Three Reviews for your Weekend

Borders is having this 30% off DVD/CD clearance sale, and me being the savvy shopper I am couldn’t resist when I was there last Saturday.  After quickly scooping up the 3-Disc Criterion Collection set of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil for under $40 I went over to the “Soundtracks” section and looked for the magical red stickers that indicated instant savings.

I ended up buying three scores for around $10 a pop, two films and one video game: Michael Giacchino’s Speed Racer, James Newton Howard’s Oscar-nominated Michael Clayton, and the score for the XBox360 game Mass Effect.  Disclaimer right now, of the three scores, I’ve actually only ever seen Michael Clayton, and I don’t even own a XBox360 (or a PS3 for that matter…or a Blu-Ray player, being a poor grad student sucks some days).   So here are some impressions after listening to these scores off and on this past week.

Speed Racer

So I’ll just say this, I think Michael Giacchino is one of the best young composers working in Hollywood today.  Between his work on The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Lost, the man has shown a wide range of skills and ability.  And if there is a knock against his Speed Racer score its that it sounds like all three of those scores thrown into a blender set to puree.  I hear bits and pieces of his previous work, but really, I don’t care!  As long as I’m hearing Michael Giacchino and not Danny Elfman or John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith, I’m pretty content with a composer stealing from himself.  Hell, Beethoven did it, Mozart did it, Mahler did without even hiding it! And if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for Hollywood.

A lot of Giacchino’s work is hallmarked by his use of percussion, especially drumkit and mallets, giving his work a jazz/rock infused style, which is showcased in many cues on Speed Racer.  I can only assume that these cuts (given the titles and what I figure is the film’s plot) are mostly used for the racing sequences.  But he also shows his more tender side (which can be heard in many of Lost‘s death/reflection scenes) with cues like “Racing’s in Our Blood,” which almost rips off the “Life and Death” theme and music from Lost.

The last thing about the score is that, yes, he does incorporate the classic “Go Speed Racer Go!” theme song from the old cartoon.  Somewhat akin to Michael Kamen’s usage of Beethoven Nine, Finlandia, and ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again’ for the Die Hard films, or even the usage of ‘Brazil’ in Brazil (see how I tied that in!), he weaves it into a few of the cues.   But Giacchino makes much more sparring use of the theme as opposed to Kamen’s more complete incorporation.  All in all, if I had to give a rating, I would give it about a 8/10.  Not ground breaking, but very enjoyable and listenable.

Michael Clayton

James Newton Howard’s Michael Clayton score is a harder nut for me to crack.  I’m not really as that familiar with his work as I should be, outside of his collaboration with Hans Zimmer on the new Batman scores.  Though after listening to Clayton (which comes in between the two Christopher Nolan helmed Batman films), I am starting to hear where the two composers start and stop on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

As with many composers these days, Howard makes great use out of studio/computer effects, blending them with more traditional orchestral elements.  Unlike Giacchino’s almost completely in-studio approach, but with a fresh take on the orchestra, Howard blends a sparse string section (with a few winds, I believe…I’m working from memory mostly) with electronic effects that creates a surreal audio accompaniment to a film whose promotional poster was an out-of-focus head shot of star George Clooney with the text “The Truth Can Be Adjusted” covering most of his face.

When I first saw this film, I must admit I wasn’t very struck by the score, in fact I remember thinking “Where is the music?”  Which is why I was surprised when it was nominated for an Oscar (though, I must admit my ears, in the past year, have become much more acute than they were a year ago).  But, after listening to the score, I finally get it.  Watching the movie, I had an almost constant sense of unease, almost, to overuse a word, surreal feeling.  I couldn’t quite pin down what was causing it, but I now realize it was the score.  Bravo, Mr. Howard.

Listening, though, it reminded me at times of a score which, to my knowledge, has yet to have a proper CD release: Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson’s Resident Evil score.  Say what you will about the film or the games, Beltrami and Manson crafted a hell of an eerie score for the film that far surpassed the film in quality.  Final score: 9/10, great atmospheric score that sets the tone for this surreal film.

Mass Effect

Outside of the Final Fantasy games, I haven’t payed much attention video game music, largely due to the fact that I’ve haven’t been a huge gamer, console or PC, since high school.  Mass Effect is a game I would like to play, though, given what I’ve read about its plot (I love sci-fi).  The score is credited to four people: Jack Wall (Lead Composer), Sam Hulick (co-composer), and additional music by Richard Jacques and David Kates.  Jack Wall I’ve actually heard of due to a NPR interview/story on video game music concerts.  What I can hear of his and his team’s efforts on Mass Effect, he should have a bright future (lest we forget that many VG composers have crossed over into film and tv, and many continue to work in the industry, Michael Giacchino being a prime example).

By Wall’s own admission, he was trying to tap into classic sci-fi scores like Blade Runner (Vangelis) and Dune (Toto???).  Without actually having played the game, I feel very ill-equipped to discuss it at length, but I found the music very effective in portraying mood and setting, very key for video game scores.  While I can point to similarities in some cues (‘Battle at Eden Prime’ to the Blade Runner end credits and “The Normandy’ to the aforementioned Resident Evil film score) I found the overall work to be quite good.  I can only hope to one day play the game.  Final score: 6.5/10.

Well, there you have it, my listening for the week.  And yes, I would consider all three scores superior to Tyler Bates’ Watchmen.

YouTube, Part II

So, I have some more substantial posts coming up, but I need to get a few more things in mind prior to writing them.  But let me say this, if you are a fan of film/tv scoring and you’re NOT watching Battlestar Galactica, well, then you need to get your butt in gear.  Last night’s episode, “Someone to Watch Over Me,” reminded me again why I seriously want to write a book, if not my dissertation, on the show’s music.  Anyway, that is to come.  Also, I will also be writing a post based on the paper I will be giving at the American Musicological Society, Rocky Mountain Chapter Meeting on 18 April.  It’s on aural structures in Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon.  Anyway, just a preview of the Shape of Things to Come.

Anyway, on to part II of 2 of my YouTube series.  One of the most popular things to post on YouTube are videos of video games.  High scores, fast runs through an entire game (like 10 minutes to beat Super Mario Bros. 3) or performances of songs in Guitar Hero.  But another subset are videos of video game music.  Either fans performing them, remixes, etc.  There are even entire series of videos devoted to game music.  For today’s video based installment of ‘The Temp Track,’ I give you Mega Man III.

I’m choosing this game because of a recent flurry of comments on Facebook between me and an old high school friend where we were debating the merits of Mega Man games, specifically II vs. III.  The theme to MMIII is, in my opinion, one of the best game themes ever written.  Judge for yourself:

I love the slow, kinda jazzy intro that leads into the more rocking main section that will loop for as long as you want, until you eventually start a game.

So from this beginning, let us explore YouTube.  First up is from the series “The Music of Video Games.”  This series is pretty simple: various tracks from the game set against game footage.  From the users page, it looks like there are at least 450 entries in the series.  I must say, as a researcher, it would prove to be a great resource for game music.  Especially since it seems like the poster has done research already on composers.  Mega Man III is entry 34 in the series.

Next up is a video of a rock band playing the music.  For those of you not steeped in geek culture, there are actual bands who perform game music.  Guess it’s part of the 80s retro cool thing, but really, it’s all nostalgia.  As my generation, the Nintendo generation, gets older, we yearn for those things from childhood that remind us that things were not always so complicated.  Ya, nothing new here, but the fact that we’ve latched onto Nintendo music as a reminder is something that I find fascinating.  This is the band “The Advantage” playing at a video game convention.  They actually go on for over 7 minutes…feel free to not watch the whole thing.  Though a few minutes before the end they fade out to almost nothing and then build it all back up.  Kinda cool.

There are also many people who just tape themselves playing music at the piano and what not, so here is a guitar version and piano version:

Next, and finally, are two videos from YouTube user brentalfloss.  This man is some sort of crazed genius of YouTube and video game music.  Check out his videos here sometime.  The first video is a fully orchestrated midi he did…he tells you all about it in the video:

Secondly is part of his “With Lyrics” series where he takes vg music and puts lyrics to it.  This is the extended version of his Mega Man III theme with lyrics.  Warning, the second half of this video is not Work Safe:

Also, in the “With Lyrics” series, check out the Tetris theme version.  Also his Gregorian Chant version of the Mario Bros. theme is interesting, though I don’t think that it is technically chant.

So, I’ve overloaded you with Mega Man III music so I’ll leave you with a video that has other music with it.  This is brentalfloss’s version of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World called, what else, Super Mario World.

Enjoy.

Narrative and Interactive Music in Media: an Overview

So as I indicate elsewhere in this blog, I intend to address not only film scores, but also those of television and video games.  The thing about these three categories is that, while they all share similar underpinnings, they are quite different types of media.

Film is the granddaddy of them all (well, if you want to get technical, the true father was Greek Drama, but lets only consider the last 100 or so years, shall we?), so most of the music pf television and video games are based on the codes and models of it.   Specifically,  much of it is based on the “classic Hollywood sound” of the 1940s and 50s (Hermann, Korngold, etc.), which itself was influenced heavily by Romantic era classical music.  This how we can trace from Wagner to Korngold to John Williams.  But I’m not really saying much new here.

Television is a different beast.  With smaller budgets and less time, many times the scores aren’t for full orchestra, in fact it might only be a few instruments, or maybe only the composer at a synthesizer and computer.  Then there is music that is canned and recycled (come on, lets all now sing the Captain Kirk fighting whomever with a ripped shirt music…da da daa daa daa daa daa da dum da), so it is the exceptional show that has almost all newly composed music for every episode.  Some good recent examples are the scores for Battlestar Galactica (by Bear McCreary) and Lost (by Michael Giacchino).

Then there are video games.  In the almost 30 years now of the home console and computer video game market, we’ve gone from beeps and bloops to fully orchestrated and recorded music, but the truly remarkable thing is that this music has to be adaptable.  Able to change with the situation.  I would like to meditate on this for just a moment.

Think back to Super Mario Bros., until recently the top selling game of all time (thanks in no small part to being included with the Nintendo Entertainment System console).  Within just the first level of the game, one could hear some 6 different musical cues: the basic world music (the ubiquitous Mario Bros. theme music), the underworld thme after one has gone down a pipe, the “Star Theme” when one obtained the invincibilitystar, if one was running out of time there would be a short transition to a sped up version of the basic theme, the short musical tag if you died, and then the completing the level tag.  And while the quick musical transition between the sections (like the going down the pipe sound) might have been crude, the fact that the composers and programmers actually entered into the game code these various themes and transitions paved the way for more complex systems.

One of the early examples of a more complex system that figured heavily into my childhood is the iMuse engine used in many of LucasArts games in the 90s.  For me, it was its use in their classic adventure games that, while at the time I was not as musically astute, are still with me.  Music from such games as Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, The Dig, Curse of Monkey Island, and  Grim Fandango still linger in my brain just waiting for me to start humming them at random, and in many occasions inappropriate, times.  What the iMuse did was to help to smooth out the transitions and make the switches between cues more seamless, the basic ideas that is still in use today.

If you want more info, surf over to iMuse Island, a rather detailed website about the system.  A similar system was also used in the computer game series Wing Commander, which I also played fairly obssively while growing up.

But if there was one video game score that floored me like no other it was Final Fantasy III (though actually the sixth game of the series, but was released as III in the states because numbers II, III, and V didn’t see release here until much later).  The album release of the score is three CDs long, and despite it being MIDI generated, it still holds up against many scores of today’s games.  Each of the 14 playable characters has a distinct theme, and the music itself is epic on a grand scale, with MIDI doing its best to represent an orchestral sound complete with choir and organ.  And if that wasn’t enough, composer Nobuo Uematsu even had to write an mini opera for a central plot point during the game.

To a 13-year-old, this was amazing.  Right up there with John Williams and Star Wars, why Uematsu wasn’t famous like Williams was a mystery to me back then.  I know now that among video game music fans, Uematsu is Williams.

I lament the fact that I cannot comment much on the current state of music in video games, but it is my understanding that on a level of basic technique, much hasn’t changed, the idea of writing cues that can be cut up to be transitioned between to suit a player’s actions is still there.  The major change is the switch from MIDI or more sophisticated computer software to, in many cases, digital recordings of live musicians.  Due to the large memory capacity of the media now involved, this is used more and more often.

Then there are games like the Grand Theft Auto series which use music in a very unusual way.  The gamer essentially selects the soundtrack by switching between radio stations in the stolen vehicles, and depending on what mood the player is in can determine what they listen to (Rap, Reggae, Classical, Talk, etc.).  I won’t say much more than that, but I do direct readers to an excellent recent article by Kiri Miller from the Fall 2007 issue of the journal Ethnomusicology for more on this.

I know that this isn’t very deep information, much is synthesized from my own readings of other scholars, but if one is new to musical scores in media, this might give some basics.