Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,470
Written 8/23/00, Revised 11/29/07
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Buy it... if you do not own any of the Sonic Images label's
plethora of television music albums and seek an accurate sampler of the
majority of those releases.
Avoid it... if you're contemplating the album due to any specific
item you see in its contents, for everything here has been released in
fuller form on albums dedicated to each selection.
Sonic Images: Prime Time: (Compilation) It's not
unusual for record labels that regularly produce albums of film and
television music to eventually arrange some of their best material on a
compilation. The Sonic Images label, sustained in the late 1990's by its
immensely popular albums for the cult sci-fi show "Babylon 5," produced
more television score albums than perhaps any other label during that
era. Although specializing in fantasy and sci-fi music for television,
the label has also produced the albums for mainstream shows and
mini-series such as "Chicago Hope" and Lonesome Dove. Unlike
previous Sonic Images compilations devoted to re-recordings of adventure
themes or retrospects of a single composer (such as products for Mark
Snow and James Horner), this "Prime Time" album of 2000 features only
original performances of television themes and a few select cuts from
various shows' underscores. Those selections are limited by the items
that Sonic Images already owns in its library and has released in full
before, with "Prime Time" thus serving mostly as a sampler of the best
material taken from those already existing Sonic Images albums. No new,
unreleased items are to be found. For the most part, Sonic Images has
chosen the best material from its history to include, but that's not to
say that all of it is good, or that it functions well with the rest of
the music in their library. The drawbacks of the album include some of
the somewhat immature, pop oriented sounds of "Pacific Blue,"
"Poltergeist: The Legacy," and "Raven." At the same time, there is some
very enjoyable material sprinkled in between. The title themes for
"Chicago Hope" and "The Sentinel" are popular choices for fans of Mark
Isham and James Newton Howard, respectively. Jeff Rona's excellent "New
Hope" track from "Chicago Hope" is one of the underscore selections
provided. Jay Gruska's "Lois & Clark" is generally solid, though there's
no excuse for the terrible remix that precedes the remainder of its
representation on the album. Basil Poledouris' Lonesome Dove
needs little discussion, leagues above the rest of the material in
quality.
Even with its fair share of decent selections, however,
the album suffers from a lack of cohesiveness. The pop-oriented themes
and remixes are favored heavily at the outset of the album, though even
within these confines, Christopher Franke's "Pacific Blue" is out of
place. Evan H. Chen's music for "Crusade" is generally considered to be
among the worst ever to be recorded for film or television (a touchy
point for angry, lingering "Babylon 5" fans), and there's no need to
remind anyone of Franke's departure from the franchise with any of it
here. The two seasonal title themes by Franke for "Babylon 5" are tired,
but the fifth season theme remains the highlight from the composer's
endeavors for the show. Given how rabid the fans of the series were at
the time (despite the departure of the show from TNT just recently at
the time), it's surprising to see no episodic material on the album as a
teaser to help sell the product. In the years after the demise of
"Babylon 5," Sonic Images was failing to stir the same kind of positive
press that it had become accustomed to because of Franke's involvement
with the show, reducing the impact that an album like "Prime Time" could
have in comparison to a third and final compilation of the best "Babylon
5" themes and suites (which could advantage of that huge crowd of fans
before the memories of the show slipped too far from mind). In the
meantime, the "Prime Time" sampler contains some decent material,
especially if you're a big fan of fantasy television shows, but the
listening experience is disjointed as a whole.
Lonesome Dove, as
good as it may be, simply cannot exist next to the likes of the quirky
end credits for "Earth: Final Conflict." The album suffers from poor
packaging and arrangement as well; with no straight forward track
listing provided, it is very difficult to determine from the outside of
the packaging what exactly is included on the album. Also, with two or
three selections from each show on the album, it would have been far
better to combine them into sections of their own to assist the flow of
the listening experience (rather than sprinkling them throughout the
product). As is, "Prime Time" shifts in style far too many times to be a
satisfying hour of standalone music.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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