> 1. The Call of the Wild
> 2. The Personal History of David Copperfield
> 3. Wonder Woman 1984
> 4. The Pathless
> 5. The Queen’s Gambit
> 6. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond
> 7. Enola Holmes
> 8. Emma.
> 9. Fanny Lye Deliver’d
> 10. His Dark Materials Series 2
Overlap of... 4/10. Not too bad. The only title you included that I haven't heard is the new MOH, which somehow completely passed me by both in my Year End Catch-Up series as well as finally processing my Top 20... and I knew it existed as well. *sigh*
> Composer of the year: John Powell
*reads later how you came to this*
Eh, OK. Personally I feel CotY should be someone that has released at least two new titles in the year that are really good to great, but whatevs. My personal criteria on things is obviously somewhat odd compared to everyone else. 
> 1-5 got ****½. The top two choices were neck and neck for most of the
> year. #3, (justice) leagues better than its 2017 predecessor, is close
> behind. The rich textures of #4 gave it the slight edge over the emotional
> beats of #5.
> The other entries each got ****. #6 delivered hefty doses of nostalgia. #7
> is perhaps being the first “normal” score by that composer. #8 and #9 were
> both belated January discoveries, the former after seeing the film and the
> latter after seeing a few lists and thinking “well, FINE, let’s see if
> this is really as good as people are saying it is.” #10 might not have
> made it this high in a “normal” year, but it is still extremely
> entertaining and is a slight step up from its show’s first season of
> music.
Just so you know, I had to keep scrolling back up to see which scores you were talking about.
> In contention for the last spot were Da 5 Bloods and Harbor from
> the Holocaust.
Well, this will make Vik sad.
> Other **** - Animal Crackers, David Attenborough: A Life on Our
> Planet, Dolphin Reef, Fukushima 50, Outlander Season
> 5, The Secret Garden, The Summer We Live In / El verano que
> vivimos, and The Witches. I finally listened to Effigy:
> Poison and the City and Mortal this week and they probably fall
> in this tier as well.
Glad to see Dolphin Reef in there.
> ***½ - Dolittle, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last Full
> Measure, Lev Yashin: The Dream Goalkeeper, The Midnight
> Sky, Mulan, News of the World, Ori and the Will of
> the Wisps, Sadan Hanim, School / Kyojo, Silver
> Skates, and Unknown Origins / Orígenes Secretos
Oof. Kinda harsh for Ghost of Tsushima and Ori 2.
> *** - Artemis Fowl, Fearless, Freaky, and The
> Mandalorian Season 2 (why, yes, dear reader, that IS a worse rating
> than the one I gave last season’s music)
Curious as to why you disliked Mando S2 more than S1. Is this based off the album or in-show or both?
> Given the early 1970s, WORST. SCORE. YEAR. EVER. seems perhaps too strong
> a pronouncement, even with the absence of a 5-star work this year. And I
> can’t justify “worst score year in my lifetime” or even “worst score year
> since I started listening to scores” since the year’s roster was perhaps a
> bit better than the 2000 roster was, and there were more great scores in
> 2020 than in 2008.
Yeah, I don't think claims of WORST. SCORE. YEAR. EVER. over the past 20 years is ever really justified, but 2020 was one of the biggest years of "look outside Hollywood movie music for the good stuff" in a while. Largely blame all the delays and such for this.
> However, more so than in any other year I can recall since we’ve started
> doing these polls, it was tempting to write ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as COTY.
> Delays left few composers with multiple new works, and of those none could
> make a distinctive claim to be “the best”. Pemberton had a productive but
> uneven year. McCreary didn’t match his 2018 and 2019 heights. Cannon had
> consulting, performance, and add’l music / orchestration credits in three
> works by others. I’ll admit I didn’t listen to any other Balfe albums.
> Heck, has anyone heard Zimmer’s Sponge on the Run? SOOOOOOOO...I
> defaulted to whoever wrote the year’s best score (hey, if it works for the
> MMUK Awards...lol).
I ultimately went with Pemberton on the strengths of Holmes and Chicago 7 both as albums and in-film with the Harley Quinn flick having its moments. Agree that McCreary continued to be a whirlwind of a composer, but never reached the heights of his 2018-2019 output.
> 2020 specialty releases:
> The best were the Deluxe Edition of Solo: A Star Wars Story and
> Intrada’s The Land Before Time, two expansions that added
> substantial material to scores that were already brilliant on their
> original albums. Close behind are Tadlow’s exquisite new recording of
> King of Kings and the Blu-ray release of John Williams in
> Vienna.
Still need to hear the expanded Solo.
> In essentially a four-way tie for 5th are the expanded releases for Far
> and Away, How To Train Your Dragon, Legends of the Fall,
> and The Young Lions. All added some nice new tracks, though nearly
> all the highlights were on their respective original releases.
As a deep and passionate lover of Horner's Legends..., I was most happy with that getting a complete/remastered release. True all the primary highlights were already on the well produced 1994 album, but it was so great to finally have The Letter, Coming Home/Tristan and Susannah and Tristan's Quite Heart.
> Amazingly I wrote a draft of this at one point that didn’t cover Quartet’s
> superb...quartet (lol) of year-end releases. All four were significant for
> various reasons, especially the terrific restoration of Endless
> Night (challenging Moog tones aside), even if none of them ultimately
> contended.
I'm still hoping to snag some of those Quartet titles. Hopefully I can get them before they go OOP....
> Quartet’s Total Recall anniversary release
> (though if album cover of the year was an award that would’ve won in a
> landslide).
That is such a cool piece of art.
> Older stuff:
> Last year wasn’t quite as rewarding as 2019 or 2018 or 2017, which
> featured six, five, and five ***** entries respectively, as well as
> exposure to more Chandos albums. Nevertheless, I still managed to find a
> lot of excellence. The top 10 older scores I discovered last year are
> ranked below while the rest are subsequently ordered alphabetically within
> rating tiers.
> I should note that I didn’t listen to any of Horner’s Romeo &
> Juliet. Since I’ve heard other “unmentionables”, I can’t quite say
> this was a matter of principle, but something still felt...wrong about
> listening to such an unauthorized leak, especially with the folks who had
> originally possessed the music publicly stating that this had probably
> compromised their efforts at a legitimate release. Many have said it’s
> supersaturated with Hornerisms, so perhaps that suggests it wouldn’t have
> merited mentioning here anyway.
You didn't miss much. Also didn't realize about the legal music holders saying this might cause problems for an official release. Drat....
> Of the 264 things I explored (50 more than last year), here’s the
> breakdown:
> New for me: 203
> - 64 of those were from the 1960s, which was more than any other two
> decades put together
> - By far the most represented composer was John Scott who accounted for 26
> of those; also reaching double digits were Jerry Goldsmith, Georges
> Delerue, Max Steiner, Akira Ifukube, and Alex North
> Expansion/Reissue: 19
> Compilation: 11
> 2019 catch-up: 7
> Legit purchase of something I downloaded long ago: 6
> Film recording of score I had a rerecording of: 6
> Concert album: 5
> Rerecordings: 4
> Books about film music: 2
> Album recording: 1
> Plus there were another 112 classical entries. That was 112 more than
> 2019!
..... wow. I keep forgetting you are our token Lists & Categories Man around here. Impressive work.
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*NM*
