I suppose I haven't posted in this thread yet, so I'll attempt to write a response now. Basically, a lot of what has been said so far. Firstly, silence. All of the English music lacks real moments of silence. Silence can really help with emotional scenes, and they can oft be ruined by music playing in the background that never shuts the fuck up. The biggest moments of silence are always a few short seconds between songs. The Faulconer Productions music also sounds too electronic and synthesized, almost like Super Nintendo music at times. However, an even bigger issue is mis-interpreted scenes, and this does sometimes happen. People often say how much better Goku's Super Saiyan 3 transformation was with the Faulconer Productions music. I highly disagree. The dub music paints this as "awesome! whoa! look how awesome and strong Goku is", while the Japanese music gives a more hectic, tense feel. As in, the world is shaking, Kaio is yelling at Goku to stop, and it really just gives the impression that Goku shouldn't be doing this, and something horribly wrong might happen. The later Ocean dub version fares somewhat better than the Faulconer version, in my opinion, as it has a little more of that "unstableness" to it. The original Super Saiyan transformation fared better than the SS3 transformation, but I still think it's a little too much "look how awesome Goku is" and not quite enough "look how angry Goku is". The scene when Trunks killed Frieza was handled well until Frieza says "
when I get my hands on y-", then I just don't know what happened there. Supposedly
Heroic Trunks was originally intended to be played there, which in my opinion, fits much better. Obviously doesn't hold a candle to Battle Point Unlimited, but doesn't stand up too poorly on its own. I used to somewhat like the Nathan Johnson score, but as I've watched scenes with it, it's really bad. I like it better than Menza and Levy/Wasserman/Saban/Whoeverthefuckitis, but that's not saying much. The Menza music honestly reminds me a bit of elevator music at times, and during many scenes goes way too overboard on the "cool/harcore" factor. The Johnson, and more so the Levy score, seems to just drone on and on. At least Faulconer has some style and variation to it. I watched the filler episode where Chiaotzu, Kurilin, Tenshinhan, and Yamcha go to fight the false Saiyans on Planet Vegeta (episode 17, dub title "Pendulum Room Peril", original title "City of No Tomorrow! The Long Road to Victory"), and literally nothing seemed to be happening, from what I remember.
Literally, it was just noise that went on the whole episode, no matter what was going on. I've heard the Johnson score is better for movies 12 and 13 (or is it 11 and 12?), but I haven't had a chance to check that out yet. And yeah, there's also the principle that it's replacement music, which automatically makes it lose some points no matter how good it is.
In a nutshell, misinterpreted scenes, little silence, too synthetic.
That all being said, I'd one day like to watch the series at least once with the Faulconer music, so I may pick up the singles one day to do just that.
Something I forgot. The rock music used in the movies and specials is absolute garbage and have no place there at all. From what little I've heard of the Peter Berring score, it's not too bad.
