Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

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Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:14 pm

It would be fair to say that, (almost) all of the time, I prefer orchestral scores over synthesizers. I know most people aren't fond of the "English Dub/Japanese Music" audio track found on FUNimation's DBZ releases beginning in the mid 2000's, but that's how I discovered Kikuchi's music, and I loved it. I swore off the Faulconer score as inferior to anything that Kikuchi composed, and later, anything that Yamamoto "composed"(/stole). Ultimately, I still find the original Japanese scores to be superior....

....But having said that...I've softened up on the Faulconer score as time has gone on.

As time has gone on, I've found that I actually like the Faulconer score a little more than I thought I did. It's not a 180-turnaround, and it's not my favorite, but I've found that it's better than I once gave it credit for. In some cases, it's a matter of finding that I like the tracks by themselves and just not in the context of DBZ, and in a few brief cases, I think the Faulconer team actually came out with some stuff that totally fit the intended emotional tones of the scenes they were attached to. A couple examples...

-Faulconer's opening theme. There's no way it'll ever beat "Chala-Head-Chala" for me, as it has a little too much "DBZ IS A HARDCORE ACTION SHOW, BRO!!!"-feel to it, and it doesn't really fit the animation it was attached to. At the same time, it's exciting, it's upbeat, and I can't help but smile and hum along whenever I hear Faulconer's main theme. Even if it's just because it makes me remember a simpler time when I raced home from school every day to catch the next episode, I can't help but have a fondness for it.

-Vegeta's Super Saiyan theme. Chalk it up to an oddity of my own musical taste, but I've always loved hearing older instruments alongside newer instruments, as it helps create a memorable contrast. Violins alongside electric guitars, Gothic choirs against bass guitars, that sort of thing. So to hear the intense piano music against the aggressive synthesizers...that contrast always made this piece stick out for me. It was strong enough not only for me to associate with Vegeta becoming a super saiyan, but also for me to remember it as the track that played when Vegeta used Final Flash and when he saved Gohan in the battle against Cell.

-The Ginyu Transformation theme. Mounting tension boils over into thundering drums that signal the start of an apocalyptic motif. I think it was a little too over-the-top to be used for Ginyu's capture of Goku, but I've heard it used in a few other scenes where it totally works. Whenever the stakes for a scene are especially high, I think that's where this track shines.

-"New Earth Music." At first, I didn't really remember this one, but what made me remember it was the scene in the Buu arc where Goku reunites with his friends and family. When I heard this scene in Kai, I was flabbergasted by how poor a fit the Sumitomo score was. So, when I went back and listened to the Faulconer score for this scene...I was struck by how subtle and poignant it was. I tend to associate the Faulconer score with the "over-the-top HARDCORE ACTION SHOW, BRO"-feel that FUNimation tried to use in their "reversioning," so I was pleasantly surprised to hear the Faulconer team try their hand at subtle, emotional moments. I'll go ahead and say it--I think Faulconer did a better job here than Sumitomo.

In the end, I'd stop short of saying that I have "changed my mind" about the Faulconer score...but I would go so far as to say that, upon further review, perhaps I judged it a tad too harshly.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Sat Oct 06, 2018 3:44 am

Unfortunately not.

My opinion on his score is the same: a score fitting for an action show that isn't Dragon Ball. I'll never understand how people can say that Kikuchi's score is more fitting for the original series, but it doesn't fit at all in Z.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Majin Buu » Sat Oct 06, 2018 7:15 am

Nope.

The only thing that has changed is that I called it "mediocre" back then, while In retrospect, "bland" and "generic" better describe why I don't like it. The music itself still doesn't do anything for me, and the wall-to-wall way it was used still actively annoys me.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that it lacks a musical identity though. It has an identity, I just don't find that identity very interesting. To me it feels like a very boring person trying too hard to make you think they're cool and coming off as obnoxious for it.

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by BlazingFiddlesticks » Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:27 am

I am a Toonami-viewer who never really "equated" the FUNi dub or replacement soundtracks to the series, so I never thought much of it and tend to watch the FUNi dub with Kikuchi anyway. Aside from the Buu theme it was the Legacy of Goku games that really reminded me of it, I think it works much better there. I would add First Stage Cell, Babidi's Ship, and Pikkon's Themes among the better ones as well.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Sat Oct 06, 2018 1:37 pm

Majin Buu wrote:To me it feels like a very boring person trying too hard to make you think they're cool and coming off as obnoxious for it.
And indeed, that sums up how I view most of the score to this day.

The responses thus far are more or less what I expected and, for the most part, I agree. When I say I judged it "a tad too harshly," I chose the phrase "a tad" very deliberately. For the most part, the Faulconer score isn't really my thing. At the same time, I can't sit here and say, "Ahh man, I hate it from start to finish." I guess this thread was my way of saying, "Eh, well...there's a select few tracks here and there...."
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Kakacarrottop » Sun Oct 07, 2018 11:35 pm

I loved the Funi in-house score as a 6 year old in 2003, not really understanding how different it was from the original Kikuchi music. However, around 2011-ish I rediscovered the Saban dub, having only seen a handful of episodes from when I was really little and from VHS tapings a few years later. After rewatching that dub on the internet, I came to the conclusion that it's soundtrack was much better than BF, who I've grown to dislike because of all the obnoxious Youtube type fans who dismiss every other version of the show. Also, around the same time, I found out about the existence of the Westwood dub and it's replacement soundtrack. I think it's roughly on par with BF, but I can actually enjoy it since it doesn't have the same ridiculous cult built around it.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Majin Buu » Mon Oct 08, 2018 7:31 am

TheBlackPaladin wrote:The responses thus far are more or less what I expected and, for the most part, I agree. When I say I judged it "a tad too harshly," I chose the phrase "a tad" very deliberately. For the most part, the Faulconer score isn't really my thing. At the same time, I can't sit here and say, "Ahh man, I hate it from start to finish." I guess this thread was my way of saying, "Eh, well...there's a select few tracks here and there...."
The Levy/Wasserman replacement score has become that for me, actually. While I still find it inferior to Kikuchi like the Faulconer score, there are actually one or two tracks from it that I kind of like.

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Robo4900 » Fri Oct 12, 2018 4:10 pm

It's gone up and down. I've always loved the arrangements/orchestrations from the Legacy Of Goku 2 and Buu's Fury... I've gone back and forth between what I think about that score in the show, but I think ultimately its main flaw is that there are a lot of filler tracks as a result of the mandate to have music playing at all times during the show, so while there's some great stuff in the soundtrack, it's full of filler too. Very much like the middle of the Freeza arc. :lol:

I think, because of the filler and the way the soundtrack kind of just blared on throughout the run, it doesn't really work for me. But, I do sometimes listen to the better tracks on Spotify, and I think the Legacy Of Goku version of the Faulconer tracks were excellent. I do wonder if there's an easy way to extract the Impulse Tracker files from the Legacy Of Goku GBA ROMs. Always loved the sound, feel, etc. of that stuff, and since they didn't have to use all that many tracks, they always used the best stuff from the Faulconer repertoire.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Soppa Saia People » Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:06 am

I'm not super well versed in a lot of synth rock (or really... rock in general beside 80s hc punk and pop punk. shoegaze too if you count it), but from what I've heard of faulconers soundtrack, its fine i guess. its kinda generic, but i suppose it works with the vibe the funi dub was going for.

this is a improvement from when i was getting into the original version and hated everything about funi including faulconers score, lol.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by GhostEmperorX » Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:14 pm

The music that Faulconer's team (not the man himself alone) composed suffered from terrible direction and bloat in lots of areas since there were soundtracks playing even where there didn't need to be any (blame Funimation for this one though). And it wasn't even the same person making the music most of the time. It also focused too much on the technology side of things in the show, ignoring the existence of the old series and its ancient roots altogether. So while it hit sometimes, it missed a lot more.

However, this doesn't let Kikuchi's score off the hook for me. Because unlike the above (as well as others), most of his score is composed exactly the same way he did previous 70's shows, it even sounds like that too. And given the fact that he composed a majority of them on only one key, they can mostly literally be blended into the same track without too much dissonance. Not to mention that there's far better composers in Japan anyways who did superior quality material with the same instruments like orchestras and even some modern stuff thrown in, so they're better than both anyways.

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Arteaga4K » Sat Jan 25, 2020 7:08 pm

Opposite for me. I grew up watching the series on toonami in the early-mid 2000s but I've grown more harshly towards the score lately. I do still love some of the music, especially the unreleased stuff (I'm subbed to Coycoy88 on youtube who uploads unreleased faulconer music), I just wish it would shut up once in a while. That and like robo said, the cult following the faulconer score has only made me dislike it more and more over the years.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Dbzfan94 » Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:55 am

Blasphemy incoming

I wish it would be silent more, but for the most part I still love it a lot, if not more than I did when I was kid.

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by ABED » Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:46 am

Yes but for a few reasons, none of which have to do with me appreciating it more. It's as bad as it ever was. However, two factors apply: I don't have to listen to it since the dub doesn't use replacement scores anymore. The second reason is I'm in my mid-30's. I see no reason to hate on the music like I did growing up.
GhostEmperorX wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:14 pmHowever, this doesn't let Kikuchi's score off the hook for me. Because unlike the above (as well as others), most of his score is composed exactly the same way he did previous 70's shows, it even sounds like that too.
The score is meant to evoke old Hong Kong action movies.
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by GhostEmperorX » Mon Jan 27, 2020 11:08 am

ABED wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:46 am
GhostEmperorX wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:14 pmHowever, this doesn't let Kikuchi's score off the hook for me. Because unlike the above (as well as others), most of his score is composed exactly the same way he did previous 70's shows, it even sounds like that too.
The score is meant to evoke old Hong Kong action movies.
So I’m told but it also resembles his 70’s Super Robot works like Grendizer and Daimos (which people legit mistake as coming from DBZ), and I actually prefer those ones since he was the OP and ED composer for those as well as how he has better material in there (even though he still used F minor more than half the time but that was fitting for the 70’s).
If you want to do a score that actually works for where the series was going while preserving the roots (and not overusing the same tone), you could have had something like what was done in G Gundam (done by the arranger of Makafushigi Adventure), another martial arts series that even takes place in Hong Kong itself. It has quite the Chinese influence too.
Or even Ranma 1/2 which was done by Kenji Kawai (who would go on to score the Ip Man films).

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Kokonoe » Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:43 pm

reverse but my opinion has soften on Kikuchi but man I don't get how people can listen to that OST for DBZ but to teach their own ya know?

I need modern techno jams when goku be boxin n shit not that old man old timey music. Tho fr tho I like the openings with guitars they should be guitaring it up more.

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Arteaga4K » Tue Feb 04, 2020 2:00 am

Kokonoe wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:43 pm reverse but my opinion has soften on Kikuchi but man I don't get how people can listen to that OST for DBZ but to teach their own ya know?

I need modern techno jams when goku be boxin n shit not that old man old timey music. Tho fr tho I like the openings with guitars they should be guitaring it up more.
It kinda works for fights when the faulconer style isn't out of place but the main problem most of us have is when music is playing where it shouldn't, playing nonstop and not getting the tone of the scene right at times (the scene where vegeta goes ssj angrily after losing to 18 in the rain is a good example. It's supposed to be an emotional scene but you don't get that with the dub and score). That said, I still like some of it, but after watching original dragon ball subbed it's kinda weird to go back to faulconer now
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Arteaga4K » Tue Feb 04, 2020 2:01 am

Kokonoe wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:43 pm reverse but my opinion has soften on Kikuchi but man I don't get how people can listen to that OST for DBZ but to teach their own ya know?

I need modern techno jams when goku be boxin n shit not that old man old timey music. Tho fr tho I like the openings with guitars they should be guitaring it up more.
It kinda works for fights when the faulconer style isn't out of place but the main problem most of us have is when music is playing where it shouldn't, playing nonstop and not getting the tone of the scene right at times (the scene where vegeta goes ssj angrily after losing to 18 in the rain is a good example. It's supposed to be an emotional scene but you don't get that with the dub and score). That said, I still like some of it, but after watching original dragon ball subbed it's kinda weird to go back to the dub replacement music
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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by GhostEmperorX » Tue Feb 04, 2020 2:19 am

Kokonoe wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:43 pm I need modern techno jams when goku be boxin n shit not that old man old timey music. Tho fr tho I like the openings with guitars they should be guitaring it up more.
This has to be one of the least sound justifications ever for holding this position. It's certainly dated but there's ways to make it not so dated, which is to simply have better quality recording (and also not be monotonous). It doesn't have to strictly be techno.

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by Broly深蓝 » Tue Feb 04, 2020 1:09 pm

I did not grew up with the Falcouner soundtrack (rather, Kikuchi), so I never had any real attachment for it.

My opinion on it: it has some good tracks, but it and the entire old Funimation Dub paint an entirely different picture of the show from the original.

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Re: Has your opinion on Faulconer softened over time?

Post by VDenter » Wed Feb 05, 2020 5:15 pm

Nah. It has gotten worse in fact. This is one of those things that is so disrespectful to the source material and it so cancerous, that i have no interest in even entertaining the idea that it should exist.

It really shouldn't be anywhere close to this franchise and i'm glad that it isn't other than with the OG funi dub, which i have no interest in revisiting ever. The damage that the dub and this score have done to this series is pretty much irreparable to a degree and i find it pretty sad, but luckily if most new fans are going to get into the series, it will likely be with the original music. So that already makes things better than they were back when the dub aired. If i could have my way i would purge all traces of the Faulconer score from existence along with the OG Funi dub. Some things really don't need to be preserved and this is one of those things that has ZERO value.

I just hope this shite soundtrack fades into obscurity and in about 20 years nobody gives a shit about it anymore.
Which honestly is only a matter of time before it happens.

Even if i divorce the Faulconer score completely from DB and judge it completely on its own merits, i think it is abysmal trash. It doesn't sound good and it wouldn't really fit any material that exist, especially not DB.

The enjoyment that some have for this score is simply a HEAVY dose of nostalgia and that nostalgia is only there thanks to many in the US being introduced to a butchered, broken and completely unwatchable version of the show. .

While i don't love any other OST for DB other than Kikuchi, i would still gladly take ALL of them over Faulconer.

Yamamoto,Tokunaga, Sumitomo, all the other crap US replacment scores even.

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