Opinions on Composers

[Gaffer Tape]

Hmm, I don't usually wander into the Music board, but here I am, so I'll give this a shot.

Kikuchi Shunsuke: Definitely the only DB composer for me. I don't know if I can state it any better than PT already did. I guess the best way I can put it is describe my first experience with it. It was the dub of movie 2 on the Toonami Movies block back in, I guess, February of '99. At that time, I'd only been into the series for about six months, and I had no idea about sub vs. dub, or the changes inherent in the dub. I had no idea the entire musical score had been replaced. But I was blown away by this score! That eerie piece they used for Doctor Uiro (which would later be used for Freeza in the series) set an awesome tone, and the guitar version of Piccolo's theme used during his fight with Goku was just so bombastic and awesome. And I loved that quiet little interlude with Gohan set in there. Unlike the music I had been hearing on TV, this really made me take notice. It lifted the material up and made it feel much more epic and emotional than it had ever seemed before. Oh, and I also played my tape back repeatedly to listen to the insert song! But, you know, I assumed this movie sounded the way it did because it was a movie. Movies are supposed to bump up production values and seem grander. I had no idea the same amazing music was in the TV series!

I do feel it gets a bit repetitive at time in the series, but not because his score is limited. It's just because of whoever had the obsession with getting as much production value out of each new movie's score as possible and decided that, whenever a new movie came out, the series was going to use the hell out of that score... and only that score. So rather than supplement the large library of what was already there, you tuned in one week to have an entirely new set of seven pieces of music... that looped for the next five or six episodes. Thankfully each piece is good enough to mostly offset how annoying that should be.

Yamamoto Kenji: I haven't regularly watched Kai in quite a while, so my knowledge of his stuff is somewhat limited, although I do always try to catch snippets just so I know what everyone's talking about. And he's not bad, don't get me wrong. But I do believe "bland" is generally the best way to describe it. There are some awesome pieces. There are some good pieces. But most of what I've heard just seems to have all the proper ingredients... but fall flat for reasons I can't really put my finger on.

Mark Menza and Nathan Johnson: Eh. I'm not familiar with any of their music, so I guess I can't comment on it.

Faulconer Productions: Not a fan. Not by a long shot. Even with the strong nostalgic attachment, I just can't enjoy it. It just reminds me of how excited my friends and I were to see new DBZ in 1999, followed by how disappointed I was when I heard the new music and voice cast. Only two pieces stand out in my head. There was the "killer clown" theme they started using in the Garlic Jr. arc, which just gave me a headache. And then there was some Cell theme that they seemed to use constantly near the end of season 4, which sounded like a slightly melodic ambulance siren (not trying to be rude, but that's the only way I can think to describe it) and would just get embedded in my poor 14-year-old brain. I've heard it started to get much better after season 4, but I'd already jumped ship by that point.

Whoever did the music for the first 13 dubbed episodes of DB: Not great, but it was a nice "kiddie epic." There were some fun melodies, mostly based on the theme music, which was also okay. Thankfully, their goal wasn't what was apparently the MO of every American composer for DBZ, which was to make everything sound as hardcore and full of electric guitar sounds as possible, but instead to be fun and lighthearted.

Shuki Levy: And here we are, the first Dragon Ball music I ever heard. This was both the music I compared the music in the movies to to decide that Kikuchi's score was amazing, and it was also the music I compared to the season 3 music to declare it as terrible. I'd say it just sits there, and that's not inaccurate. I would also say it doesn't do anything at all, but that's not entirely true. Last summer, I did a YouTube video series detailing how Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was adapted from Super Sentai, so I had to watch a LOT of PR episodes for the first time in many, many years. And now, just the other night, I was listening to Kikuchi's score on YouTube when I happened to accidentally click a link to this score. And, yes indeed, it sounded JUST like the music on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I'm not saying it's reused exactly, but it could just as easily have been Power Rangers music. The harsh, brooding piece might as well have been the same. That definitely doesn't earn it any points, either in originality, or through reaching the oh-so-high standards of Power Rangers's BGM. But it's possible that, as a kid, having only just recently stopped watching Power Rangers, it might have subconsciously reached out to me, only for me to realize the connection many years later.

[cRookie_Monster]

And then there was some Cell theme that they seemed to use constantly near the end of season 4, which sounded like a slightly melodic ambulance siren (not trying to be rude, but that's the only way I can think to describe it)

lol, actually that's a pretty accurate description.

[roidrage]

Oh, so he's untalented all on his own.

Why is almost every single post of yours some sarcastic insult or random rant? I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, but it wouldn't kill you to watch how you say what you say.