TLDR The Top Ten:
1. Ponyo
2. Lost Season 4
3. Defiance
4. The Spiderwick Chronicles
Oops. Adoration
5. Slumdog Millionaire
6. Nim’s Island
7. Doctor Who Series 4
8. The Express
9. WALL-E
10. I Want to Be a Shellfish
Composer of the Year: Joe Hisaishi

The Long Post:
I feel like I say this in all my year-end posts now, but damn, what a year. 2008 in this case. I guess most people will remember this year for the Recession, but I was in junior high school at the time, so I knew it was happening but I didn’t really feel it. The more cataclysmic event was when I asked someone out for the first time (and walked it back 3 seconds later after she responded with a raised eyebrow because we both knew she was already seeing someone). Also Obama happened that year! And Michael Phelps!

I didn’t have strong opinions on 2008 as a year of film music before this exercise. What I mostly knew it for is how it was the year Christian didn’t pick a winner, as nothing reached 5 stars for him. And for a long while I didn’t have any 5 star scores either, until I found one. I had about 30 scores total I knew from this year. Not shabby, and I wouldn’t be upset with the top ten that list would have given me, but I figured this would be as good a time as any to get to any score from this year that felt “essential.” If not quite reaching the depth of knowledge to which I have for any year in the 2020s, at least getting to anything I could find from a notable film or composer that I like. And then make it into a typical year-end style post, because why not? Lots of this I heard for the first time, which means I have Takes to share.

2008 by the numbers:
Scores heard in full: 78
Short scores and scores heard partially: 13
Newly heard scores: 49 (plus 12 short/fragmented scores)
Things I decided I didn’t have time for: 33

As you can tell, there’s lots of stuff I’ve only just heard, so when you yell at me about how wrong I am for where I ranked them, you might be right! It’s not like I gave all of these three close listens. I’ll start this list by counting down my top 21 (basically the short list of things I thought could make my top ten) and then I’ll share the rest of the scores with occasional commentary.

21. Kung Fu Panda (Hans Zimmer/John Powell) – Pointless story: one time I was talking to a girl on a dating app (this was like five years ago, not junior high), and the topic of film scores came up because I mentioned it in my bio. So I needed to come up with a score I liked to recommend to her. If you’ve ever been actively dating, you know that you go through a lot of familiar conversations repeatedly. So maybe it was to avoid repetition that I didn’t tell her I liked Lord of the Rings or How to Train Your Dragon. Instead I said Kung Fu Panda. Or maybe I said that because subconsciously I wasn’t sure this girl was worth using How to Train Your Dragon on. This feels mildly insulting to Kung Fu Panda, which is a perfectly nice score. After all, I recommended it to this random girl, right? We didn’t talk a whole lot more though.

20. Amalia (Nuno Malo)
19. Horton Hears a Who! (John Powell)
18. Departures (Joe Hisaishi)

They’re all nice. I don’t have much to add.

17. The Reader (Nico Muhly) – Lovely piano-driven drama. More than a hint of Glass in it but from a very fresh voice.

16. The Dark Knight (Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard) – I truly don’t know where to rank this score. At some point I had to write a positive review of the score for a Zimmer piece I was co-writing for FSM (I tried to trade it for Crimson Tide but had no luck), and forcing myself to write about it positively helped me figure out what I do like here. But also, I reread Christian’s review and I don’t think he’s particularly wrong about anything in this score. Pull together my favorite tracks from the original album and there’s about 45 minutes of great material. But the rest of it… fairly tedious a lot of the time. Whatever, it doesn’t need points from me to do well in this poll lol. Nice score, aged well. Harvey Dent’s theme is a better Batman theme than the Batman theme we got though.

15. Battlestar Galactica, Season 4.1 (Bear McCreary) – Mr. Blough’s playlist of what he categorized as Season 4.1 (2008) and 4.5 (2009) was very helpful. Unfortunately, only sticking to the 40 minutes of 2008 material dragged the score down my rankings here a bit. As a single score, the full season would have likely been in my top 10.

14. The Duchess (Rachel Portman) – Lovely! I spent a lot of last year celebrating how Rachel Portman was “back,” but if I haven’t even heard late 2000s scores like this from her before, is it possible she never left and I just wasn’t paying attention to her?

13. Frost/Nixon (Hans Zimmer)
12. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Harry Gregson-Williams) – Sorry John.
11. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (John Williams) – I never disliked this score, but the album (which I’ve been told is missing a lot of important material) is much better than I remember. I wonder if I just forgot to revisit it over the years in favor of better Indy scores and better 2000s and 2010s Williams scores, or if hearing Dial of Destiny was what I really needed to appreciate Crystal Skull lol. Bit of both perhaps.

10. I Want to Be a Shellfish (Joe Hisaishi) – I mean, it’s Hisaishi doing straightforwardly lovely stuff.

9. WALL-E (Thomas Newman) – Not unlike Crystal Skull, way better than I remembered! It’s a very Newman-y Thomas Newman score, but that touch of sci-fi adventure really makes it pop.

8. The Express (Mark Isham) – Seems like this is a hidden/forgotten gem. Has a good balance of weighty drama and rousing sports moments. A little surprised no one has voted for it, or even mentioned it so far in the polling, but I suppose Isham very rarely gets much traction here. Worth a listen if you haven’t heard it!

7. Doctor Who, Series 4 (Murray Gold) – Lots of decent material punctuated by a handful of “Holy crap!” moments. The Holiest and Crappiest(?) of them all may very well be my cue of the year: https://youtu.be/JIAkf78G3EU?si=cvD4q973eYNfVdMq

6. Nim’s Island (Patrick Doyle) – Another gem that slipped past me before! Do people talk about this? Is the issue just that I have a huge backlog of Doyle scores I need to check out? (Yes.) Does it get overshadowed by Goblet of Fire and Eragon? Because this fits right in with those other fantasy scores.

5. Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman) – About a year ago I did a small binge of Rahman’s scores for English language/Western films, and I gave this 3/5. So why is it in my top ten now? Because I took the Filmtracks viewer rating for this score personally. 45% of the votes are 1 star, which feels absurd. I wanted to look up similarly rated scores for comparison but Christian’s Modern Scores pages only go up to 1600 and apparently that’s not deep enough to find it. That kind of vitriol makes me wonder what was in the water in 2008. So my first thought: Was this the first Rahman soundtrack most people here heard? If so, I can understand his first impression being a little...contentious. But the second thought: Was this the first score most people here heard that had a substantial hip-hop presence? Was this a “Guess you guys weren’t ready for that, but your kids are gonna love it” moment? Were people just really mad about the Oscars? (Or just one of the two Oscars?) All I know is that I’m salty enough about it 17 years later to put it up here as a statement. Also because turns out any track from this has more excitement and creativity than a whole bunch of what I’ve listened to in the last few weeks.

(Note: The following was written before realizing this film only had a festival release in 2008, and opened in Canada in 2009. Darn. I was even hyping this up to a few folks as a hidden gem no one else had mentioned. Leaving this section as is though because I still want to recommend it.)
5. Adoration (Mychael Danna) – It’s great to see that even when we run back to 2008, I can still conjure up a “Weird Vikram pick” that no one else votes for. Hell, has anyone even heard it? It’s one of his collaborations with fellow Canadian Aton Egoyan, so I kind of assume Riley’s seen the film, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this score mentioned. I also don’t know that it’s going to win a ton of people over, but hey, I might as well make my case. The score uses a small chamber ensemble but it’s anything but lowkey. It’s suspenseful and spiky, with a lot of great solo violin writing. It’s not a pleasant listen, but it’s darkly compelling music in a tight 42 minutes. The harmonies in the final cue are particularly great. I’ve given it three listens now and each listen has made putting it this high feel less absurd. Again, I don’t expect much agreement, but I really think it’s worth your time.

4. The Spiderwick Chronicles (James Horner) – My Horner knowledge has largely stagnated in recent years. I haven’t made it a priority to dig into more of his work, outside of the longtime favorites. And when I do, I’ll sometimes ask myself “Do I actually even like Horner?” The answer is yes, but sometimes it feels like I only like his 90s run plus a handful of other scores. Another of his 2008 scores made me feel that way (which we’ll get to later), but this one reminded me that yes, I am a Horner fan, it’s just that I tend to like him when he’s writing good music. Another lovely discovery, where he gives his children’s fantasy sound a fresh spin. Only real knock I have on it is that it has one of those end credits where he just can’t end the dang score.

3. Defiance (James Newton Howard) – No new discoveries left, the top three are all scores I’ve had plenty of time to fall in love with. It’s JNH doing tragically beautiful music in his specific way. What else do I have to say? Joshua Bell’s violin work is gorgeous, and I love that the main theme almost sounds like it could be based on a Jewish folk tune. Would be nice if the secondary themes were better enunciated but the gloomy, somber vibes are perfect.

2. Lost, Season 4 (Michael Giacchino) – In part due to the 2007-08 writers strike, Season 4 of Lost was delayed until January 2008 and condensed into 14 episodes. The former helps me avoid having to sort out which music counts for which year, and the latter may have helped Giacchino deliver his best season of music. Or at least his best album, since I haven’t seen any of this show. It’s full of all the Giacchino-isms you’ve come to either love or roll your eyes at, but everything clicks really well, and what puts it over the top is the new theme that completely wrecks your emotions. (“Landing Party” for those unfamiliar.)

1. Ponyo (Joe Hisaishi) – There was never really a doubt this score was going to be my #1. Then the day I actually listened to it, I was pretty cranky. By the time the first track was done playing, my crankiness was gone. There’s a joyousness in this music that is impossible to resist. Hisaishi draws heavy inspiration from Impressionist composers for this score, and his use of different instrumental colors is unreal. And of course the Wagner-inspired track is a delight as well; even nature’s violent retribution against humankind is full of soaring fun! Princess Mononoke remains my favorite Hisaishi score, but this might be closing the gap.

Composer of the year: Score of the year and two more in the top twenty seal the deal for Joe Hisaishi. James Newton Howard gets an honorable mention for having the Saddest 2008. Defiance, The Dark Knight, and The Happening are all very bleak films! Throw in December 2007’s I Am Legend and this is maybe the most depressing run of work you can pack into 13 months. Thankfully my guy followed it up with two romcoms in 2009 (and contributed to a third).

The rest:
Ordering of the rest of these are very loose and largely based on knee jerk reactions after a single listen. Don’t read too heavily into how they’re sorted outside of which group they’re in. Scores heard for the first time are bolded

Yeah this is nice!
Forbidden Kingdom (David Buckley)
Red Cliff (Taro Iwashiro)
Eagle Eye (Brian Tyler)
Fool’s Gold (George Fenton)
Largo Winch (Alexandre Desplat)
Quantum of Solace (David Arnold)
Definitely, Maybe (Clint Mansell)
Miracle at St. Anna (Terence Blanchard)
Tinkerbell (Joel McNeely)
Waltz With Bashir (Richter)
The Incredible Hulk (Craig Armstrong)
The Secret Life of Bees (Mark Isham)
Che (Alberto Iglesias)
Meet the Spartans (Christopher Lennertz)
Asterix at the Olympic Games (Frederic Talgorn) – I assume everyone ranking this highly just ignored the songs?
The Happening (James Newton Howard)
Australia (David Hirschfelder) – Not earthshattering, but “The Rush” deserves a special shoutout.
Let the Right One In (Johan Soderqvist)
Tropic Thunder (Theodore Shapiro)
Untraceable (Christopher Young)
The Tale of Desperaux (William Ross)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Andrew Lockington)
Sex and the City (Aaron Zigman)
Mirrors (Javier Navarrete)
The Other Boelyn Girl (Paul Cantelon)

Eh, it’s alright
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Desplat)
Pride and Glory (Mark Isham)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (Rachel Portman)
Leatherheads (Randy Newman)
Marley and Me (Theodore Shapiro)
Speed Racer (Michael Giacchino)
Synedoche, New York (Jon Brion)
Hancock (John Powell)
Burn After Reading (Carter Burwell)
In Bruges (Carter Burwell) – I think I listened to the Burwells too early and they fell down the list by accident.
Doubt (Howard Shore)
The Life Before Her Eyes (James Horner)
W. (Paul Cantelon)

Sure?
The Spirit (David Newman)
Bangkok Dangerous (Brian Tyler)
Get Smart (Trevor Rabin)
Fly Me to the Moon (Ramin Djawadi)
10000 BC (Harold Kloser/Thomas Wander)
Valkyrie (John Ottman)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Kevin Kiner)
Lakeview Terrace (Mychael Danna/Jeff Danna)

Meh.
Stop-Loss (Powell)
Jumper (Powell)
Bolt (Powell) – Okay these are probably all too low. They’re fine.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Horner) – Remember before, when I said sometimes I wonder if I actually like James Horner? Yeah this is one of the scores that raises the question. Feels like I spent most of the score waiting for it to do something. And like any Horner score, it does at least do that in the penultimate cue. But of all the composers to take a tastefully restrained approach to this film… Horner?? Bleh.
The Eye (Marco Beltrami)
Rambo (Brian Tyler)
Children of Huang Shi (David Hirschfelder)
Revolutionary Road (Thomas Newman) – Sorry Riley.
Iron Man – I finally listened to this score! It’s not good! I guess the theme is alright.
Twilight – It’s jarring how bad this is compared to literally every other score in the series (including Burwell’s other Twilight scores!) The main theme is good though, maybe enough to not have it at the very bottom. Eh, whatever, I don’t care about these enough to relisten and rerank.

Short Scores, Score Suites, and Score Fragments I heard, all of which felt too slight to place in the loosely ranked:
Cloverfield (Michael Giacchino)
Oorlogswinter (Pino Donaggio)
Igor (Patrick Doyle)
Step Brothers (Jon Brion)
Fireflies in the Garden (Javier Navarrete)
The Wrestler (Clint Mansell)
City of Ember (Andrew Lockington)
Ghajini (A.R. Rahman)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (David Arnold)

So was it a good year???
Um, sure? Still only one 5 star score, but I got a good top ten out of it, and a nice bench of solid scores going out to like #35. So I found stuff I had missed out on previously. But also… idk, it seems like a normal year? I get the feeling that these going back in time polls are going to show me that things may not swing as dramatically as our memories say they do. Either that or I’m lacking the nostalgia and romance that others who lived through exploring these scores for the first time will have. Let’s use 2023 as a comparison, since Christian didn’t have a 5 star score that year either. Is what I have here that much better than what I had two years ago? Not really. There’s some great, there’s a lot of very good, there’s a lot of fine, and there’s some terrible. I’m not sure it’s that different. The bad stuff is just bad in different ways from our modern bad stuff. Like Twilight! It’s bad in very specific, 2008 ways! No one would write a score like that today! Iron Man is also bad in very specifically 2008 ways! Revolutionary Road is bad in… okay, bad example, that’s a bad Newman score that he could’ve written at any time lol. On average I’d take 2020s John Powell over 2008 Powell. So… take that nostalgia!

And for completeness, my top ten prior to doing this:
1. Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
2. Un Homme Et Son Chien (Oops, turns out it was a 2009 score)
3. I Want to Be a Shellfish
4. Defiance
5. Let the Right One In
6. Dark Knight
7. Journey to the Center of the Earth
8. Incredible Hulk
9. The Reader
10. Quantum of Solace

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ve gone nearly a week without posting because I’ve spent so much time writing this instead. And I have like 65 other posts to catch up on. And I need to post my latest article!

Rad-swaggity.

> Does it get
> overshadowed by Goblet of Fire and Eragon? Because this fits right in with
> those other fantasy scores.

As does The Last Legion from 2007, which is similarly overshadowed.

> TLDR The Top Ten:
> 1. Ponyo
> 2. Lost Season 4
> 3. Defiance
> 4. The Spiderwick Chronicles
> Oops. Adoration
> 5. Slumdog Millionaire
> 6. Nim’s Island
> 7. Doctor Who Series 4
> 8. The Express
> 9. WALL-E
> 10. I Want to Be a Shellfish
> Composer of the Year: Joe Hisaishi

> The Long Post:
> I feel like I say this in all my year-end posts now, but damn, what a
> year. 2008 in this case. I guess most people will remember this year for
> the Recession, but I was in junior high school at the time, so I knew it
> was happening but I didn’t really feel it. The more cataclysmic event was
> when I asked someone out for the first time (and walked it back 3 seconds
> later after she responded with a raised eyebrow because we both knew she
> was already seeing someone). Also Obama happened that year! And Michael
> Phelps!

> I didn’t have strong opinions on 2008 as a year of film music before this
> exercise. What I mostly knew it for is how it was the year Christian
> didn’t pick a winner, as nothing reached 5 stars for him. And for a long
> while I didn’t have any 5 star scores either, until I found one. I had
> about 30 scores total I knew from this year. Not shabby, and I wouldn’t be
> upset with the top ten that list would have given me, but I figured this
> would be as good a time as any to get to any score from this year that
> felt “essential.” If not quite reaching the depth of knowledge to which I
> have for any year in the 2020s, at least getting to anything I could find
> from a notable film or composer that I like. And then make it into a
> typical year-end style post, because why not? Lots of this I heard for the
> first time, which means I have Takes to share.

> 2008 by the numbers:
> Scores heard in full: 78
> Short scores and scores heard partially: 13
> Newly heard scores: 49 (plus 12 short/fragmented scores)
> Things I decided I didn’t have time for: 33

> As you can tell, there’s lots of stuff I’ve only just heard, so when you
> yell at me about how wrong I am for where I ranked them, you might be
> right! It’s not like I gave all of these three close listens. I’ll start
> this list by counting down my top 21 (basically the short list of things I
> thought could make my top ten) and then I’ll share the rest of the scores
> with occasional commentary.

> 21. Kung Fu Panda (Hans Zimmer/John Powell) – Pointless story: one
> time I was talking to a girl on a dating app (this was like five years
> ago, not junior high), and the topic of film scores came up because I
> mentioned it in my bio. So I needed to come up with a score I liked to
> recommend to her. If you’ve ever been actively dating, you know that you
> go through a lot of familiar conversations repeatedly. So maybe it was to
> avoid repetition that I didn’t tell her I liked Lord of the Rings or How
> to Train Your Dragon. Instead I said Kung Fu Panda. Or maybe I said that
> because subconsciously I wasn’t sure this girl was worth using How to
> Train Your Dragon on. This feels mildly insulting to Kung Fu Panda, which
> is a perfectly nice score. After all, I recommended it to this random
> girl, right? We didn’t talk a whole lot more though.

> 20. Amalia (Nuno Malo)
> 19. Horton Hears a Who! (John Powell)
> 18. Departures (Joe Hisaishi)

> They’re all nice. I don’t have much to add.

> 17. The Reader (Nico Muhly) – Lovely piano-driven drama. More than
> a hint of Glass in it but from a very fresh voice.

> 16. The Dark Knight (Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard) – I truly
> don’t know where to rank this score. At some point I had to write a
> positive review of the score for a Zimmer piece I was co-writing for FSM
> (I tried to trade it for Crimson Tide but had no luck), and forcing myself
> to write about it positively helped me figure out what I do like here. But
> also, I reread Christian’s review and I don’t think he’s particularly
> wrong about anything in this score. Pull together my favorite tracks from
> the original album and there’s about 45 minutes of great material. But the
> rest of it… fairly tedious a lot of the time. Whatever, it doesn’t need
> points from me to do well in this poll lol. Nice score, aged well. Harvey
> Dent’s theme is a better Batman theme than the Batman theme we got though.

> 15. Battlestar Galactica, Season 4.1 (Bear McCreary) – Mr. Blough’s
> playlist of what he categorized as Season 4.1 (2008) and 4.5 (2009) was
> very helpful. Unfortunately, only sticking to the 40 minutes of 2008
> material dragged the score down my rankings here a bit. As a single score,
> the full season would have likely been in my top 10.

> 14. The Duchess (Rachel Portman) – Lovely! I spent a lot of last
> year celebrating how Rachel Portman was “back,” but if I haven’t even
> heard late 2000s scores like this from her before, is it possible she
> never left and I just wasn’t paying attention to her?

> 13. Frost/Nixon (Hans Zimmer)
> 12. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Harry
> Gregson-Williams) – Sorry John.
> 11. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (John
> Williams) – I never disliked this score, but the album (which I’ve been
> told is missing a lot of important material) is much better than I
> remember. I wonder if I just forgot to revisit it over the years in favor
> of better Indy scores and better 2000s and 2010s Williams scores, or if
> hearing Dial of Destiny was what I really needed to appreciate Crystal
> Skull lol. Bit of both perhaps.

Classic Vik, overachieving with a post about his fave scores from 17 years ago :P

> 10. I Want to Be a Shellfish (Joe Hisaishi) – I mean, it’s Hisaishi
> doing straightforwardly lovely stuff.

Uhhhh damn, never heard it.

> 9. WALL-E (Thomas Newman) – Not unlike Crystal Skull, way better
> than I remembered! It’s a very Newman-y Thomas Newman score, but that
> touch of sci-fi adventure really makes it pop.

Ehhh...it's fine. I was SUPER disappointed when it came out because a collaboration between, at the time, my two favourite musical artists, was something I was literally counting down the days for. I love Petey's Down to Earth song, but the score is just fine.

(now watch you come back with "I love the score but Petey's song was just fine")

> 8. The Express (Mark Isham) – Seems like this is a hidden/forgotten
> gem. Has a good balance of weighty drama and rousing sports moments. A
> little surprised no one has voted for it, or even mentioned it so far in
> the polling, but I suppose Isham very rarely gets much traction here.
> Worth a listen if you haven’t heard it!

I heard it at the time...? That's all I got.

> 7. Doctor Who, Series 4 (Murray Gold) – Lots of decent material
> punctuated by a handful of “Holy crap!” moments. The Holiest and
> Crappiest(?) of them all may very well be my cue of the year:
> https://youtu.be/JIAkf78G3EU?si=cvD4q973eYNfVdMq

> 6. Nim’s Island (Patrick Doyle) – Another gem that slipped past me
> before! Do people talk about this? Is the issue just that I have a huge
> backlog of Doyle scores I need to check out? (Yes.) Does it get
> overshadowed by Goblet of Fire and Eragon? Because this fits right in with
> those other fantasy scores.

I keep forgetting about this one.

> 5. Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman) – About a year ago I did a
> small binge of Rahman’s scores for English language/Western films, and I
> gave this 3/5. So why is it in my top ten now? Because I took the
> Filmtracks viewer rating for this score personally. 45% of the votes are 1
> star, which feels absurd. I wanted to look up similarly rated scores for
> comparison but Christian’s Modern Scores pages only go up to 1600 and
> apparently that’s not deep enough to find it. That kind of vitriol makes
> me wonder what was in the water in 2008. So my first thought: Was this the
> first Rahman soundtrack most people here heard? If so, I can understand
> his first impression being a little...contentious. But the second thought:
> Was this the first score most people here heard that had a substantial
> hip-hop presence? Was this a “Guess you guys weren’t ready for that, but
> your kids are gonna love it” moment? Were people just really mad about the
> Oscars? (Or just one of the two Oscars?) All I know is that I’m salty
> enough about it 17 years later to put it up here as a statement. Also
> because turns out any track from this has more excitement and creativity
> than a whole bunch of what I’ve listened to in the last few weeks.

Glad to see someone else dig on this one, it got a lot of flak around these here parts back then.

> (Note: The following was written before realizing this film only had a
> festival release in 2008, and opened in Canada in 2009. Darn. I was even
> hyping this up to a few folks as a hidden gem no one else had mentioned.
> Leaving this section as is though because I still want to recommend it.)
> 5. Adoration (Mychael Danna) – It’s great to see that even when we
> run back to 2008, I can still conjure up a “Weird Vikram pick” that no one
> else votes for. Hell, has anyone even heard it? It’s one of his
> collaborations with fellow Canadian Aton Egoyan, so I kind of assume
> Riley’s seen the film, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this score
> mentioned. I also don’t know that it’s going to win a ton of people over,
> but hey, I might as well make my case. The score uses a small chamber
> ensemble but it’s anything but lowkey. It’s suspenseful and spiky, with a
> lot of great solo violin writing. It’s not a pleasant listen, but
> it’s darkly compelling music in a tight 42 minutes. The harmonies in the
> final cue are particularly great. I’ve given it three listens now and each
> listen has made putting it this high feel less absurd. Again, I don’t
> expect much agreement, but I really think it’s worth your time.

So THIS was the mystery score you were texting me about haha. Yeah I have the Blu-Ray of this sucker but am having trouble remembering the deets cause it came out at this weird period of Egoyan's career where he suddenly churned out like, 5 dramatic mystery flicks in just a couple years and none of them were memorable. Don't recall the score at all, though I must admit none of Egoyan/Danna's collaborations have clicked with me (apart from the first two cues of Ararat, which I still attest are the best things Danna has ever written).

> 4. The Spiderwick Chronicles (James Horner) – My Horner knowledge
> has largely stagnated in recent years. I haven’t made it a priority to dig
> into more of his work, outside of the longtime favorites. And when I do,
> I’ll sometimes ask myself “Do I actually even like Horner?” The answer is
> yes, but sometimes it feels like I only like his 90s run plus a handful of
> other scores. Another of his 2008 scores made me feel that way (which
> we’ll get to later), but this one reminded me that yes, I am a Horner fan,
> it’s just that I tend to like him when he’s writing good music. Another
> lovely discovery, where he gives his children’s fantasy sound a fresh
> spin. Only real knock I have on it is that it has one of those end credits
> where he just can’t end the dang score.

It's fun but not one I ever return to.

> 3. Defiance (James Newton Howard) – No new discoveries left, the
> top three are all scores I’ve had plenty of time to fall in love with.
> It’s JNH doing tragically beautiful music in his specific way. What else
> do I have to say? Joshua Bell’s violin work is gorgeous, and I love that
> the main theme almost sounds like it could be based on a Jewish folk tune.
> Would be nice if the secondary themes were better enunciated but the
> gloomy, somber vibes are perfect.

Excellent score.

> 2. Lost, Season 4 (Michael Giacchino) – In part due to the 2007-08
> writers strike, Season 4 of Lost was delayed until January 2008 and
> condensed into 14 episodes. The former helps me avoid having to sort out
> which music counts for which year, and the latter may have helped
> Giacchino deliver his best season of music. Or at least his best album,
> since I haven’t seen any of this show. It’s full of all the Giacchino-isms
> you’ve come to either love or roll your eyes at, but everything clicks
> really well, and what puts it over the top is the new theme that
> completely wrecks your emotions. (“Landing Party” for those unfamiliar.)

I remember liking the first season's album, hating the second, and giving up after that. Apart from your Spotify playlist of course, which was better than I expected haha.

> 1. Ponyo (Joe Hisaishi) – There was never really a doubt this score
> was going to be my #1. Then the day I actually listened to it, I was
> pretty cranky. By the time the first track was done playing, my crankiness
> was gone. There’s a joyousness in this music that is impossible to resist.
> Hisaishi draws heavy inspiration from Impressionist composers for this
> score, and his use of different instrumental colors is unreal. And of
> course the Wagner-inspired track is a delight as well; even nature’s
> violent retribution against humankind is full of soaring fun! Princess
> Mononoke remains my favorite Hisaishi score, but this might be closing the
> gap.

Yeah it's a winner.

> Composer of the year: Score of the year and two more in the top twenty
> seal the deal for Joe Hisaishi. James Newton Howard gets an honorable
> mention for having the Saddest 2008. Defiance, The Dark Knight, and The
> Happening are all very bleak films! Throw in December 2007’s I Am Legend
> and this is maybe the most depressing run of work you can pack into 13
> months. Thankfully my guy followed it up with two romcoms in 2009 (and
> contributed to a third).

> The rest:
> Ordering of the rest of these are very loose and largely based on knee
> jerk reactions after a single listen. Don’t read too heavily into how
> they’re sorted outside of which group they’re in. Scores heard for the
> first time are bolded

> Yeah this is nice!
> Forbidden Kingdom (David Buckley)
> Red Cliff (Taro Iwashiro)
> Eagle Eye (Brian Tyler)
> Fool’s Gold (George Fenton)
> Largo Winch (Alexandre Desplat)
> Quantum of Solace (David Arnold)
> Definitely, Maybe (Clint Mansell)
> Miracle at St. Anna (Terence Blanchard)
> Tinkerbell (Joel McNeely)
> Waltz With Bashir (Richter)
> The Incredible Hulk (Craig Armstrong)
> The Secret Life of Bees (Mark Isham)
> Che (Alberto Iglesias)
> Meet the Spartans (Christopher Lennertz)
> Asterix at the Olympic Games (Frederic Talgorn) – I assume everyone
> ranking this highly just ignored the songs?
> The Happening (James Newton Howard)
> Australia (David Hirschfelder) – Not earthshattering, but “The
> Rush” deserves a special shoutout.
> Let the Right One In (Johan Soderqvist)
> Tropic Thunder (Theodore Shapiro)
> Untraceable (Christopher Young)
> The Tale of Desperaux (William Ross)
> Journey to the Center of the Earth (Andrew Lockington)
> Sex and the City (Aaron Zigman)
> Mirrors (Javier Navarrete)
> The Other Boelyn Girl (Paul Cantelon)

I thought Miracle at St Anna would make it to your top 10 with how much you've seemed to dig Blanchard lately.

> Eh, it’s alright
> The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Desplat)
> Pride and Glory (Mark Isham)
> The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (Rachel Portman)
> Leatherheads (Randy Newman)
> Marley and Me (Theodore Shapiro)
> Speed Racer (Michael Giacchino)
> Synedoche, New York (Jon Brion)
> Hancock (John Powell)
> Burn After Reading (Carter Burwell)
> In Bruges (Carter Burwell) – I think I listened to the Burwells too
> early and they fell down the list by accident.
> Doubt (Howard Shore)
> The Life Before Her Eyes (James Horner)
> W. (Paul Cantelon)

Ooof, yeah I don't much care for any of those. Hancock almost deserves higher just because of those great last two cues though. Also, Life Before Her Eyes is awesome goddammit!

> Sure?
> The Spirit (David Newman)
> Bangkok Dangerous (Brian Tyler)
> Get Smart (Trevor Rabin)
> Fly Me to the Moon (Ramin Djawadi)
> 10000 BC (Harold Kloser/Thomas Wander)
> Valkyrie (John Ottman)
> Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Kevin Kiner)
> Lakeview Terrace (Mychael Danna/Jeff Danna)

I'm sounding like a broken record here but Bangkok Dangerous is another one where the album as a whole is meh, but those first two cues are stunning. And as mentioned before, I love Lakeview Terrace (and very much enjoy 10,000 BC, as long as I can ignore the blatant rip off of Zimmer's King Arthur theme).

> Meh.
> Stop-Loss (Powell)
> Jumper (Powell)
> Bolt (Powell) – Okay these are probably all too low. They’re fine.

Ah come on, Jumper is a blast! I also think Stop Loss has some really good stuff in it. Bolt I haven't listened to on it's own in yeeeeeears but Claire wanted to watch the movie recently and I thought it sounded pretty good.

> The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Horner) – Remember before, when I
> said sometimes I wonder if I actually like James Horner? Yeah this is one
> of the scores that raises the question. Feels like I spent most of the
> score waiting for it to do something. And like any Horner score, it does
> at least do that in the penultimate cue. But of all the composers to take
> a tastefully restrained approach to this film… Horner?? Bleh.

Whoa whoa whoa Nelly Furtado, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

> Rambo (Brian Tyler)

Awh!

> Children of Huang Shi (David Hirschfelder)
> Revolutionary Road (Thomas Newman) – Sorry Riley.

AWH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

> Iron Man – I finally listened to this score! It’s not good! I guess the
> theme is alright.

Awh x3!!! That theme is a banger good sir! Whole score is fun, sounds like a better Rabin 2008 score than the actual Rabin 2008 score.

> Rad-swaggity.

Lots of fun reading this, great stuff bud.

> Classic Vik, overachieving with a post about his fave scores from 17 years
> ago :P

> Uhhhh damn, never heard it.

It's kind of hard to find, I'll post a track tomorrow if I can pick out a good one.

> Ehhh...it's fine. I was SUPER disappointed when it came out because a
> collaboration between, at the time, my two favourite musical artists, was
> something I was literally counting down the days for. I love Petey's Down
> to Earth song, but the score is just fine.

> (now watch you come back with 'I love the score but Petey's song was just
> fine')

No I like the Gabriel song too, it fits well with the score.

> I heard it at the time...? That's all I got.

> I keep forgetting about this one.

> Glad to see someone else dig on this one, it got a lot of flak around
> these here parts back then.

> So THIS was the mystery score you were texting me about haha. Yeah I have
> the Blu-Ray of this sucker but am having trouble remembering the deets
> cause it came out at this weird period of Egoyan's career where he
> suddenly churned out like, 5 dramatic mystery flicks in just a couple
> years and none of them were memorable. Don't recall the score at all,
> though I must admit none of Egoyan/Danna's collaborations have clicked
> with me (apart from the first two cues of Ararat, which I still attest are
> the best things Danna has ever written).

Dammit I still need to get to Ararat. Maybe this poll series will be the push I need.

> It's fun but not one I ever return to.

> Excellent score.

> I remember liking the first season's album, hating the second, and giving
> up after that. Apart from your Spotify playlist of course, which was
> better than I expected haha.

I think as an album, this might be the strongest one. No excess, not too much of the suspense, and introducing the aforementioned new theme.

> Yeah it's a winner.

> I thought Miracle at St Anna would make it to your top 10 with how much
> you've seemed to dig Blanchard lately.

I was hopeful on this relisten, but I think it just stagnates a bit in places. I think the last 7ish years his scoring has developed in a way that really appeals to me, while his 2000s work has great moments but doesn't quite pull it all together for me.

> Ooof, yeah I don't much care for any of those. Hancock almost deserves
> higher just because of those great last two cues though. Also, Life Before
> Her Eyes is awesome goddammit!

I liked Life well enough.

> I'm sounding like a broken record here but Bangkok Dangerous is another
> one where the album as a whole is meh, but those first two cues are
> stunning. And as mentioned before, I love Lakeview Terrace (and very much
> enjoy 10,000 BC, as long as I can ignore the blatant rip off of Zimmer's
> King Arthur theme).

Part of me did want to give Lakeview another shot because it was high up on your list. Maybe now that I'm done with the list.

> Ah come on, Jumper is a blast! I also think Stop Loss has some really good
> stuff in it. Bolt I haven't listened to on it's own in yeeeeeears but
> Claire wanted to watch the movie recently and I thought it sounded pretty
> good.

> Whoa whoa whoa Nelly Furtado, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

This is the reason I decided to write things out.

> Awh!

> AWH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or maybe it was your reaction to this.

> Awh x3!!! That theme is a banger good sir! Whole score is fun, sounds like
> a better Rabin 2008 score than the actual Rabin 2008 score.

Or this one! Of course the theme is good, it's lifting from Kashmir!

> Lots of fun reading this, great stuff bud.

Glad my overachieving was worth it haha

> 11. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (John
> Williams) – I never disliked this score, but the album (which I’ve been
> told is missing a lot of important material) is much better than I
> remember. I wonder if I just forgot to revisit it over the years in favor
> of better Indy scores and better 2000s and 2010s Williams scores, or if
> hearing Dial of Destiny was what I really needed to appreciate Crystal
> Skull lol. Bit of both perhaps.

Dial of Destiny definitely gives this score a bit of a glow-up in retrospect. I think being the first Williams score in three years (and a fourth entry following a near-perfect trilogy) is a burden no score can reasonably be expected to live up to, but with the necessary distance I think we can agree it's very good, no more, no less.

> Journey to the Center of the Earth (Andrew Lockington)

I know it's still in the "nice" category but I'm curious what made this drop from 7th out of the top 20 altogether. I assume mostly just other stuff overtaking it rather than cooling on this one in particular.

> Meh.
> Stop-Loss (Powell)
> Jumper (Powell)
> Bolt (Powell) – Okay these are probably all too low. They’re fine.

Bro then move them up the list, why are you doing this to me

All three scores have at least one standout cue ("The Greatest Tragedy" from Stop-Loss is a lovely hidden gem in Powell's career, and "A Jump Off" just about saves Jumper from being a rare total phone-in job from him). And Bolt is just straight-up a good score, although I assume you only heard the very short album and not the promo that's nearly twice the length and a much better listening experience.

I've been having to bite my tongue in general about how down people are on Powell's scores this year. He didn't have the big hitters but he was just consistently pumping out quality work, his best hour of music from the year easily tops any single score anyone else wrote.

> So was it a good year???
> Um, sure? Still only one 5 star score, but I got a good top ten out of it,
> and a nice bench of solid scores going out to like #35. So I found stuff I
> had missed out on previously. But also… idk, it seems like a normal year?
> I get the feeling that these going back in time polls are going to show me
> that things may not swing as dramatically as our memories say they do.
> Either that or I’m lacking the nostalgia and romance that others who lived
> through exploring these scores for the first time will have. Let’s use
> 2023 as a comparison, since Christian didn’t have a 5 star score that year
> either. Is what I have here that much better than what I had two years
> ago? Not really. There’s some great, there’s a lot of very good, there’s a
> lot of fine, and there’s some terrible. I’m not sure it’s that different.
> The bad stuff is just bad in different ways from our modern bad stuff.
> Like Twilight! It’s bad in very specific, 2008 ways! No one would write a
> score like that today! Iron Man is also bad in very specifically 2008
> ways! Revolutionary Road is bad in… okay, bad example, that’s a bad Newman
> score that he could’ve written at any time lol. On average I’d take 2020s
> John Powell over 2008 Powell. So… take that nostalgia!

I semi-agree with this but find myself feeling warmer towards 2008 by comparison. I think it is definitely lacking at the top end, which is probably why so many people called it a low water mark in film music at the time, but even before doing some homework for the year I would have had a top 10 list I'm perfectly happy with and have since found several more lovely scores that have earned their way onto the list. I've now got a next 10 at least that I'm genuinely bummed I can't include, whereas in the 2020s so far there have always been a couple scores that I somewhat wish I had managed to exclude. So the starting team might be comparable to a 2020s year, but the bench feels much deeper to me.

The 2008-ness of everything is also kind of part of it. I think we might have hit Peak Bourne that year as that sound is all over a ton of the year's action music even from composers who don't usually do that. The whole metagame of film scoring just feels a bit more aligned with how I like things in a bunch of little ways - less overproduction or sampled orchestras, a cleaner delineation between the organic and the synthetic, synthetics that tend more towards tight and stylish drum loops rather than outright manipulation, a smoother flow and structure to most action music somehow, less buildups without payoffs. A whole lot of composers I really like, some of whom no longer work for one reason or another and whom I miss, had solid to good output or at least one strong score. It does feel like a normal year, but - I would maintain - a normal year from a better time. And people back then didn't know how good they had it.

> I semi-agree with this but find myself feeling warmer towards 2008 by
> comparison. I think it is definitely lacking at the top end, which is
> probably why so many people called it a low water mark in film music at
> the time, but even before doing some homework for the year I would have
> had a top 10 list I'm perfectly happy with and have since found several
> more lovely scores that have earned their way onto the list. I've now got
> a next 10 at least that I'm genuinely bummed I can't include, whereas in
> the 2020s so far there have always been a couple scores that I somewhat
> wish I had managed to exclude. So the starting team might be comparable to
> a 2020s year, but the bench feels much deeper to me.

> The 2008-ness of everything is also kind of part of it. I think we might
> have hit Peak Bourne that year as that sound is all over a ton of the
> year's action music even from composers who don't usually do that. The
> whole metagame of film scoring just feels a bit more aligned with how I
> like things in a bunch of little ways - less overproduction or sampled
> orchestras, a cleaner delineation between the organic and the synthetic,
> synthetics that tend more towards tight and stylish drum loops rather than
> outright manipulation, a smoother flow and structure to most action music
> somehow, less buildups without payoffs. A whole lot of composers I really
> like, some of whom no longer work for one reason or another and whom I
> miss, had solid to good output or at least one strong score. It does feel
> like a normal year, but - I would maintain - a normal year from a better
> time. And people back then didn't know how good they had it.

I think it's a pretty normal score year but, for me at least, a really good movie year. I know my tastes aren't the most mainstream but in horror alone we have Let the Right One In, Lake Mungo, The Burrowers, Pontypool, Eden Lake, Martyrs. We have Speed Racer which is one of my favorite flicks of all time. We have offbeat favorites like Dean Spanley, Tom Hardy going nuts in Bronson, and Departures, Still Walking, Waltz with Bashir, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, RockNRolla, Goodbye Solo, Il Divo, Wendy and Lucy, Medicine for Melancholy, Happy Go Lucky, Revanche, In Bruges, love documentaries like Four Seasons Lodge . . . just a stellar line-up of all kinds of stuff.

> Dial of Destiny definitely gives this score a bit of a glow-up in
> retrospect. I think being the first Williams score in three years (and a
> fourth entry following a near-perfect trilogy) is a burden no score can
> reasonably be expected to live up to, but with the necessary distance I
> think we can agree it's very good, no more, no less.

> I know it's still in the 'nice' category but I'm curious what made this
> drop from 7th out of the top 20 altogether. I assume mostly just other
> stuff overtaking it rather than cooling on this one in particular.

I don't have a good answer, other than yeah, just inhaling a lot of scores in a very short timeframe and other scores leaving a stronger impression.

> Bro then move them up the list, why are you doing this to me

> All three scores have at least one standout cue ('The Greatest Tragedy'
> from Stop-Loss is a lovely hidden gem in Powell's career, and 'A
> Jump Off' just about saves Jumper from being a rare total phone-in
> job from him). And Bolt is just straight-up a good score, although
> I assume you only heard the very short album and not the promo that's
> nearly twice the length and a much better listening experience.

> I've been having to bite my tongue in general about how down people are on
> Powell's scores this year. He didn't have the big hitters but he was just
> consistently pumping out quality work, his best hour of music from the
> year easily tops any single score anyone else wrote.

I deserve this. Stop-Loss might be in the Nice! category if I relistened to it now. Again, I think just that the Powells were the near the first scores I listened to in this blitz, I was mildly to moderately underwhelmed as a whole (and yes, Bolt was the regular album), and then they got all lumped together and pushed down the list. Again, Burwell seems to have suffered the same fate with Bruges and Burn.

> I semi-agree with this but find myself feeling warmer towards 2008 by
> comparison. I think it is definitely lacking at the top end, which is
> probably why so many people called it a low water mark in film music at
> the time, but even before doing some homework for the year I would have
> had a top 10 list I'm perfectly happy with and have since found several
> more lovely scores that have earned their way onto the list. I've now got
> a next 10 at least that I'm genuinely bummed I can't include, whereas in
> the 2020s so far there have always been a couple scores that I somewhat
> wish I had managed to exclude. So the starting team might be comparable to
> a 2020s year, but the bench feels much deeper to me.

I diverge with you on the bench aspect of it, which leads to...

> The 2008-ness of everything is also kind of part of it. I think we might
> have hit Peak Bourne that year as that sound is all over a ton of the
> year's action music even from composers who don't usually do that. The
> whole metagame of film scoring just feels a bit more aligned with how I
> like things in a bunch of little ways - less overproduction or sampled
> orchestras, a cleaner delineation between the organic and the synthetic,
> synthetics that tend more towards tight and stylish drum loops rather than
> outright manipulation, a smoother flow and structure to most action music
> somehow, less buildups without payoffs. A whole lot of composers I really
> like, some of whom no longer work for one reason or another and whom I
> miss, had solid to good output or at least one strong score. It does feel
> like a normal year, but - I would maintain - a normal year from a better
> time. And people back then didn't know how good they had it.

Perhaps, yeah. Some of it might not be something I quite have the ear for, especially the overproduced sound you've mentioned here and in the past. JLFM and I talked about it a little bit not too long ago and there's a seed of a post/article idea on my mind related to it. I think the composers we have a strong attachment to may be a big difference too, because I feel like I have a strong lineup of contemporary active composers whose work I'm consistently excited for.

> I feel like I say this in all my year-end posts now, but damn, what a year. 2008 in this case. I guess most people will remember this year for the Recession, but I was in junior high school at the time, so I knew it was happening but I didn’t really feel it.

It lingered. I remember how long it took folks in the graduating class of 2010 to get jobs. Us 2011 grads had it a lot easier.

> I didn’t have strong opinions on 2008 as a year of film music before this exercise.

The biggest change from my opinions then is that I hadn’t seen BSG and didn’t understand the music.

> 16. The Dark Knight (Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard)

> Pull together my favorite tracks from the original album and there’s about 45 minutes of great material. But the rest of it… fairly tedious a lot of the time.

Imagine my surprise rewatching the second M:I film and finding some of the Batman suspense material being introduced there.

> 11. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (John Williams) – I never disliked this score, but the album (which I’ve been told is missing a lot of important material) is much better than I remember.

OMG so much important material. Pick your poison: the full jungle chase, the Jones family theme, missing Marion theme quotes. But we just HAD to have a five minute main theme reprise at the start of the CD, right?

> 7. Doctor Who, Series 4 (Murray Gold) – Lots of decent material punctuated by a handful of “Holy crap!” moments. The Holiest and Crappiest(?) of them all may very well be my cue of the year: https://youtu.be/JIAkf78G3EU?si=cvD4q973eYNfVdMq

Budget and ambition combined to turn this more from the scattershot entertainment of seasons past into the grand space opera score it became during the Matt Smith years.

> 5. Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman)

> Was this the first score most people here heard that had a substantial hip-hop presence?

I skipped revisiting this score, and perhaps I shouldn’t have. Totally fair question on your part - think about all that “synth percussion” grumbling that showed up in reviews in that decade. Would 2008 Jon have liked Turning Red as much back then? He definitely didn’t like Totoro in its original form. He wouldn’t have mainlined Back on the Block like 2025 Jon does.

Probably worth revisiting the film for the first time since it came out. Will I still like it a lot, or will I go full sheep and join the backlash? Baaaaaa!

> 5. Adoration (Mychael Danna)

The Danna / Egoyan collaboration is a massive collection black hole for me. I’ve only heard one!

> Sure?

> Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Kevin Kiner)

Gotta love The Mandalorian catching strays from traditionalist score fans when Kiner was emulating a likely Black Hawk Down temp a decade earlier.

> Imagine my surprise rewatching the second M:I film and finding some
> of the Batman suspense material being introduced there.

Which I'm sure makes its reprisal in his Bond score even funnier.

> Budget and ambition combined to turn this more from the scattershot
> entertainment of seasons past into the grand space opera score it became
> during the Matt Smith years.

That sounds about right. Too bad we're going in the wrong direction poll wise.

> I skipped revisiting this score, and perhaps I shouldn’t have. Totally
> fair question on your part - think about all that “synth percussion”
> grumbling that showed up in reviews in that decade. Would 2008 Jon have
> liked Turning Red as much back then? He definitely didn’t like
> Totoro in its original form. He wouldn’t have mainlined Back
> on the Block like 2025 Jon does.

Considering how willingly some people have taken to Pemberton's record scratching and ASMR breathing on his scores, perhaps you shouldn't have skipped it!

> Probably worth revisiting the film for the first time since it came out.
> Will I still like it a lot, or will I go full sheep and join the backlash?
> Baaaaaa!

Yeah I only ever saw it once on TV. Dad wasn't a fan, though I'm sure there was a cultural aspect to that as well.

> The Danna / Egoyan collaboration is a massive collection black hole for
> me. I’ve only heard one!

> Gotta love The Mandalorian catching strays from traditionalist
> score fans when Kiner was emulating a likely Black Hawk Down temp a
> decade earlier.

It's easier to ignore animated Star Wars is my takeaway.

> 1. Ponyo

Booyah!

> 5. Adoration (Mychael Danna) – It’s great to see that even when we
> run back to 2008, I can still conjure up a “Weird Vikram pick” that no one
> else votes for. Hell, has anyone even heard it?

I have. Back when I was writing to composers and asking for their autographs, MD included a promo for this one. Has been a while since last I listened to it, so thanks for the heads-up of sorts!

Sign he did a cover as well: https://i.ibb.co/mCdv9k7q/Danna-RWD.jpg

...and pretty much responded to everything already.

> 6. Nim’s Island (Patrick Doyle) – Another gem that slipped past me
> before! Do people talk about this? Is the issue just that I have a huge
> backlog of Doyle scores I need to check out? (Yes.) Does it get
> overshadowed by Goblet of Fire and Eragon? Because this fits right in with
> those other fantasy scores.

I was going to say I can't really agree with that last sentence, but then I realized I don't hold either of those scores in as high esteem as most. Still, while there are similarities, this was just a little too fluffy and insubstantial to win me over the way those other two scores have.

> 5. Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman) – About a year ago I did a
> small binge of Rahman’s scores for English language/Western films, and I
> gave this 3/5. So why is it in my top ten now? Because I took the
> Filmtracks viewer rating for this score personally. 45% of the votes are 1
> star, which feels absurd. I wanted to look up similarly rated scores for
> comparison but Christian’s Modern Scores pages only go up to 1600 and
> apparently that’s not deep enough to find it. That kind of vitriol makes
> me wonder what was in the water in 2008. So my first thought: Was this the
> first Rahman soundtrack most people here heard? If so, I can understand
> his first impression being a little...contentious. But the second thought:
> Was this the first score most people here heard that had a substantial
> hip-hop presence? Was this a “Guess you guys weren’t ready for that, but
> your kids are gonna love it” moment? Were people just really mad about the
> Oscars? (Or just one of the two Oscars?) All I know is that I’m salty
> enough about it 17 years later to put it up here as a statement. Also
> because turns out any track from this has more excitement and creativity
> than a whole bunch of what I’ve listened to in the last few weeks.

I get wanting to make a statement, but #5 is a REALLY high spot to give to a score that it sounds like maybe reached 3.5 stars (?) for you on a revisit. I guess that makes the statement stronger, or maybe it just speaks to relatively little enthusiasm for everything below it?

> 4. The Spiderwick Chronicles (James Horner) – My Horner knowledge
> has largely stagnated in recent years. I haven’t made it a priority to dig
> into more of his work, outside of the longtime favorites. And when I do,
> I’ll sometimes ask myself “Do I actually even like Horner?” The answer is
> yes, but sometimes it feels like I only like his 90s run plus a handful of
> other scores. Another of his 2008 scores made me feel that way (which
> we’ll get to later), but this one reminded me that yes, I am a Horner fan,
> it’s just that I tend to like him when he’s writing good music. Another
> lovely discovery, where he gives his children’s fantasy sound a fresh
> spin. Only real knock I have on it is that it has one of those end credits
> where he just can’t end the dang score.

It's got a lot of great material, but I'm surprised that this is the Horner score to land this high placement and commentary on how it's better than a lot of his music.

> 2. Lost, Season 4 (Michael Giacchino) – In part due to the 2007-08
> writers strike, Season 4 of Lost was delayed until January 2008 and
> condensed into 14 episodes. The former helps me avoid having to sort out
> which music counts for which year, and the latter may have helped
> Giacchino deliver his best season of music. Or at least his best album,
> since I haven’t seen any of this show. It’s full of all the Giacchino-isms
> you’ve come to either love or roll your eyes at, but everything clicks
> really well, and what puts it over the top is the new theme that
> completely wrecks your emotions. (“Landing Party” for those unfamiliar.)

This is one that I think I only love as much as I do BECAUSE I've seen the show. But also, the show works (to the extent that it does) largely because of the score - a true need-each-other situation. It's a shame I have to caveat recommending going to watch and see how wonderful it is for the first four seasons, because the last two are atrocious.

> So was it a good year???
> Um, sure? Still only one 5 star score, but I got a good top ten out of it,
> and a nice bench of solid scores going out to like #35. So I found stuff I
> had missed out on previously. But also… idk, it seems like a normal year?
> I get the feeling that these going back in time polls are going to show me
> that things may not swing as dramatically as our memories say they do.
> Either that or I’m lacking the nostalgia and romance that others who lived
> through exploring these scores for the first time will have. Let’s use
> 2023 as a comparison, since Christian didn’t have a 5 star score that year
> either. Is what I have here that much better than what I had two years
> ago? Not really. There’s some great, there’s a lot of very good, there’s a
> lot of fine, and there’s some terrible. I’m not sure it’s that different.
> The bad stuff is just bad in different ways from our modern bad stuff.
> Like Twilight! It’s bad in very specific, 2008 ways! No one would write a
> score like that today! Iron Man is also bad in very specifically 2008
> ways! Revolutionary Road is bad in… okay, bad example, that’s a bad Newman
> score that he could’ve written at any time lol. On average I’d take 2020s
> John Powell over 2008 Powell. So… take that nostalgia!

Yeah, but as others have pointed out, 2008 was considered kind of a down year by many at the time. Will be really interesting to see how things play out with the early 2000s. 2001 is kind of mind-boggling in retrospect.

> ...and pretty much responded to everything already.

> I was going to say I can't really agree with that last sentence, but then
> I realized I don't hold either of those scores in as high esteem as most.
> Still, while there are similarities, this was just a little too fluffy and
> insubstantial to win me over the way those other two scores have.

Perhaps. Also a possibility that with the accelerated listening schedule, scores like this with higher highs stuck out more.

> I get wanting to make a statement, but #5 is a REALLY high spot to give to
> a score that it sounds like maybe reached 3.5 stars (?) for you on a
> revisit. I guess that makes the statement stronger, or maybe it just
> speaks to relatively little enthusiasm for everything below it?

So it landed in 6th before I struck Adoration, and it felt right in terms of making a statement. But also I think this listen made me think about the context of 2008 more, and my esteem for the score went up. I see it less as great songs elevating an okay score, as I did previously.

> It's got a lot of great material, but I'm surprised that this is the
> Horner score to land this high placement and commentary on how it's better
> than a lot of his music.

Enough moments that made me go "Oh yeah, that's the good stuff."

> This is one that I think I only love as much as I do BECAUSE I've seen the
> show. But also, the show works (to the extent that it does) largely
> because of the score - a true need-each-other situation. It's a shame I
> have to caveat recommending going to watch and see how wonderful it is for
> the first four seasons, because the last two are atrocious.

> Yeah, but as others have pointed out, 2008 was considered kind of a down
> year by many at the time. Will be really interesting to see how things
> play out with the early 2000s. 2001 is kind of mind-boggling in
> retrospect.

Yes, which is why 2023 (low consensus year, no 5 star ratings from CC) was my direct comparison. But yes, even going to 2007 I'm going to have harder choices for what makes the cut.

I think what is most interesting to me is the absence of a few very good scores I (likely) have in my retrospective top ten (and in my listening short-list in general). But also, I'm seeing a lot of scores in your write-up that I'd love to give a fresh listen, but haven't even considered based on my fragmentary notes from that year. Unfortunately only so much time here, so assuming I get a list together, it will likely look pretty different.

*I do think Murray Gold's work is better here than most have rated. That whole score is filled with great music--and vying for a few positions higher than I had it previously.

* I don't think TDK is "sad" as music. I mean sure, it's Batman, so a little dark, but JNH's stuff is pretty uplifting, especially if that includes (I know it was perhaps more collaborative than most credit) that final cue that was used in his Vienna tribute concert.

> I think what is most interesting to me is the absence of a few very good
> scores I (likely) have in my retrospective top ten (and in my listening
> short-list in general). But also, I'm seeing a lot of scores in your
> write-up that I'd love to give a fresh listen, but haven't even considered
> based on my fragmentary notes from that year. Unfortunately only so much
> time here, so assuming I get a list together, it will likely look pretty
> different.

Yeah, makes sense, especially given the way you go through new music and however much this is setting you back on that front.

> *I do think Murray Gold's work is better here than most have rated. That
> whole score is filled with great music--and vying for a few positions
> higher than I had it previously.

> * I don't think TDK is 'sad' as music. I mean sure, it's Batman, so a
> little dark, but JNH's stuff is pretty uplifting, especially if that
> includes (I know it was perhaps more collaborative than most credit) that
> final cue that was used in his Vienna tribute concert.

Well, I think the Harvey Dent material is incredibly tragic, especially I think it's "Watch the World Burn" which has that slow tortured string stuff in his final scene. But I meant Sad and Gloomy in terms of the films themselves lol.

> TLDR The Top Ten:
> 1. Ponyo
> 2. Lost Season 4
> 3. Defiance
> 4. The Spiderwick Chronicles
> Oops. Adoration
> 5. Slumdog Millionaire
> 6. Nim’s Island
> 7. Doctor Who Series 4
> 8. The Express
> 9. WALL-E
> 10. I Want to Be a Shellfish
> Composer of the Year: Joe Hisaishi

*shock*
*GASP*

But where's.....

Several titles I haven't heard, but of the ones I'm familiar with feels like decent placements. Glad to see the right Horner made the Top 5. To comment on Slumdog Millionaire, it's a score I appreciate for its creativity and energy as oppose to actually "like".

> And for completeness, my top ten prior to doing this:
> 1. Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
> 2. Un Homme Et Son Chien (Oops, turns out it was a 2009 score)
> 3. I Want to Be a Shellfish
> 4. Defiance
> 5. Let the Right One In
> 6. Dark Knight
> 7. Journey to the Center of the Earth
> 8. Incredible Hulk
> 9. The Reader
> 10. Quantum of Solace

Yeah, this is actually more my speed, honestly. XDD

> Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ve gone nearly a week without posting
> because I’ve spent so much time writing this instead. And I have like 65
> other posts to catch up on. And I need to post my latest article!

Oooh, new article!!

> Rad-swaggity.

Swaggity-rad