it's rare that i am introduced to an entirely new character who is weird and fascinating and who i think is really cool: daniel blumberg
i agree with all of this, and i also think you can have opinions about film scores while not being a musician, so to speak. because of short form content and the way films are--purposefully or as part of a broader cultural movement--packaged as one thematic thing (marketing, movie, vibe), music has become one of the crucial main players that make a movie. like, challengers is: movie star, milieu, sex, music.
and, to me, tove lo is easy listening that i can fall asleep to. i want everything to be loud and pulpy, so i love that this is a part of movies, and it's part of why i hate when people say "movies now suck." not really! it's also why i don't like when something tries to cover up being bad with being loud (the song 365). everything is loud now, and "dance music" isn't one generic thing to be cited anymore. as tv shows become movies and movies become products, movie genres also mix and match, and there is lots of loud, serious, good music all around. it doesn't make you unique. and that's great
I loved talking to Blumberg, who quite helpfully mentioned that he has no idea what's going on in the world of film music because he doesn't watch a ton of movies. I get why that might be troubling for some, but I think the idea of someone crafting music independent of the medium of film and then retroactively working to apply it to image is great. I'm not mad he doesn't watch movies - I would like him to see Challengers though.
"Cover up being bad with being loud" - the Oppenheimer experience...
I love Tove Lo and the lesser known Tove, Tove Styrke. Ppl who think anything uniform sucks now are either not thinking very hard or not laughing very hard - or worse, both.
Im musically illiterate so only notice the score once in a while but most recently LOVE the main piano theme in coppola’s the conversation. Also sakamoto ryuichi’s main theme of merry christmas mr lawrence, which reminds me of a lot of hisaishi ghibli scores… & i really like michael nyman’s score for a zed and two noughts although idk if i could listen to it by itself as it can get sonically akin to a panic attack at times.
I take your point re: why every film score is not fit to be shown with live orchestra but i still wish the selection could improve… 😔(im in SF where it is not much better than nyc although i am shelling out to see all 3 lotr movies with my bf who loves them which has been fun at least!)
LOTR is more than worth the shill - I regret missing those in Chicago. I really do wish there was a happy medium between mostly Disney movies played live and seeing composers' side projects - but I have to imagine there is some kind of business thing tying studios to orchestras, a la Gustavo Dudamel conducting the new West Side Story score. I love Sakamoto - gone too damn soon - I remember seeing The Revenant on a heavy dose of cold meds and going nuts lol
I'm sure this information is out there somewhere, but Brady "Cor-bay" is definitely an affectation, right? He must have gone by the hard-t pronunciation for most of his life.
interesting! i feel kinda stupid when it comes to music. sometimes i come out of a movie and don't remember hearing a single note. unless it's something big and loud like challengers or Oppenheimer (fan of both). can this be learned? when a score is successful to you do you mean that it works in context for the film or are you interested in something that makes you want to keep listening to it? like i'll play pride & prejudice (2005) score to read to but one time i put on the tenet score while driving and i felt like i was gonna get into an accident.
PS i was inspired by fran mag & last month i attended my first ever orchestral performance!! (it was classical music played to bugs bunny cartoons but still)
It's a good question, and not one you should feel stupid about at all. Ideally if a film score is working it is elevating image to scene, or as Veronica put it: moment to memory. There are plenty of films where I think the score is working better than the film, and films where they are working fine without the score. I think wanting to listen outside of the context of the film is irrelevant to quality, but I do love both the P&P score (did you see it's coming back to theaters in April?) and the Tenet score, though I mostly don't drive for the safety of all.
And I am sooo jealous I would much rather see the orchestra play to Looney Tunes than to a damn Marvel movie - the Looney Tunes are kind of the foremost ambassadors of classical music
oh also I started getting metro ads for Matilda with a live orchestra introduced by Danny DeVito??? Everyone loves DeVito and I have a lot of affection for Matilda from when I was a kid but I truly have no memory of the score and cannot imagine this selling a lot of tickets... but maybe it will!
smile 2 is the closest studio horror has come to just like a sensory assault in the last couple years, it is not "scary" but there are a lot of loud noises and things jumping out at you and it works. the closing-credits music track is like remixed people screaming in terror and I left the theater pretty quick, great stuff!
not sure if it works as well out of the theater- I am like “smile 2 is SO MUCH better than smile 1” but maybe that’s just because I saw it in a theater.
smile 1 has a great moment where because of the smile virus (is that what it’s called?) the protagonist gives her nephew a dead cat for his birthday, wrapped up in a box and everything. why would she do that
absolutely loved your piece and this extra context! one bonus note: i went to this live score performance for Phantom Thread from Wordless Music back in 2018 at BAM and it was truly thrilling! i hope they do it again at some point… https://www.wordlessmusic.org/phantom-thread/
thank you!! and I'm sooooo jealous of you seeing that. I think BAM is the perfect venue for something that's not quite so traditionally classical - for the scores I love, doing something at DG Hall at Lincoln Center is probably too absurd (though would be a blast). I've still never gone to a live score performance if only because the NYP ones are so crazy price inflated... one day, maybe!
Something I wonder about (maybe you have an answer or not!) is the interaction with a score and the other sort of Foley-ed in sounds. I feel when I am noticing non-dialogue noises, it is often those in conjunction. I wonder how they inform each other!
Some score CDs I keep in my car: the Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet, Emma (1996) (Rachel Portman, yay) and The Last of the Mohicans
The answer is really and stupidly "it depends" wrt to the relationship between music and sound effects/Foley/sound design. A few composers they told me now work director with the sound designer/editor when it comes to mixing in their music and others work much more independently from all that - I think it really just depends how much or little any of them are willing to or interested in working. Dessner told me that music still functions very traditionally in horror and comedy where music really has to dictate the rhythms of, say, a kill or a punchline.
1. brady being like “i have to direct *gulp wheeze* commERCIALS” is so funny like okay? michael bay invented the got milk campaign. girl get the fuck over yourself.
2. the odyssey is going to be SO yay. i was also mid on oppenheimer (tho i love the score quite a bit) and when they dropped that pic of damon for the odyssey i called seth practically in tears and i said “they’re making this for ME!!!!”
3. i love love love love modern film scores!!! part of why i do is bc seth also makes music, and he has made scores for video games before (all of which fell through, such is indie creation). there is something so approachable and wonderful about the image of these people making these scores for big huge movies and they look just like my boyfriend when he gets into a flow state making music. delight. i am feral about the babygirl score. i am so delighted by the impact NIN has had on score creation, on how simple and easy to listen to it can be. i WANT to turn the babygirl score on in my car and listen to it, and so goes sing sing, and the brutalist, and the social network, and queer…i am glad to have this music that can score my everyday life as much as it can score the big movie!!!
Brady is literally so jbol I already miss him so much. He should go on a podcast every six weeks for my own stability. I feel like I am going to be stepping on rakes with his work for the rest of my life.
Every still from the Odyssey has me smile and laugh... I only just learned Jon Bernthal is in the mix. Every time I see Matt Damon with that big beard I go YAY!!!!
Living with a musician has definitely fundamentally changed the way I think about music -- I mean I know how to read music and play piano, but for someone who composes and can use all the computer programs I don't understand really recontextualized a lot of my own understanding of what goes into the structure and tenor of composing, how electronic modification can enhance rather than cheapen, or w/e. So much of older film music lived and died by its similarity to what came before film, and now it's the extent to which we can bring the music OUT of the film and into our lives. When I spoke to the Babygirl composer he had Taylor Swift style nails (each finger a diff color) and I was like okay I love this man
really really great writing - thank you! You shouted out a lot of my favorite recent film scores and the tension you describe between the classical and the contemporary reminds me a lot of what I observed when I worked at a top tier music school (near chicago on the lakefront, you might know the one…) students were starving for opportunities to experiment with electronics and computers and new techniques and just wasn’t anywhere near a priority for the faculty/administration. We did have a prepared piano though that you could put screws and stuff into but that was the limit
it's rare that i am introduced to an entirely new character who is weird and fascinating and who i think is really cool: daniel blumberg
i agree with all of this, and i also think you can have opinions about film scores while not being a musician, so to speak. because of short form content and the way films are--purposefully or as part of a broader cultural movement--packaged as one thematic thing (marketing, movie, vibe), music has become one of the crucial main players that make a movie. like, challengers is: movie star, milieu, sex, music.
and, to me, tove lo is easy listening that i can fall asleep to. i want everything to be loud and pulpy, so i love that this is a part of movies, and it's part of why i hate when people say "movies now suck." not really! it's also why i don't like when something tries to cover up being bad with being loud (the song 365). everything is loud now, and "dance music" isn't one generic thing to be cited anymore. as tv shows become movies and movies become products, movie genres also mix and match, and there is lots of loud, serious, good music all around. it doesn't make you unique. and that's great
I loved talking to Blumberg, who quite helpfully mentioned that he has no idea what's going on in the world of film music because he doesn't watch a ton of movies. I get why that might be troubling for some, but I think the idea of someone crafting music independent of the medium of film and then retroactively working to apply it to image is great. I'm not mad he doesn't watch movies - I would like him to see Challengers though.
"Cover up being bad with being loud" - the Oppenheimer experience...
I love Tove Lo and the lesser known Tove, Tove Styrke. Ppl who think anything uniform sucks now are either not thinking very hard or not laughing very hard - or worse, both.
Fran you should watch the Smile movies
I'm scared
me too but i'll watch them with you
this
The second one is a nice companion piece to the “Angel of My Dreams” music video
Im musically illiterate so only notice the score once in a while but most recently LOVE the main piano theme in coppola’s the conversation. Also sakamoto ryuichi’s main theme of merry christmas mr lawrence, which reminds me of a lot of hisaishi ghibli scores… & i really like michael nyman’s score for a zed and two noughts although idk if i could listen to it by itself as it can get sonically akin to a panic attack at times.
I take your point re: why every film score is not fit to be shown with live orchestra but i still wish the selection could improve… 😔(im in SF where it is not much better than nyc although i am shelling out to see all 3 lotr movies with my bf who loves them which has been fun at least!)
LOTR is more than worth the shill - I regret missing those in Chicago. I really do wish there was a happy medium between mostly Disney movies played live and seeing composers' side projects - but I have to imagine there is some kind of business thing tying studios to orchestras, a la Gustavo Dudamel conducting the new West Side Story score. I love Sakamoto - gone too damn soon - I remember seeing The Revenant on a heavy dose of cold meds and going nuts lol
RZA score for "the kill bills" is pretty watershed in this regard. scruptious
Need to relisten to those… been ages
I'm sure this information is out there somewhere, but Brady "Cor-bay" is definitely an affectation, right? He must have gone by the hard-t pronunciation for most of his life.
When he was doing press for Vox Lux, he was being introduced as "Cor-bet" so definitely a last five years type of deal
interesting! i feel kinda stupid when it comes to music. sometimes i come out of a movie and don't remember hearing a single note. unless it's something big and loud like challengers or Oppenheimer (fan of both). can this be learned? when a score is successful to you do you mean that it works in context for the film or are you interested in something that makes you want to keep listening to it? like i'll play pride & prejudice (2005) score to read to but one time i put on the tenet score while driving and i felt like i was gonna get into an accident.
PS i was inspired by fran mag & last month i attended my first ever orchestral performance!! (it was classical music played to bugs bunny cartoons but still)
It's a good question, and not one you should feel stupid about at all. Ideally if a film score is working it is elevating image to scene, or as Veronica put it: moment to memory. There are plenty of films where I think the score is working better than the film, and films where they are working fine without the score. I think wanting to listen outside of the context of the film is irrelevant to quality, but I do love both the P&P score (did you see it's coming back to theaters in April?) and the Tenet score, though I mostly don't drive for the safety of all.
And I am sooo jealous I would much rather see the orchestra play to Looney Tunes than to a damn Marvel movie - the Looney Tunes are kind of the foremost ambassadors of classical music
oh also I started getting metro ads for Matilda with a live orchestra introduced by Danny DeVito??? Everyone loves DeVito and I have a lot of affection for Matilda from when I was a kid but I truly have no memory of the score and cannot imagine this selling a lot of tickets... but maybe it will!
I have no memory either... but maybe it would be fun!!
smile 2 is the closest studio horror has come to just like a sensory assault in the last couple years, it is not "scary" but there are a lot of loud noises and things jumping out at you and it works. the closing-credits music track is like remixed people screaming in terror and I left the theater pretty quick, great stuff!
I'm so scared but I wanna see it SO bad...
I felt that - at times - Red Rooms was kind of a sensory assault as well
not sure if it works as well out of the theater- I am like “smile 2 is SO MUCH better than smile 1” but maybe that’s just because I saw it in a theater.
I hear this from many… watching it at home in the daylight is sort of my best bet though I know that will ruin the (evil) magic.
smile 1 has a great moment where because of the smile virus (is that what it’s called?) the protagonist gives her nephew a dead cat for his birthday, wrapped up in a box and everything. why would she do that
randomista alert!
was this interesting? yes. do i care? yes! if you could please talk to joe hisaishi and report back that would be much appreciated tysm
I love his work sm 😭 would be a dream interview
what's your fave hisaishi score....recency bias but boy and the heron is what i listen to the most. porco rosso kind of a sleeper too...
Probably Howl's but The Boy and the Heron did feel like a step up, somehow - lots of quirked up percussion bits in there.
absolutely loved your piece and this extra context! one bonus note: i went to this live score performance for Phantom Thread from Wordless Music back in 2018 at BAM and it was truly thrilling! i hope they do it again at some point… https://www.wordlessmusic.org/phantom-thread/
thank you!! and I'm sooooo jealous of you seeing that. I think BAM is the perfect venue for something that's not quite so traditionally classical - for the scores I love, doing something at DG Hall at Lincoln Center is probably too absurd (though would be a blast). I've still never gone to a live score performance if only because the NYP ones are so crazy price inflated... one day, maybe!
Something I wonder about (maybe you have an answer or not!) is the interaction with a score and the other sort of Foley-ed in sounds. I feel when I am noticing non-dialogue noises, it is often those in conjunction. I wonder how they inform each other!
Some score CDs I keep in my car: the Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet, Emma (1996) (Rachel Portman, yay) and The Last of the Mohicans
The answer is really and stupidly "it depends" wrt to the relationship between music and sound effects/Foley/sound design. A few composers they told me now work director with the sound designer/editor when it comes to mixing in their music and others work much more independently from all that - I think it really just depends how much or little any of them are willing to or interested in working. Dessner told me that music still functions very traditionally in horror and comedy where music really has to dictate the rhythms of, say, a kill or a punchline.
okay i have SO much to say here omg
1. brady being like “i have to direct *gulp wheeze* commERCIALS” is so funny like okay? michael bay invented the got milk campaign. girl get the fuck over yourself.
2. the odyssey is going to be SO yay. i was also mid on oppenheimer (tho i love the score quite a bit) and when they dropped that pic of damon for the odyssey i called seth practically in tears and i said “they’re making this for ME!!!!”
3. i love love love love modern film scores!!! part of why i do is bc seth also makes music, and he has made scores for video games before (all of which fell through, such is indie creation). there is something so approachable and wonderful about the image of these people making these scores for big huge movies and they look just like my boyfriend when he gets into a flow state making music. delight. i am feral about the babygirl score. i am so delighted by the impact NIN has had on score creation, on how simple and easy to listen to it can be. i WANT to turn the babygirl score on in my car and listen to it, and so goes sing sing, and the brutalist, and the social network, and queer…i am glad to have this music that can score my everyday life as much as it can score the big movie!!!
Brady is literally so jbol I already miss him so much. He should go on a podcast every six weeks for my own stability. I feel like I am going to be stepping on rakes with his work for the rest of my life.
Every still from the Odyssey has me smile and laugh... I only just learned Jon Bernthal is in the mix. Every time I see Matt Damon with that big beard I go YAY!!!!
Living with a musician has definitely fundamentally changed the way I think about music -- I mean I know how to read music and play piano, but for someone who composes and can use all the computer programs I don't understand really recontextualized a lot of my own understanding of what goes into the structure and tenor of composing, how electronic modification can enhance rather than cheapen, or w/e. So much of older film music lived and died by its similarity to what came before film, and now it's the extent to which we can bring the music OUT of the film and into our lives. When I spoke to the Babygirl composer he had Taylor Swift style nails (each finger a diff color) and I was like okay I love this man
really really great writing - thank you! You shouted out a lot of my favorite recent film scores and the tension you describe between the classical and the contemporary reminds me a lot of what I observed when I worked at a top tier music school (near chicago on the lakefront, you might know the one…) students were starving for opportunities to experiment with electronics and computers and new techniques and just wasn’t anywhere near a priority for the faculty/administration. We did have a prepared piano though that you could put screws and stuff into but that was the limit