Thoughts on the DBS Super Hero Soundtrack?

[Woodlandbuckle]

So recently the CD to DBS Super Hero just came out and even though it hasn't been released online yet there have been previews released and snippits heard in trailers.

Here's a link to the previews. Just know that they're limited to 45 seconds and seem to be heavily compressed

[Xeogran]

It's alright. Not the worst, but also not as great as I would expect from this composer (as I really adore his work for Assassination Classroom)

The soundtrack gives off a nice cinema-feel, but I also think the movie relied on that one main motiv for one too many times, sometimes you could hear the same rhythm repeating in various different scenes.

It's also interesting how ominous Beerus & Cheelai ( Track 8 ) is, considering it's meant to be a funny scene. The angle he went for is surprising but it works!

[Majin Man 101]

It's alright. Not the worst, but also not as great as I would expect from this composer (as I really adore his work for Assassination Classroom)

The soundtrack gives off a nice cinema-feel, but I also think the movie relied on that one main motiv for one too many times, sometimes you could hear the same rhythm repeating in various different scenes.

It's also interesting how ominous Beerus & Cheelai ( Track 8 ) is, considering it's meant to be a funny scene. The angle he went for is surprising but it works!

I agree. While the main theme "Super Hero" was excellent, the rest of the soundtrack left a little to be desired. Over all I felt the soundtrack was good but not great. At the same time though, Naoki Sato did not rely on a song written for the movie like Sumitomo did for the Broly movie. I am surprised this film did not have a big song to go along with it.

[BeaBumby]

Oh! I uh don't remember a single track

[FPSSJ4_Goku]

Oh! I uh don't remember a single track

Neither do I, personally. Dragon Ball Super: Broly's soundtrack was more memorable to me (see its variation of Cha-La Head-Cha-La, Kakarot vs Broly, Broly Goes Super Saiyan, Gogeta vs Broly and the Full Force Kamehameha)

[The Accountant]

It's alright, I guess. I liked the theme for the flashback montage, particularly the jingle when the opening title appears. Also the ambient noise when Gohan does the thing against the big bad. Other than that, nothing really memorable apart from the tracks that were handpicked for the trailers.

Wasn't there a rumor that Kageyama was making an ending theme or something? I'm just disappointed that there isn't a vocal performance.

In short, I prefer Sumitomo.

[MCDaveG]

In general, I have liked the soundtrack approach - instruments, style - way more than Sumitomo's work in Super (but Broly was interesting).
Somehow, I fail to connect with his signature style coming after Kikuchi, Tokunaga and... Yamamoto BUT!

The music was just there, none of the themes stood out except for the main one, which is basically repeated though the whole film
and the soundtrack itself was weak.
It was like lot of the Marvel movies soundtracks, except for Alan Silvestri's work on Avengers or Michael Giacchino's Spiderman, which was actually a proper soundtrack that works for standalone plays.

Final thoughts - repetitive, bland. Except for some cool musicianship and overall sound, it looks like not much work went in and the soundtrack doesn't work at all as standalone.
Try to run it next to the 10th Anniversary Movie OST from Tokunaga for example... like comparing raisins to melons.
Also, lack of vocal theme or proper theme or themes in general doesn't help.
It's basically like some TV jingle or Patchwork music.

In this regard, I feel like Dragon Ball score is cursed since Kenji Yamamoto's infamous scandal and have to apologize to Sumitomo, as he is good composer, employing themes for characters, emotions and actually like those tracks where he is not going minimal with synths.

But hey, if they wanted to do a modern and forgetable superhero movie soundtrack, that is there for the sake of being there instead of silence, I guess they have succeeded.
Only thing I like about the standalone release is probably the cover art.

[sangofe]

The soundtrack worked pretty well. I really like the tracks with Pan and Piccolo and the hero theme. I give it an 8/10.

[Lord Beerus]

Very unremarkable. I don't remember a single track from the soundtrack and I've seen the film twice.

[FPSSJ4_Goku]

How would you feel if fan musicians, like Android Orchestra, were brought in to compose some songs for the movie?

Here is almost 1 hour worth of orchestral Kikuchi tracks, over an hour of orchestral Sumitomo songs and 40 and a half minutes of Faulconer tracks, all by him

[MCDaveG]

How would you feel if fan musicians, like Android Orchestra, were brought in to compose some songs for the movie?

Here is almost 1 hour worth of orchestral Kikuchi tracks, over an hour of orchestral Sumitomo songs and 40 and a half minutes of Faulconer tracks, all by him

Cool fan work, but wouldn't work for me. Sounds too synthetic and even the Sumitomo tracks are kinda lacking.
I like the Super Hero OST more than this for one simple reason, it was done by acomplished composer who knows how to do it.
The arrangement and composition alone is far above the fan stuff.

But, might be cool to have for example GT or Super as only actors and SFX and try to use Kikuchi score in it for example.

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

Did I listen to a completely different soundtrack? I loved the score. The main theme is so good, especially when it was remixed slightly during the second Piccolo and Gamma 2 fight.

I really loved the more low key tracks like the music that played at the beginning with Piccolo and Pan. Even little tracks like when Piccolo left the Lookout sounded great.

Out of the modern films, this one has music that sounded the most appropriate for the scenes that they played in. Gamma 2’s final attack sounded really exciting. The track that plays as Piccolo is getting the crap kicked out of him at the end and the music during the climax was eerie and chilling. I loved the music during the final scene.

A lot of the chills that I had throughout the film mostly happened because the score elevated a lot of scenes. It’s definitely the most cinematic music I’ve heard from Dragon Ball.

[Rafa Fast]

Is seriously no one going to talk about the Direction of the Album? Well no problem since the purpose of the thread is to talk about the Soundtrack, but I really don't have anything to say about it, I liked it but I still prefer Sumitomo (from Kai, the Two Real 4Ds and Super Broly, it's better than BoG, RoF and Super imo), that's it, I want to talk about the Album.

I'm overall satisfied but I'm a bit disappointed too.

Firstly, what's with the names of some of the tracks? Like wow, these must be the laziest and most generic names ever given to tracks in a Dragon Ball soundtrack, and I'm not counting the games, even them have better names actually, but actually I don't care, the only real problem is "Shenlong", using the dragon's name for the track pretty much happens since the Kikuchi era, and all of them have pretty much the same name, just sometimes being alongside the words "Emergence" or "Appears" or "Is Summoned", it's pretty repetitive and even confusing, for example, in Fukkatsu no F we have this track called "Shenlong Makes his Appearance", but it's actually the same track as "Shenlong" from Kai 2014, just with a different name, but the Kai track is actually a extended version of a shorter track from Battle of Gods, which is also called "Shenlong Makes His Appearance", so yeah, not very good (funny enough, the movie version of the RoF track is short just like the BoG one)

And now, talking about the actual album, what I'm disappointed is that, again, for the second time since Wrath of the Dragon, that a DB movie doesn't have a 100% film accurate score release (and I'm not counting the two special versions of BoG, which have new and alternate tracks that still weren't released to this day), I was already highly disappointed that the Album of the Super Broly score didn't match the tracks in the actual film, which was the first time they haven't done this since Z movie 13, then this happens again, and there's something worse, at least in Super Broly, despite the tracks sounding different in the movie, all of them were included in the Album, in case of Super Hero, they forgot the track that plays when Piccolo is telling his plan to Pan inside the Plane (yeah, I can totally surely assume that isn't a sfx, definitely sounds like a composition). And there's more, it's a huge shame that instead of including the "Goku vs Vegeta" track, which has a strong likelihood of being a unique composition and not just a edited version of "The Evil Organization" (Track 13), they preferred to include the End Credits track (23 "Super Hero"), that doesn't make any sense, that track just reprises a edited version of Track 12 "Awakening" and a track that sounds very similar to Track 13, which is probably a edited version of "Goku vs Vegeta", with the one used in the fight scene being the original, like, common', they are very similar, but Track 13 does have some major differences, due to this not very good choice, we have two "Awakening' in the score, with the second installment being identical to the first, with only a different electric guitar solo. Well this is actually just speculation, maybe Track 23 is the original and then "Goku vs Vegeta" is the track composed based on it with some edits.

I highly doubt a complete film accurate score release in the future, that only happens with Hollywood films.

[Metalwario64]

Very unremarkable. I don't remember a single track from the soundtrack and I've seen the film twice.

Same. It sounds extremely generic Hollywood superhero-esque, which I guess fits with the theme of the movie, but is the weakest Dragon Ball score so far in my opinion. I really want Sumitomo to return if the anime ever returns.

[Civic]

It wasn't unique in the sense that I remember any song specifically, but both my wife and I commented while we were watching it that it was strong and impactful and really sold the drama that was unfolding on the screen.