For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sat May 26, 2018 2:38 pm

thaman91 wrote:On a purist forum like this, I get the feeling that people who want to say something positive about the Faulconer score often feel the need to frame it by acknowledging all the stuff that people who hate it tend to say. Like "I know, I know it's wall to wall and doesn't capture the tone of the Japanese version and can sound cheap at times, so don't think I'm some sort of uninformed pedestrian". It's a way to try and maintain some sort of perceived credibility in a place where the predominant viewpoint towards the score is the opposite. It's certainly not any kind of "evidence" that people only like it for nostalgia.
I'm not even talking about that part of it though (the hedging with stuff like "Yeah I know its cheap and over-placed, but..." and whatnot): I'm talking about when people just flat out say, point blank "this music DEFINED my childhood" and "I love it for nostalgic reasons". There's a TON of outright admissions to that all across on this forum in countless threads. Its palpably overwhelming honestly how much that specific reason for liking/defending it is brought up by the actual Faulconer fans defending it themselves.

When Faulconer fans themselves say time and time and time again "I love this music because it defined my childhood" in more or less those exact words (or variations thereof) then I have no real reason to NOT take them at their own word that the main reason that most of them love it (not ALL of them 100% I'm sure, but definitely a great deal most of them, given how much this rationale is brought up by them) is mainly because its nostalgic to them.
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Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by thaman91 » Sat May 26, 2018 3:26 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote: I'm not even talking about that part of it though (the hedging with stuff like "Yeah I know its cheap and over-placed, but..." and whatnot): I'm talking about when people just flat out say, point blank "this music DEFINED my childhood" and "I love it for nostalgic reasons". There's a TON of outright admissions to that all across on this forum in countless threads. Its palpably overwhelming honestly how much that specific reason for liking/defending it is brought up by the actual Faulconer fans defending it themselves.

When Faulconer fans themselves say time and time and time again "I love this music because it defined my childhood" in more or less those exact words (or variations thereof) then I have no real reason to NOT take them at their own word that the main reason that most of them love it (not ALL of them 100% I'm sure, but definitely a great deal most of them, given how much this rationale is brought up by them) is mainly because its nostalgic to them.
We often see what we want to see. I've seen posts on this exact forum that go into more detail than just "it defined my childhood". Are more of them nostalgia based? Perhaps. Neither of us has done an exact analysis to say for sure. But the other thing with that is framing it as "defending the score". When the scenario is that it needs to be "defended" then I find that people often have a tough time articulating what exactly they like about it. Not necessarily because there aren't things they like about it, but because it can sometimes be hard to put it into words. For example, I really like John Williams' music. But if somebody started bashing it, what could I come up with to defend it? Hmm, well.....it sounds nice, it has great themes, the themes fit the scenarios, and ummm.....it's just awesome! It's hard to build a defense case like that, especially on a purist forum like this where the overwhelming majority of people feel the opposite. But if you go on youtube to one of coycoy88's full episode music rips, there's lots of comments of people giving time codes to specific moments that they really liked. There might be talk about how a certain transition really worked or how they really liked a particular variation of an established theme. And yeah these types of comments aren't "defenses" nor are they reasons why the score is good, but they do point to people liking various things about the score outside of just "I grew up with it".

So if your mindset is just "the score sucks, let's see what people can possibly say to defend it on a forum focusing on the Japanese version of the show", then you're not going to get the full picture. You will, however, get a lot of selection bias.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by jjgp1112 » Sat May 26, 2018 8:42 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:
Dbzfan94 wrote:Or someone just legitimately enjoys the tracks?

This attitude people have of "this is shit so anyone who enjoys it is because MUH NUSTALGEEIA" is baffling to me.
To be fair here, this same idea also applies in the reverse as well:

"What?! How can you POSSIBLY think this is bad?! This shit defined my childhood man!! Sure it sounds ridiculously cheap and rushed, its wildly overused, doesn't even come close to fitting in with the series it was made for, and has almost no flavor to it at all... but c'mon, there HAS to be SOMETHING to it, right? Its still awesome music! I know cause it got me SO PUMPED when I was 10!" etc.

People who trash on the score go to the "muh nostalgia!" thing for a reason: go look throughout this whole forum in every other Faulconer thread ever made... nostalgia and childhood memories is what almost damn near EVERY other post praising this score almost ALWAYS inevitably comes back to in like 95% of most cases. Its not like I pulled "nostalgia is a helluva drug" completely out of my ass when it comes to this particular subject. This is what Faulconer fans themselves cite as one of their main reasons for liking this score in a ridiculously large number of instances.
I've long since grown a bit of a distate for the dub soundtrack but this isn't really fair. People in communities where their opinions are the minorities often feel cornered and feel the need to append their thoughts with "I know it's X, Y, and Z, BUT..." to avoid confrontation. While nostalgia probably does get brought up as a point of defense in order to maintain an air of "credibility," it's certainly possible that hey, these guys just like the music! Even my beefs with the soundtrack mainly deal with the production values, wall-to-wall nature (and the awkward compositional moments that result from that), and the overall clash with the show's tone...but at the same time I still find a lot of the melodies interesting and would be intrigued to see them done in more of a Kikuchi/GT composer/Yamamoto style. But that type of nuanced opinion is often completely dismissed infavor of "Cuz nostalgia. Nobody could POSSIBLY like this stuff otherwise, amirite?"

Like the guy above said, people often see things from whatever perspective best strengthens their viewpoint, and at times that's just unfairly dismissive. I've been on both sides of this as far as Dragon Ball goes, going from feeling dismissed to leaning too heavily on the "You only like it because of nostalgia" stuff when talking to people outside of Kanzenshuu about the dub.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Ringworm128 » Sat May 26, 2018 10:21 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:
ringworm128 wrote:Dude, don't you think you're being a tad harsh? It undeniably has a cheap, rushed sound to it but it still has good compositions to it. I don't see how anyone could listen to Paikuhan's theme, "Gohan Angers or Piccolo's theme and say "this is bad'.
*Cues up all three*

Yeah no, this is bad.

Gohan Angers is... unbelievably generic. "Yeah, this sure is music I guess" about sums it up. A total nothing, could come from basically any low rent action show in existence. Really I got nothing else I can say about it, because there really ISN'T anything else that even CAN be said about it.

Paikuhan's theme has a semi-decent-ish opening cue (which for Faulconer is almost downright astounding)... and then it just quickly devolves from there into utter nonsense like something out of an especially bad video game soundtrack from the 16 bit days.

Piccolo's theme is one of those Faulconer tracks that has this weird quasi-New Agey thing going on with it somewhat. Its not to quite the same degree as some of the other tracks which REALLY go overboard with this particular type of sound; but for Piccolo's theme, if it wasn't for the "dun dun!" horn-like notes punctuating it throughout and the drum beats, this would otherwise sound like something you'd hear being played in the background at a health spa where people meditate and do yoga and whatnot. And when you compare it directly to Kikuchi's Piccolo theme? Good GOD is this beyond pathetic.

Either way though, no, I wouldn't call any of these compositions "good" or anything approaching it, even on their own totally divorced from DBZ or its original Japanese soundtrack. They're just tacky and without any real musical identity to them whatsoever beyond their general low-grade cheapness. A bunch of this shit could just as easily be the score to literally any one of MILLIONS of shitty, bargain basement D-grade schlock direct to video or basic cable action films from the early 90s (or as I said earlier in a few cases circa the Boo arc, Cinemax porn from the same time period).

This shit is just background noise. It does exactly what it was commissioned to do: fill up dead air with sounds of some kind. Nothing more.

Nostalgia's a helluva drug folks.
Hmmmm I think that's a problem with music; people hear different things. To me Pikkons theme starts off with a powerful opening, a solid bass kicks in and the track takes on a suspenseful tone with some fairly decent drum work to create a "mysterious" feel to it that fits with the character of Paikuhan building up until the pay off is a beautiful arpeggiator melody that's rising/falling tones create an otherworldly tone that fits extremely well with the mysteriousness of Paikuhan. And during this arpeggiator section the harmonics between the main melody and the back melody are wonderfully woven together. All before the track slows down into a dream like state.

But it really just comes down to personal taste.
Dbzfan94 wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote:
Nostalgia's a helluva drug folks.
Or someone just legitimately enjoys the tracks?

This attitude people have of "this is shit so anyone who enjoys it is because MUH NUSTALGEEIA" is baffling to me.
Yeah, I've always watched the series either in Japanese or the Funimation dub with Kikuchi's music. I never even heard Faulconer's music until I was an established fan of the show, and even then I barely ever watched the show with that score.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sat May 26, 2018 10:45 pm

Look let me make this abundantly clear: I have NO doubt that there exists people who genuinely like Faulconer as music unto itself. I'm not discounting the EXISTENCE of those people: more power to them. Sincerely.

I simply have a hard time believing that those people outweigh those for whom it's primarily a nostalgia driven thing.

Just like I'm sure there exist people who legitimately love Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or the Pokemon anime as shows unto themselves (in fact I've met a few of those people), but a LARGE percentage of those fanbases are mainly there due to their childhood nostalgic attachment to them. The fanbase, overall, for the Faulconer score appears to have a similar thing going for it.

Is it possible that I'm wrong? Of course it is and it'd hardly be the first time I was about plenty of things. But all I can go by is the sheer overwhelming number of years I've been around this fanbase and all the countless interactions I've had throughout with fans who go all in for the Faulconer score. Do they bring up other musical factors? Yes they do. Do they also bring up nostalgia? Yes they do.

Which of those two do they place more of an emphasis on? That varries of course: but in my own experiences at least, I'd probably say that nostalgia is what's highlighted the most. The other stuff that's generally highlighted (pertaining to atmosphere and tone) are also similarly coming from a weird place because those things are of course all predicated on fundamental missreadings of the series borne from the FUNimation dub ("It's a western style superhero show about a super team saving the world!").

End of the day, nobody needs my or anybody else's permission to like whatever the hell they want to like. Have the fuck at it all day, every day.

But at the same time it's not like it's some great big secret that fans of this score tend to use nostalgia as one of their main go-to reasons for praising it on a VERY frequent basis. That isn't something I just pulled from nothing just to be an ass to people or simply to be reductive towards the score: God knows I have MORE than plenty of ammunition inherent within the score itself to be reductive and dismissive of it.

No I brought it up (as a brief throwaway comment initially that was immediately zeroed in on) because it's so often such a central theme made mention of BY FAULCONER FANS THEMSELVES in a large majority of my own interactions with them. Not just here even, but also elsewhere. If Faulconer fans didn't bring it up so often then I honestly, genuinely wouldn't consider it quite as strong of a factor.

If anyone wants to just purely argue the merits of the score divorced from that kind of baggage, I'm more than happy to oblige and go into precisely why I think it's shitty, lame-ass sounding music all of its own accord, even divorced from DBZ completely.

And when I do so, it really doesn't ultimately matter whether the person in talking to likes it for nostalgia mainly or sincerely as music: we're still gonna disagree hugely as to its quality either way.

The only distinction I WOULD make is that nostalgia, in and of itself, is a very poor and weak reason to defend the critical merit of anything. Beyond that though, I have NO problems whatsoever just having a simple difference of opinion with someone: not least of which over something as absurdly ridiculous as a score to a children's cartoon show from the 80s and early 90s.

It DOES get a bit tiring though when people get SO defensive of it that they get genuinely downright apoplectic at the very idea that anyone can possibly think it's just chintzy crap. Even if you genuinely DO like this score as music in and of itself, at the MOST generous possible appraisal of it, it's ultimately still a cheap and hastily slapped together replacement music for Dragon Ball Z: it's not like we're debating the cultural impact of Richard Wagner.
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Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Ringworm128 » Sat May 26, 2018 11:11 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:Look let me make this abundantly clear: I have NO doubt that there exists people who genuinely like Faulconer as music unto itself. I'm not discounting the EXISTENCE of those people: more power to them. Sincerely.

I simply have a hard time believing that those people outweigh those for whom it's primarily a nostalgia driven thing.

Just like I'm sure there exist people who legitimately love Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or the Pokemon anime as shows unto themselves (in fact I've met a few of those people), but a LARGE percentage of those fanbases are mainly there due to their childhood nostalgic attachment to them. The fanbase, overall, for the Faulconer score appears to have a similar thing going for it.

Is it possible that I'm wrong? Of course it is and it'd hardly be the first time I was about plenty of things. But all I can go by is the sheer overwhelming number of years I've been around this fanbase and all the countless interactions I've had throughout with fans who go all in for the Faulconer score. Do they bring up other musical factors? Yes they do. Do they also bring up nostalgia? Yes they do.

Which of those two do they place more of an emphasis on? That varries of course: but in my own experiences at least, I'd probably say that nostalgia is what's highlighted the most. The other stuff that's generally highlighted (pertaining to atmosphere and tone) are also similarly coming from a weird place because those things are of course all predicated on fundamental missreadings of the series borne from the FUNimation dub ("It's a western style superhero show about a super team saving the world!").

End of the day, nobody needs my or anybody else's permission to like whatever the hell they want to like. Have the fuck at it all day, every day.

But at the same time it's not like it's some great big secret that fans of this score tend to use nostalgia as one of their main go-to reasons for praising it on a VERY frequent basis. That isn't something I just pulled from nothing just to be an ass to people or simply to be reductive towards the score: God knows I have MORE than plenty of ammunition inherent within the score itself to be reductive and dismissive of it.

No I brought it up (as a brief throwaway comment initially that was immediately zeroed in on) because it's so often such a central theme made mention of BY FAULCONER FANS THEMSELVES in a large majority of my own interactions with them. Not just here even, but also elsewhere. If Faulconer fans didn't bring it up so often then I honestly, genuinely wouldn't consider it quite as strong of a factor.

If anyone wants to just purely argue the merits of the score divorced from that kind of baggage, I'm more than happy to oblige and go into precisely why I think it's shitty, lame-ass sounding music all of its own accord, even divorced from DBZ completely.

And when I do so, it really doesn't ultimately matter whether the person in talking to likes it for nostalgia mainly or sincerely as music: we're still gonna disagree hugely as to its quality either way.

The only distinction I WOULD make is that nostalgia, in and of itself, is a very poor and weak reason to defend the critical merit of anything. Beyond that though, I have NO problems whatsoever just having a simple difference of opinion with someone: not least of which over something as absurdly ridiculous as a score to a children's cartoon show from the 80s and early 90s.

It DOES get a bit tiring though when people get SO defensive of it that they get genuinely downright apoplectic at the very idea that anyone can possibly think it's just chintzy crap. Even if you genuinely DO like this score as music in and of itself, at the MOST generous possible appraisal of it, it's ultimately still a cheap and hastily slapped together replacement music for Dragon Ball Z: it's not like we're debating the cultural impact of Richard Wagner.
The "nostalgia" reasoning is something I've only ever seen here or by people who prefer the Kikuchi score overall. If you went on YouTube and asked why the Faulconer score is good, they would tell you it's because Bruce Faulconer climbed to the top off Mount Olympus and crafted these tracks on a diamond piano while giving composing tips to the ghost of Mozart. They just genuinely like the music and think it fits well with how they see the show.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by jjgp1112 » Sat May 26, 2018 11:25 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:Look let me make this abundantly clear: I have NO doubt that there exists people who genuinely like Faulconer as music unto itself. I'm not discounting the EXISTENCE of those people: more power to them. Sincerely.

I simply have a hard time believing that those people outweigh those for whom it's primarily a nostalgia driven thing.

Just like I'm sure there exist people who legitimately love Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or the Pokemon anime as shows unto themselves (in fact I've met a few of those people), but a LARGE percentage of those fanbases are mainly there due to their childhood nostalgic attachment to them. The fanbase, overall, for the Faulconer score appears to have a similar thing going for it.

Is it possible that I'm wrong? Of course it is and it'd hardly be the first time I was about plenty of things. But all I can go by is the sheer overwhelming number of years I've been around this fanbase and all the countless interactions I've had throughout with fans who go all in for the Faulconer score. Do they bring up other musical factors? Yes they do. Do they also bring up nostalgia? Yes they do.

Which of those two do they place more of an emphasis on? That varries of course: but in my own experiences at least, I'd probably say that nostalgia is what's highlighted the most. The other stuff that's generally highlighted (pertaining to atmosphere and tone) are also similarly coming from a weird place because those things are of course all predicated on fundamental missreadings of the series borne from the FUNimation dub ("It's a western style superhero show about a super team saving the world!").

End of the day, nobody needs my or anybody else's permission to like whatever the hell they want to like. Have the fuck at it all day, every day.

But at the same time it's not like it's some great big secret that fans of this score tend to use nostalgia as one of their main go-to reasons for praising it on a VERY frequent basis. That isn't something I just pulled from nothing just to be an ass to people or simply to be reductive towards the score: God knows I have MORE than plenty of ammunition inherent within the score itself to be reductive and dismissive of it.

No I brought it up (as a brief throwaway comment initially that was immediately zeroed in on) because it's so often such a central theme made mention of BY FAULCONER FANS THEMSELVES in a large majority of my own interactions with them. Not just here even, but also elsewhere. If Faulconer fans didn't bring it up so often then I honestly, genuinely wouldn't consider it quite as strong of a factor.

If anyone wants to just purely argue the merits of the score divorced from that kind of baggage, I'm more than happy to oblige and go into precisely why I think it's shitty, lame-ass sounding music all of its own accord, even divorced from DBZ completely.

And when I do so, it really doesn't ultimately matter whether the person in talking to likes it for nostalgia mainly or sincerely as music: we're still gonna disagree hugely as to its quality either way.

The only distinction I WOULD make is that nostalgia, in and of itself, is a very poor and weak reason to defend the critical merit of anything. Beyond that though, I have NO problems whatsoever just having a simple difference of opinion with someone: not least of which over something as absurdly ridiculous as a score to a children's cartoon show from the 80s and early 90s.

It DOES get a bit tiring though when people get SO defensive of it that they get genuinely downright apoplectic at the very idea that anyone can possibly think it's just chintzy crap. Even if you genuinely DO like this score as music in and of itself, at the MOST generous possible appraisal of it, it's ultimately still a cheap and hastily slapped together replacement music for Dragon Ball Z: it's not like we're debating the cultural impact of Richard Wagner.
In my experience I just haven't seen nostalgia brought up that much until a Kikuchi fan introduces the subject first. I've seen people describing it as brilliant pieces of music to a degree that makes my head spin but hey, as much as I'd like to say so I can't just assume it's nostalgia driving their argument. Maybe a fundamental misreading of the series' tone thanks to the dub, but even in that context the music must have something of merit to them for it to continue to be praised. Hell there's plenty of shows that I loved as a kid that I couldn't tell you two music cues from, but on the flipside DBZs music, be it the dub or my brother's fansubs, always stood out to me to the point where I'd watch certain episodes just for the music, particularly the Cell Games.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by thaman91 » Sat May 26, 2018 11:25 pm

Let me make this abundantly clear: I have NO doubt that there exist people who only like the Faulconer score for nostalgia alone. And great for them if that's the case.

But from all my interactions and observations, I have a hard time believing that these people aren't in the minority. When people decide to put thought into it, there are plenty of things they can describe that they like about it besides just "nostalgia".
Kunzait_83 wrote:But at the same time it's not like it's some great big secret that fans of this score tend to use nostalgia as one of their main go-to reasons for praising it on a VERY frequent basis.
This is so bizarre to read because it's 100% not true in the least. In fact, nostalgia is one of the more infrequent reasons brought up by fans for liking the score.

And I'm not just saying that to be ironic. Most people I've seen who praise the score without putting much thought into it describe it as "epic", "awesome", "had so many badass themes", or "I get chills during ___'s theme when ___ transforms into ___". Nostalgia is RARELY brought up by individuals as a reason why they like it. And if it is brought up, it's brought up by itself, without claiming that it is the SOLE reason they enjoy it. I've even seen comments on Kikuchi OST videos on youtube where people make comments about how they are nostalgic and grew up with it; but I don't then extrapolate that to mean that they ONLY like it for nostalgia.

I just did a search on the dbz subreddit for "Faulconer". And in the very first thread that comes up "When did it become cool and hip to hate on Faulconer's music?", of all the people who stated that they liked the music, a grand total of ONE person said it was because of nostalgia. Where nostalgia gets brought up is more so with people who DISLIKE the score. THEY are the ones who often explain away its loyal fanbase with nostalgia.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Gaffer Tape » Sun May 27, 2018 1:00 am

thaman91 wrote:And in the very first thread that comes up "When did it become cool and hip to hate on Faulconer's music?"
This is admittedly way off topic, but the fact that such a thread exists just cracks me up! It was clearly created by someone who was either too young to be around then or had no connection to the fandom at the time. I sincerely hope the first response in said thread was, "Um... 1999..." Because it's never been cooler or hipper to "hate on Faulconer's music" as it was then.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by thaman91 » Sun May 27, 2018 1:15 am

Gaffer Tape wrote: This is admittedly way off topic, but the fact that such a thread exists just cracks me up! It was clearly created by someone who was either too young to be around then or had no connection to the fandom at the time. I sincerely hope the first response in said thread was, "Um... 1999..." Because it's never been cooler or hipper to "hate on Faulconer's music" as it was then.
Ha! The top response was by VegettoEX himself explaining how it seemed bizarre for the older fans once more and more people started coming online that genuinely seemed to enjoy the score because most people online up until that point only expressed dislike (which probably peaked around 1999, like you say).

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sun May 27, 2018 2:41 am

thaman91 wrote:Ha! The top response was by VegettoEX himself explaining how it seemed bizarre for the older fans once more and more people started coming online that genuinely seemed to enjoy the score because most people online up until that point only expressed dislike (which probably peaked around 1999, like you say).
1999 was the first year of the Faulconer score's existence. The in house dub first hit home video what, the tail-end of '98? 1999 was right smack when it was still brand new and fresh. And yeah, no one at the time who was active in fandom liked it at all.

Earliest I remember seeing any possitive opinions on it at all from virtually ANYONE in even the smallest of doses was maybe 2001/2002 or so. And the earliest I remember fans of it coming out in full force for it hardcore was around maybe 2005/2006-ish?
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Vegard Aune » Sun May 27, 2018 4:41 am

The very last scene of Z. I mean I only sporadically watched the dub on YouTube back in the day when I couldn't find the show on DVD at a reasonable price and didn't have the know-how to get it through... other means, but I did watch it enough for several specific themes to stand out, and I'm pretty sure that scene basically had, like, a more triumphant arrangement of this sort of "peace-theme" that had been prevalent throughout the series? I dunno, point is it sounded nice, and while the music from Broly's defeat in M10 that was played in the Japanese version was by no means a bad track, it didn't quite have that same level of recognizability to it, because, well... I don't recall hearing that piece anywhere else besides that movie. Though I might be wrong. In any case I feel like the dub's track for that scene did a really nice job of capping off the whole series.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Hellspawn28 » Mon May 28, 2018 11:47 pm

Nope. The Japanese music is great because how authentic it is. It feels right at home with the roots that the series is inspired by with classic kung fu movies and other wuxia lore. Faulconer's music feels like it can be any action cartoon on Fox Kids or KidsWB!, not Dragon Ball. The only track that I like from Faulconer is Paikuhan's theme and that's about it. I love the Japanese music ever since I listened too as a 10 year old kid. I like how old fashion it sound to me seeing how I always love the Japanese music in the Showa era Godzilla movies. It kinda remind me of that despite not being anything alike at all.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:59 pm

I can't think of any scene where I like the Faulconer score more than Kikuchi.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by MainJPW » Thu Jun 07, 2018 3:41 am

8000 Saiyan wrote:I can't think of any scene where I like the Faulconer score more than Kikuchi.
I was about to say exactly that.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by EXBadguy » Thu Jun 07, 2018 7:05 am

The only scenes that I like better in Faulconer's music to this day are the Gohan vs Cell struggle and the SSJ3 transformation scenes. I just want to say that half the score itself is memorable, but on scenes, the more I watch it, the more I see why Kikuchi has the upper hand, cuz of its quiet moments, something Faulconer should've thought about. But I still think Kikuchi's soundtrack for DBZ is overrated. It's always the same F-note.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by IHaveNoUserName » Thu Jun 07, 2018 10:00 am

EXBadguy wrote:The only scenes that I like better in Faulconer's music to this day are the Gohan vs Cell struggle and the SSJ3 transformation scenes. I just want to say that half the score itself is memorable, but on scenes, the more I watch it, the more I see why Kikuchi has the upper hand, cuz of its quiet moments, something Faulconer should've thought about. But I still think Kikuchi's soundtrack for DBZ is overrated. It's always the same F-note.
It was funimation who had non stop music playing wasn't necessarily faulconer's fault, also Kikuchi doesn't have the same F note and I honestly think faulconer's score is overrated
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