Why are film scores generally not as good these days?

[Consona]

I'm asking you all because I know next to nothing about music theory and whatnot, so I'm not sure if there's some logic to the filmmakers' music choices or what's being used now is just the trend. I personally feel like Hollywood needs to move away from the 'grand, epic' orchestral scores and use some different styles and instruments.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

It's almost like some of these movies are trying to make the scores not stand out, which seems really odd to me. Don't these filmmakers want people humming their music? Wouldn't that be free advertisement?

That's unfortunately the case. Some directors don't want striking music, it's like a trendy thing now, making music that "does not compete with the picture". Some younger don't even know something like a melody lines exist.

And not many composers can come up with great memorable melodies, plus movies in recent years were temped with hydrid orchestral/electronic action tracks which then is what producers want from a composer to do with the score. But I hope and think it's on the decline now.

But in some recent interview Alan Silvestri said it's all turning back to more memorable content in hollywood scores, we can only hope.


Me, personally, I think a good theme is a mandatory basis for any movie that wants to make an impact on its audience, more so when it comes to high budget entertaining blockbusters.

 

[Grootster]

That's unfortunately the case. Some directors don't want striking music, it's like a trendy thing now, making music that "does not compete with the picture". Some younger don't even know something like a melody lines exist.

And not many composers can come up with great memorable melodies, plus movies in recent years were temped with hydrid orchestral/electronic action tracks which then is what producers want from a composer to do with the score. But I hope and think it's on the decline now.

But in some recent interview Alan Silvestri said it's all turning back to more memorable content in hollywood scores, we can only hope.


Me, personally, I think a good theme is a mandatory basis for any movie that wants to make an impact on its audience, more so when it comes to high budget entertaining blockbusters.

I agree, a good score has the potential make or break a movie. One thing I've noticed recently is that not a lot of modern movies enter mainstream pop-culture and stick with people as much as movies from the 70s and 80s. We rarely get movies like Back to the Future or Indiana Jones anymore. The Avengers was big because it was new and groundbreaking, Star Wars is big because it's piggybacking off of Star Wars' enormous existing baseman; but by far the biggest new pop-culture phenomenon that's left an impact on it's audience in the past few years is Guardians of the Galaxy, which also has a unique soundtrack (not necessarily he score, but the songs). I remember back in 2014 stores were playing the songs over the radio; I'm surprised more movies don't aim for this kind of thing.

 

[scarlet-witch]

If anything, I think the scores stick out more in modern movies than they do in older ones.

 

[John Locke]

Did composers score as many films as they do now? It seems like they do three to four movies a year.

 

[Consona]

I agree, a good score has the potential make or break a movie. One thing I've noticed recently is that not a lot of modern movies enter mainstream pop-culture and stick with people as much as movies from the 70s and 80s. We rarely get movies like Back to the Future or Indiana Jones anymore. The Avengers was big because it was new and groundbreaking, Star Wars is big because it's piggybacking off of Star Wars' enormous existing baseman; but by far the biggest new pop-culture phenomenon that's left an impact on it's audience in the past few years is Guardians of the Galaxy, which also has a unique soundtrack (not necessarily he score, but the songs). I remember back in 2014 stores were playing the songs over the radio; I'm surprised more movies don't aim for this kind of thing.

Well, I don't know if a good score can totally save a bad movie or vice versa, but part of Star Wars' success definitely was the score.
I think modern CBMs took place of Back to the Future or Indiana Jones. MCU is huge even amongst the general audience, isn't it?..

Did composers score as many films as they do now? It seems like they do three to four movies a year.

People like Bernard Herrmann scored one or two films per year, max three sometimes. Yet even people like John Williams was doing around five films per year. And he's probably the best when it comes to themes.

But it could be a problem when you have to write so many hours of music, you certainly cannot keep the overall quality that high.

 

[TheVileOne]

I think a big reason is because opening credit sequences are pretty much dead at this point. You are lucky these days if you see opening titles for a film let alone an opening credit sequence.

 

[mikeboydus]

JunkieXL had some good input on this, essentially most modern directors don't want strong musical themes either considering them cliché (e.g. John Williams) or think the music will clash with the film and instead prefer more ambient or atmospheric music (e.g. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).

There are a few newer great scores with strong themes in my personal opinion:
Henry Jackman's score for Captain America The Winter Soldier (Excellent, probably the best Marvel film score)
Hans Zimmer's score for Chappie (Better than the film itself)
Christophe Beck's score for Edge of Tomorrow
Bear McCreary's score for 10 Cloverfield Lane (Better than the film)
JunkieXL's score for 300 Rise of Empire (Dramatically better than the film)

 

[OfficerK]

It's not just film scores, it's music in general. In the past 100 years we've developed a permanent way of recording sound. As such because all of this is lasting, it's becomes harder and harder with each passing year to come up with something original. Because there are only so many new things you can do with a select instrument/sound/idea. Music has been repeating itself for years now. Everything is going to start more similar, though you can still find some nuances and subtle things in soundtracks.

I love Nicolas Winding Refn cause he bases his movie on music in some cases. The music is the key to the scene and everything. He and Cliff Martinez work together like bread and butter. You don't often find chemistry between directors and sound producers like that. I've been unimpressed with movie soundtracks for many years. The soundtracks for Drive, Only God Forgives, The Neon Demon all blew me away. They aren't like anything else you hear in mainstream theaters. The Neon Demon barely lasted a week in US theaters so hopefully Refn doesn't get discouraged. He made something special and not many people like it, but I can certainly appreciate what he was trying to do. The Neon Demon also has my favorite opening sequence ever. Drive had a good opening but the credits/titles were actually second...which is another interesting choice.

The thing with Guardians of the Galaxy is its very retro, its nostalgic. The whole thing is about pulling nostalgia strings, fleetwood mac, etc. The standout music from those movies is classic rock bands...not any of the new music made for the movie.

 

[jmc]

Are we asking for good scores or iconic scores? There's plenty of good scoring still in film, but there's probably not as many notable scores that you automatically associate with a movie. There's a handful of what I would call 'iconic' scores over the last 10 years, Social Network, The Dark Knight, Inception, I'd probably add Wonder Woman to that list now even though I don't care for it, plenty of good music in between though.

 

[Voltron]

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I thought Mad Max: Fury Road's OST was extremely memorable (and the movie itself). Listened to this one on repeat for ages.

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Also The Hunger Games/Catching Fire stands out.

 

[OutOfBoose]

"Blood Bag" track was incredible in the theater. That beat... I'm done.

 

[Consona]

There's a handful of what I would call 'iconic' scores over the last 10 years, Social Network, The Dark Knight, Inception, I'd probably add Wonder Woman to that list now even though I don't care for it, plenty of good music in between though.

WW score? An iconic score? Sry, but no way.

Star Wars is iconic, Star Trek is iconic, Indiana Jones is iconic, WW is... just a good underscore, there's nothing extra-special about it. Doyle's Thor score or Silvestri's Avengers score are way more iconic than WW score.

Or what's so iconic about WW score?

 

[Consona]

[YT]4sCXkpZsBRg[/YT]

I thought Mad Max: Fury Road's OST was extremely memorable (and the movie itself).

"Extremely" memorable, hm.. like, ok, that string riff at the end is very distinctive, yea, but the rest... not that "extremely". It's not even particularly hummable, which is sign of something extremely memorable. But J XL was at least able to find memorable things in very very simple ideas, which served the picture very well. Same with Deadpool, his riffs or motives are not sophisticated or anything, but they have their own flavour you can recognize.

 

[NealKenneth]

Our situation right now is that there's only one guy out there consistently providing great scores for blockbusters, and that's Giacchino. Zimmer has his moments, but he's also scored some real duds and his music often tends to distract rather than enhance.

On the other hand, good scores don't seem to be as elusive for small films as they are for blockbusters.

A good case has been made for changes in the process like temp music. And maybe once you pass a certain level of budget, creativity gets stifled late in the process. Thousands of people are counting on X being done by X day and they've already had a team of people brainstorming ideas just in case you're struggling. It must be extremely challenging to make something good in that environment.

 

[harlequinade]

WW score? An iconic score? Sry, but no way.

Star Wars is iconic, Star Trek is iconic, Indiana Jones is iconic, WW is... just a good underscore, there's nothing extra-special about it. Doyle's Thor score or Silvestri's Avengers score are way more iconic than WW score.

Or what's so iconic about WW score?

I don't remember anything about Thor or Avengers score but no way I'm ever forgetting No Man's Land. And her theme is so catchy.

The scores are very good, people just don't know it. I wonder how many here heard the last year's remarkable The Handmaiden score

 

[Tony Stark]

WW score? An iconic score? Sry, but no way.

Star Wars is iconic, Star Trek is iconic, Indiana Jones is iconic, WW is... just a good underscore, there's nothing extra-special about it. Doyle's Thor score or Silvestri's Avengers score are way more iconic than WW score.

Or what's so iconic about WW score?

The regular music in WW is pretty good, but the main theme is terrible and obnoxious. It might be memorable but not for a good reason.

I agree with your second statement as well, there are so few scores that are iconic. If you play the Indiana Jones music, people automatically know who it is without anything else. People really don't understand what iconic means.

 

[Consona]

Our situation right now is that there's only one guy out there consistently providing great scores for blockbusters, and that's Giacchino.

Sry, but I have to disagree. He can make some very good music, but he's definitely not consistently great to the point he's rather meh.

A good case has been made for changes in the process like temp music. And maybe once you pass a certain level of budget, creativity gets stifled late in the process. Thousands of people are counting on X being done by X day and they've already had a team of people brainstorming ideas just in case you're struggling. It must be extremely challenging to make something good in that environment.

Agreed here.

I don't remember anything about Thor or Avengers score but no way I'm ever forgetting No Man's Land. And her theme is so catchy.

Thor https://youtu.be/tW2qLBU5cAM?t=1m11s[/QUOTE]
Avengers https://youtu.be/72MeeEMDXps?t=1m5s

The scores are very good, people just don't know it. I wonder how many here heard the last year's remarkable The Handmaiden score

Just listened to it, it's... ok. Nothing Star Wars level of memorable awesome.

The regular music in WW is pretty good, but the main theme is terrible and obnoxious. It might be memorable but not for a good reason.

Her "Is she with you?" theme was great for that energetic CGI heavy Trinity vs Doomsday fight, but I'd really expand on that idea and reworked it into some different. Yea.

I agree with your second statement as well, there are so few scores that are iconic. If you play the Indiana Jones music, people automatically know who it is without anything else. People really don't understand what iconic means.

Exactly.

This is what "ïconic" means: t:

Some Williams, of course...

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And some other composers.

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And many more of course...

 

[Grootster]

This is what "ïconic" means: t:

Some Williams, of course...

[YT]_D0ZQPqeJkk[/YT][YT]u7HF4JG1pOg[/YT]
[YT]GzLZJaAm2hw[/YT][YT]78N2SP6JFaI[/YT]

And some other composers.

[YT]gsHBpx6pdUA[/YT][YT]9OPc7MRm4Y8[/YT]
[YT]ye8KvYKn9-0[/YT][YT]LQGGQ-FCe_w[/YT]

And many more of course...

Iconic is a good word to describe what I'm feeling a lack of. Most film scores are good, or at least serviceable, but I see very few movies that actually make me want an MP3 of the soundtrack. I believe I have MP3s of all of the above.

 

[jmc]

WW score? An iconic score? Sry, but no way.

Star Wars is iconic, Star Trek is iconic, Indiana Jones is iconic, WW is... just a good underscore, there's nothing extra-special about it. Doyle's Thor score or Silvestri's Avengers score are way more iconic than WW score.

Or what's so iconic about WW score?

That damn cello. I didn't say it was iconic in a good way.

 

[StormC]

Iron Man 1 and TDKT are the only superhero movies I would say have entire scores filled with memorable music.

 

[Brother Jack]

The main reason is because Zimmer started a film scoring company called Remote Control (originally Media Ventures) that shepherds up and coming composers under the mentorship of Zimmer. So you have a group of composers who all sound more or less like Zimmer (but not as good) and propagate his style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Control_Productions

 

[TheVileOne]

Major releases are no longer really investing in opening credit sequences to showcase an actual big opening theme for a film. I think that's part of the problem. When's the last time you saw a really awesome opening credit sequence like that logo opening for Batman with Elfman's awesome theme.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

"Extremely" memorable, hm.. like, ok, that string riff at the end is very distinctive, yea, but the rest... not that "extremely". It's not even particularly hummable, which is sign of something extremely memorable. But J XL was at least able to find memorable things in very very simple ideas, which served the picture very well. Same with Deadpool, his riffs or motives are not sophisticated or anything, but they have their own flavour you can recognize.

What I getting from the arguments in here, is people don't really listen to film music or scores. They listen to main themes only. The quality of scores doesn't seem to be the question here what seems to be the question is if I can hum the opening. This gives film scores a drive-thru quality, which does not speak to quality at all, but whether you think it got over.

Which is actually an odd argument. Because it would be easy to look at any popular movie, from Frozen to TDKT to Harry Potter, and realize that music is very much memorable to general audiences. Its iconic.

 

[mikeboydus]

I love the use of the word iconic here, John Williams, Basil Poledouris, Alan Silvestri, Jerry Goldsmith, John Carpenter and Danny Elfman have several iconic scores.

I like Hans Zimmer, but most of his scores are not iconic. Some are pretty good, even great, but not really iconic.

I don't know how well Henry Jackman's score for Captain America: The Winter Soldier resonated with pop culture, in order to be truly iconic, but it has a iconic feel to it. Sadly his score for Civil War felt more generic and by the numbers.

Game of Thrones is not a film but some of its themes have an iconic feel to them.

Heck, Elder Scrolls Skyrim is not a film, but its score definitely feels iconic. More than almost all modern film scores. In fact I would argue there are far more games that have iconic style scores currently. Since games have a stigma though people tend to ignore their music, which is a shame, e.g. Michael Giacchino's best and most iconic style score he has done was for a video game: Mercenaries. If you have not listened to it, please do so, Giacchino was definitely channeling Williams:

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[Octoberist]

The best scores now are the ones from TV/Streaming. At least the hummable ones.

That should be a mandate with any tentpole - creating a hummable theme.

But on the positive side, I think electronic scores (Cliff Martinez, etc.) are great. It's just that the orchestral stuff lately has been good to eh.