Danke schön Johannes. I wait for your ballot every year, and again you do not disappoint. As to your assessment of the state of scoring, I agree to a point, and suggest that there is a silver lining. I have through suite creation, created many 5* 10 - 13 minute suites from 4*, and even a few 3* scores. This is why I continue to truly enjoy my hobby. I have best cue playlists for every year, and Top 20 suite playlists for every year. It never gets old! Film music is alive and well.
All the best
Anyway music is our safe harbor from a storm racked world descending into chaos, totalitarianism, and ultimately war. Onward to 2025!
> Yup, its me. Kind of dropped off the Map recently, but I have a lot on my
> mind these days and don't really feel like contributing a lot right now.
> This is neither the time nor the place to comment on the
> (non-Score-related) Stuff which put me into this frame of mind, suffice to
> say I'm deeply disappointed in a lot of stuff and many, many people right
> now and I feel like I'm staring into an Abyss when looking into the
> immediate and not-so immediate future. In addition, I'm pretty overworked
> and struggle to keep a somewhat decent work/life balance. None of these
> things have anything to do with anyone of you and its something I have to
> figure out for myself... but it partly does affect my enjoyment of recent
> Scores. For like 80% of the time, I ain't feeling it anymore.
> Not for a lack of trying, mind you. I listened to a whopping 240 new
> Scores the last 12 Months, a personal record (by comparsion, it was almost
> 200 in 2023, which was my previous record). And I *liked* many, many of
> these. All of the Scores listed below I remember enjoying (at least, I
> jotted down a **** next to all of them on my list after my first listen,
> so there is that)... but I hardly remember anything about most of them
> right now. I had the same problem for the last couple of years, but it has
> gotten even worse. I partly fault my abovementioned glum state of mind for
> that... but it could also be that new Scores are generally not as exiting
> and attention-grabbing as they used to be.
> Of my five favourite Composers of all time, four are dead and I'd be the
> happiest man in the World if the last one (Williams) gets another Score
> off the ground at this stage in his career. Fine, there are many, many
> Active Composers working right now. What about them? Well, its been over
> two years since a Michael Giacchino-Score *really* grabbed me. Its even
> longer for Desplat (all of his 2024-Scores are very good but frankly not
> among his best, I don't feel), Shore, Elfman, Howard... John Powells' two
> major efforts of last year are both in my top twenty, but neither is
> exactly 'Solo' of HTTYD. Considering all of that, it almost came as a
> shock to me how great 'Here' turned out.
> And with many of the younger Composers, as much as I liked their efforts,
> I feel like most of what they are doing has already been done by other
> Composer years ago and in a slightly more memorable fashion. The saying
> 'Standing on the Shoulders of Giants' comes to mind. Granted, its not the
> case with all of them and the Scores that I really took notice of landed
> in my top-ten and among the runner-ups. And yes, my gloomy, often
> unexitable mindset is probably a reason why I feel this way and am
> probably a bit unfair... but I know I'm not the only one having a problem
> connecting with a lot of music coming out these days. I was thinking about
> stopping listening to new Scores (or seriously scaling it down) in favour
> of giving older stuff more relistens... but I decided against it, lest I
> let whatever put me into this state win.
> ---
> Anyway, off the Soapbox I get. 'What about the Score?'
> 1. Rings of Power: Season 2 (McCreary, Bear)
> 2. La última noche en Tremor (Velazquez, Fernando)
> 3. Here (Silvestri, Alan)
> 4. The Wild Robot (Bowers, Kris)
> 5. Stormskerry Maja (Porra, Lauri)
> 6. Masters of the Air (Neely, Blake)
> 7. Avatar: The last Airbender (Furukawa, Takeshi)
> 8. Harold and the Purple Crayon (Sener, Batu)
> 9. Atlas (Lockington, Andrew)
> 10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Paesano, John)
> Runner up's (second 10) and third 10, all listed by Composer Last Name:
> - Cabrini (Back, Gene)
> - The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (Gallagher, Stephen)
> - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Haab, Gordy)
> - Interview with the Vampire [Season 2] (Hart, Daniel)
> - The remarkable life of Ibelin (Helmersson, Uno)
> - Umi ni nemuru Diamond (Sato, Naoki)
> - Megalopolis (Golijov, Osvaldo)
> - That Christmas (Powell, John)
> - Wicked (Powell & Schwartz)
> - Twisters (Wallfisch, Benjamin)
> - Argylle (Balfe, Lorne)
> - Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (Debney, John)
> - Kensuke's Kingdom (Hancock, Stuart)
> - A Gentleman in Moscow (Jusid, Federico)
> - Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Marianelli, Dario)
> - Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (Roget II, Wilbert)
> - The Book of Clarence (Samuel, Jeymes)
> - Flyways: The Untold Stories of Migratory Shore Birds (Skubiszewski,
> Cezary)
> - Invisible (Velazquez, Fernando)
> - Young Woman and the Sea (Warner, Amelia)
> Other Scores I remember liking enough to give them four stars while my
> memory was still fresh:
> A Mistake
> A Normal Family
> Alien Romulus
> Bambi: L’Histoire d’une Vie dans les Bois
> Batman: Caped Crusader
> Buffalo Kids
> Carmen and the wooden Spoon
> Critic, The
> Damsel
> Deadpool & Wolverine
> Decoded
> Dragonkeeper
> Edge of Space
> Finalmente l’Alba
> First Omen, The
> Fly me to the Moon
> Fortune de France
> Gladiator II
> Go for Grandma
> Goat Life, The
> Hanasaki Mai Speaks Out 2024
> Hikari no Ou
> Into the Mortal World
> Killer, The
> La plus précieuse des marchandises
> Lee
> Les Chèvres
> Long Game, The
> Loups-Garous
> Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, The
> Most Vagy Soha
> Name of the Game is a Kidnapping, The
> Nice Girls
> Nosferatu
> Ordinary Angels
> Origin
> Orion and the Dark
> Our living World
> Outlander [Season 7]
> Primevals, The
> Promised Land, The
> Red One
> Room next door, The
> Se portessi dirti addio
> Sonic the Hedgehog 3
> Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
> Superklaus
> Tatooist of Auschwitz, The
> The Union
> Tiger's Apprentice
> Transformers: One
> Underdoggs, The
> Unstoppable
> Watchers, The
> What if...? [Season 3]
> Why Dinosaurs?
> ---
> As for my favourite Composer, I'll again pick the creator of my favourite
> Score of the Year:
> Bear McCreary.
> Others who had a strong or at least pretty good year:
> Kris Bowers
> Alexandre Desplat
> Harry Gregson-Williams
> John Powell
> Fernando Velazquez
> Benjamin Wallfisch
> And here are a bunch of Newcomers I discovered in 2024 that picqued my
> attention:
> Mark Baechle
> Gene Back
> Daniel Blumberg
> Pancho Burgos-Goizueta
> Arturo Cardelús
> Robin Carolan
> Amaury Chabauty
> Sung-Woo Cho
> Raphaël Dargent
> Piernicola Di Muro
> Takeshi Furukawa
> Stephen Gallagher
> Mick Giacchino
> Alexis Grapsas
> Uno Helmersson
> Robert Lydecker & Kevin Lax
> Massimo Martellotta
> Taram Mitchell
> Viggo Mortensen
> Lauri Porra
> Julie Roué
> Jeymes Samuel
> Batu Sener
> ---
> Lastly, for the hell of it, my LEAST favourite of last year:
> [REDACTED] (Mark Mothersbaugh)
> Others I really didn't care for:
> - The Helicopter Heist (Ekstrand)
> - The Charisma Killers (Kirkhope)
> - Monkey Man (Kurzel)
> - Love Lies Bleeding (Mansell)
> - MadS (Mechaly)
> - Uzumaki (Stetson)
> - Hold your Breath (Stetson)
> - Founders Day (Williams, Timothy)
> - Teacup (Wingo)
> with the Runners-up (Runners-down?) being 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga' (Tom
> Holkenborg) – because it at least had one Cue in it I really liked
> ---
> Again, thanks a lot @Craig for organizing this enormous undertaking. 
|
