As a film-score fan and the host of A Fistful of Soundtracks, KZSC's film-score show, I was pleased to see the mainstream press recently covering issues concerning the fine, underappreciated form of film scoring, which doesn't get much print or airtime in the era of Entertainment Tonight-style fluff reporting.
The Los Angeles Times did a couple of interesting stories this summer about reissued soundtrack CDs and the rarely reported topic of scores rejected by filmmakers (Randy "I Love L.A." Newman's score to Air Force One was dumped at the last minute, replaced by music by legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith). Then on Nov. 2, the New York Times' David Mermelstein wrote an insightful piece entitled "In Hollywood, Discord Is What Makes Music," which included interesting comments about the current composing scene from composer icons like Goldsmith, David Raksin (Laura) and Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven). Also interviewed in the New York Times article was former Oingo Boingo leader Danny Elfman (Batman, Mission: Impossible, Men in Black), one of my favorite composers and a young'un compared to Goldsmith, Raksin and Bernstein.
According to the article, composers are not as respected as they once were, and the current scoring scene is lacking rigorously schooled, professional and adventurous composers in the vein of the late Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, Psycho). I agree that many recent scores are repetitive and at an artistic low these days, but I'm not as completely pessimistic as the article. Highly trained veterans like Goldsmith and Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) are still around, with their experimental, never-stale approaches to scoring, and younger stars like Elfman are doing some outstanding music that would get Herrmann humming in his grave.
The New York Times piece also addressed the growing trend of studios cobbling together pop songs and making soundtrack albums out of them, and how composers are neglected in the process. Not sure which soundtrack has the film's score and which soundtrack has songs the local Top 40 station is playing to death? Just look for a blurb saying "Songs Inspired by the Motion Picture" — that means the album consists of material with almost no relevance to the film's content or music that is not even included in the film at all. Recent examples of soundtracks with "Songs Inspired by the Motion Picture" are charttoppers like Men in Black and Batman & Robin. These releases are basically killing the soundtrack score album, which is why I refuse to play them on my show. Yeah, I know the title of my show is A Fistful of Soundtracks, but these CDs are not soundtracks at all. They are polluting the soundtrack sections in CD stores. Whenever I'm looking for CDs like Goldsmith's music from Patton or Herbie Hancock's Blow-Up score for my show, I have to wade through all this "Songs Inspired by..." crap. They don't help or further the careers of composers at all, and they don't qualify as art. They just serve as another way for the record companies to make extra benjamins.
Whenever I'm asked if I played on my show something from Soul Food, for instance, I always give a slightly irritated sigh and then launch into a brief speech about why I don't play releases like Soul Food because my show's focus is on scores. Unfortunately, "Songs Inspired by..." albums are what too many people these days think of when they hear the word "soundtrack." I want to give a beatdown to people who say, "Now who would want to buy film scores?"
I'm not saying all "Songs Inspired by..." albums are awful. In fact, a few of these collections have terrific tunes; the Juice soundtrack is one of the greatest hiphop albums ever made. And in the past, I played the soundtracks to L.A. Confidential and Star Maps on my show because even though they didn't contain much of the films' scores, the songs on those albums were wonderful, as well as relevant to the films and integral to the setting and evoking mood. But a slapdash CD like Batman & Robin is a no-no on my show because that kind of soundtrack reflects a corporate mentality that disgraces the profession of film scoring. To quote Mermelstein's article, the composer is looking like a thing of the past.
A Fistful of Soundtracks airs every Sun. at 10 p.m. on KZSC 88.1 FM.