Skip to main content

Six Scores & One Zimmer Ago

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I’m The Wonderfish.

This past summer, it was announced that Hans Zimmer would release Live In Prague, an album he recorded with a live orchestra, in November. I waited patiently. I restrained myself from posting about it each week even though I was counting down the days until its release. I am still waiting for the DVD to be delivered this week, but as of this posting it will be in my hands and while you’re reading this I will be watching that. If you want to get a visual for what I’m talking about, it’s here!


Is it incidental how artists connect and interact? Fortuitous? I think it’s magical. Upon examination, I learned that my favorite films (I pay close attention to this and keep a list in my Evernote for just such an occasion) are films in which the story, the editing, and the film score/soundtrack resonate strongly with me. It must be all three factors or the film doesn’t make the cut. As you can imagine, it may or may not be agonizing to watch movies with me. Either way, I also realized that many of my favorite movies happen to have the same people behind the scenes composing the film scores and/or in the music department.  

Obviously, this list includes Zimmer. It also includes Philip Glass, Danny Elfman, the Sherman Brothers (Robert and Richard), Thomas Newman, and T Bone Burnett among 24 others. If we examine my personal top 30 favorite films of all time, the most common score composers on this list are Howard Shore (3), Hans Zimmer (6), John Williams (2), Danny Elfman (3), and Thomas Newman (2). This means that over half of my favorite films are scored by the same five people! The directors of these 30 films only repeat twice at most. And now I’m having a creative crisis.

Do I love these films because of the music or do I love the music because of these films?

And what is it with Mr. Zimmer!? For the record, these are the six films that I speak of: Interstellar, The Last Samurai, The Dark Knight Rises, As Good As It Gets, Gladiator, and A League of Their Own.

This is Hans Zimmer - you can view his IMDB page, which is where this photo is from, here.

I am going to watch the Prague DVD this weekend and find out what’s going on here! I can tell by the minor 2nd interval of the bass line (hats off to you, Mr. Williams AND to you, Mr. Spielberg) that the shark's in the water! See you next week.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Music Bowl's First Summer

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I'm The Wonderfish. Summer is upon us! We here at The Music Bowl want to let you know what's bubbling to the surface in the next couple of months so you don't miss any of the music goodness. What's coming up? 1) NEW POSTS Next week, we'll introduce our "Half of the Year Hear" where you can check out some of the year's new albums with us. Fin Favorites start this month! The Wonderfish will introduce you to films about music that you won't want to miss, such as 20 Feet From Stardom , It Might Get Loud , Whiplash , and Sound City .   What is summer without summer concerts? We'll be discussing summer tours and festivals - the pros and the cons, yes, but also the sheer joy that is meant to take place. 2) NEW SHOWS Heard has some gigs!  I have some gigs!  Yes, there are even a few Heard and The Wonderfish gigs this summer! You can keep up with our show schedule on our website . 3) NEW SONGS &...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Wonderfish Presents: 2017's Best Albums

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I'm The Wonderfish. In this final post of the year, we look at the albums that most captivated me, The Wonderfish, in 2017. Honorable Mentions: As Heard mentioned, we saw a year of excellent music. There is just no way I could listen to all of the album releases. However, I will say I listened to a fair share of 2017's new music. First up are my honorable mentions. These are the albums I both thoroughly enjoyed and listened to repeatedly this year. Fleet Foxes -  Crack Up Ryan Adams -  Prisoner Rhiannon Giddens -  Freedom Highway Foo Fighters -  Concrete and Gold The War on Drugs -  A Deeper Understanding U2 -   Songs of Experience Ani DiFranco -  Binary Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau-  Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau Runner Up: Kendrick Lamar -  DAMN. Words that come to mind when I think about this album:  poetic, compelling, magnetic, storytelling, innovative, rhetorical ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The First Time I Saw Kendrick

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I'm The Wonderfish. In case you missed last week's post, we talked a little bit about how music can change someone's mood. I used Kendrick Lamar's performance on Saturday Night Live of the song I as an example of a performance that pushes me to work harder as a musician and songwriter. This was the first time I saw Kendrick perform live and I will never forget it. I was mesmerized. I had heard of Kendrick Lamar and listened to a few of his songs off of Good Kid, M. A. A. D. City prior to the show, but I hadn't listened to any of his albums in full. This song changed that. And, honestly, I haven't tried to learn the lyrics of a hip hop song word for word since my college days. This song changed that, too. This is the power of music. So, after seeing this, I promptly purchased his To Pimp A Butterfly album and gave it a couple of listens. I thought it was incredible. In 2016, he released u ntitled unmastered and Damn in 2...
Post a Comment
Read more