle chant introduced in its second half

> 12. Battlestar Galactica Season 3

> 11. The Cloverfield Paradox
>
>

> ****1/2 (round up to 5)
> 10. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 - there are definitely
> some highlight tracks from Seasons 3-7 but they were never released; as
> with Foundation and the aforementioned Black Sails one gets
> the sense a lot of the unreleased music was written by his team

> 9. Battlestar Galactica Season 4.0
>
>

> ***** but might be ****1/2 if I were to revisit everything
> 8. The Cape Season 1
> 7. Human Target Season 1

> Both of those have nonsensically jumbled track orders and play much better
> in series order.
>
>

> ***** for sure
> 6. Da Vinci's Demons Season 1

> 5. God of War

> 4. Da Vinci's Demons Season 2

> 3. Masters of the Universe: Revelation

> 2. Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 - a top 80 all-time score and my
> pick for the best season of live action television scoring ever (though
> that may now be at risk)

> 1. Godzilla: King of the Monsters - a top 50 all-time score and my
> #6 score of the decade (I underrated it in my 'best of decade'
> post...shame on me).
>
>

> Just missing the cut:
> - 10 Cloverfield Lane with the credits piece arguably one of the 10
> finest pieces by the composer

> - The absurdly entertaining video game scores Dark Void and
> SOCOM 4

> - BSG: Blood & Chrome and the ass-kicking Last Battle of the
> Osiris

> - The third season of Outlander...good, just not as good as its
> predecessors

Awesome! Thanks so much for this! Definitely going to check out a bunch of these!



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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
JB11sos
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Monday, August 22, 2022 (4:25 p.m.) 

> 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).

> 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.

Super weird, I hadn't read your post before I posted, and I touched on these two points, but about having the opposite reaction to both.

There are definitely Shore-y moments scattered throughout, but on first listen I felt like I was jumping back and forth between hearing something that sounded like Shore and something that sounded like McCreary. While listening to Solo I have much more of a pervasive sense of the score sounding like a blend of Powell and Williams. Maybe that sort of blend will reveal itself more in repeat listens, or maybe it's a product of this theme-/suite-oriented first album, but I was craving more of those moments where you just can't believe how well it's combining two styles.

For the Harfoot music, the percussion and the melody line for whatever reason felt distractingly real-world. It's totally culturally trained, but traditional orchestral elements are so standard at this point that the real-world musical corollaries fade into the background a bit when you're listening, whereas with such distinct instrumental sounds my brain immediately starts trying to connect the dots to real musical cultures. You're right that it's an interesting combo of sounds, though.


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Craig Richard Lysy
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 (9:53 a.m.) 

For me this score is 5*, and a testament to McCreary's mastery of his craft. Just outstanding out of TV context, and I predict it will be even better in context. SO happy that so many TV series creative teams value and appreciate the emotive and transformative power that music brings to their product. Life is good.

All the best


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Mephariel
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 (11:13 a.m.) 

4.5 stars for me. A wonderful score. Captures the essence of the fantasy and has mostly everything that I wanted from it.


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
scrlv
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Sunday, August 21, 2022 (10:07 p.m.) 

> 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. I quipped
> earlier God of War is what got him the job, and that's doubly true
> now. You could also joke that it’s Masters of the Universe:
> Revelation
without the rock elements and 10 times the budget (and
> indeed it has a booming concert hall ambience at times, not something I
> can say about many of his works).

> But that would ignore both the connections it has with his other works (in
> parts it’s Da Vinci’s Demons on steroids, others hit
> Godzilla volumes, and there are assumed scene/episode-ending brass
> flourishes that have been a hallmark of his since Agents of
> S.H.I.E.L.D.
), as well as how saturated large stretches of it are with
> the harmonic language and instrumental soundscapes Shore used 20 years
> ago.

> 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.

> 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?

> Second listen theme reactions
> - The theme suite Galadriel I haven’t been able to get enough of
> since its release weeks ago. Those interval jumps, the whole sense of epic
> tragedy, and especially that resonant string countermelody in the back
> half. There’s even a small sense of Joe Hisaishi here, probably just a
> coincidence. And that underlying rhythm hints at Shore’s elven ideas ever
> so slightly.

> - 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

> - 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.

> - 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 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.

> - The Valinor idea feels like a close cousin of the more angelic
> material Shore wrote (thinking how Shore's Desolation of Smaug
> credits piece Beyond the Forest opened).

> - Likely coincidence: the Elrond theme has some occasional
> similarities with the melodic contours of Flying Dreams from
> Secret of NIMH

> There are things that were abundant in Shore’s work that aren't here,
> namely complex dissonances and certain specialty instruments. One could
> lament that there aren’t more explicit thematic linkages (or even
> structural linkages, as there's seemingly an absence of anything in 5/4
> time), though aside from the impossibility of getting Shore to write the
> score in full (the hour-plus of theme ideas plus something like 7-8 hours
> of episodic music) there’s also the consideration that Shore only really
> wrote Third and Fourth Age themes and wasn't addressing the Second Age so
> that's essentially fair game. 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.

> 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 score is quite complex and the integration of themes is absolutely mindblowing. However, for me, the themes themselves are not quite likeable or instantly memorable like say "Concerning Hobbits". That's a bummer in an otherwise highly accomplished score.


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
Jay
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Monday, August 22, 2022 (8:39 a.m.) 
Now Playing: The Rings of Power

Still not done with it, but it is an epic mammoth of a score, bringing together so many of McCreary's past musical influences into a single work.

Galadriel's and Numenor's Themes are particular highlights for me, and to hear them woven into action sequences is hair-raising.

If there is one McCreary mannerism that sticks out here and that I wish he was less reliant on, it's how he loves to accentuate the end of a theme with triplets. Same chord, repeated as a triplet, as if to say, "THIS-IS-THE END!!!!!"

He and his team go overboard with this, but other than that, what a spectacular album!


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Re: Rings of Power - 2nd listen reactions
JB11sos
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Monday, August 22, 2022 (10:42 a.m.) 

My first reaction is that it's more Goblet of Fire than Solo in approach, which isn't what I was hoping for but obviously can still be successful. Clearly a top-notch score that will win our EOY poll without much competition.

Need way, way more time with it, but the Numenor theme stood out most so far. The Galadriel theme is very nice and surprisingly Menken-y - that descending chord progression followed by the rise in the melody could be out of Aladdin.

Didn't love some of the stuff that sounded too obviously rooted in real-world cultures (Harfoot Life, This Wandering Day). I know that's an important part of the origins of LOTR, but I feel like in the films they did a better job of showing influence while making the cultures feel like their own thing (just like Tolkien did). The bits here just sound like actual traditional Celtic music, and it kind of took me out of the score as a result.


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