I’ve often wondered about what exactly shapes up my taste
in music. Now granted, where I’m from, a dude who listens to nothing but the “background
music” of films is already weird enough to earn a shining geek badge. But even as
a film score fan, I find myself repeatedly revisiting material which most other
listeners would consider generic or subpar at best. Of course, music is a very
subjective experience and you can’t really judge a piece solely by the opinion
of others – no matter now universally accepted that opinion may be. A recent
example is from Patrick Doyle’s soundtrack to last year’s Oscar-winning Pixar film, Brave. It’s
a wonderful Scottish-flavoured score with bagpipes, Celtic fiddle and whistles
magnificently creating an appropriate sonic aura to compliment the film’s setting.
While the score received mostly positive reviews, like many other scores, not
all of its tracks got space in the spotlight. One of my favourite tracks on the
album is Show Us The Way, a largely suspenseful cue which explodes into a
frenzy of brutal orchestral savagery as Merida is ambushed by the demon bear
Mor’Du. It’s a brief but exciting moment of action music that, while nothing
groundbreaking, has earned many repeats on my music player. However, many reviews of the soundtrack I read criticized this track for being dull and slowing down the pace of the album.
Action cues are often said to be too chaotic to be
enjoyable on their own outside the film. I, however, have a special thing for
action music. At least 90% of all scores in my collection have at least a
couple of action cues in them and it is those that get the most repeated visits
from me. Usually it is the action cues that I listen to first upon getting the
album. And I feel there’s plenty of scope for harmony and melody in action music
as well. This is a major reason why I always prefer to as much score as
possible in a soundtrack. Creating a short album program for a better listening
experience is both creatively and economically very understandable (honestly,
given the current economic times and remembering how most of A.R Rahman’s
amazing Indian scores are only available as SFX-riddled DVD rips, I’m grateful
enough just to have a score CD in my hands), but I’m never going to be one who
complains about the length of a score CD. What’s a boring track for me could
well be the highlight of the album for someone else. I can easily remove that
track from my playlist, but if it’s unreleased then nobody else can have it
even if they want to (through legitimate means, that is). The more complete the
soundtrack is, the more of a win-win situation I feel it is.
