Was Nathan Johnson unfairly bashed?

[DBZAOTA482]

He's not a bad composer but he's not good either, at least not for Dragon Ball Z. His music feels more like something straight out of a stereotypical American cartoon. Doesn't deserve the bashing he gets though.

One composer that truly deserves to get bashed is Mark Menza. He made GT, as hard as it is to believe, even lamer with his repetitive Americanized modern shitfest of a soundtrack.

[Attitudefan]

I really like his score too. It's like Wasserman's score but not as good. But that's subjective. I really like the score that plays when Piccolo dies, or any of his fighting score. I love that techno orchestral sound. Goku vs Vegeta and Vegeta beating up Yajirobi are also notably fantastic. I think if he wasn't forced to do wall to wall music, his score would stand out more, especially his battle songs.

[GS7X7]

He's not a bad composer but he's not good either, at least not for Dragon Ball Z. His music feels more like something straight out of a stereotypical American cartoon. Doesn't deserve the bashing he gets though.

One composer that truly deserves to get bashed is Mark Menza. He made GT, as hard as it is to believe, even lamer with his repetitive Americanized modern shitfest of a soundtrack.

Funimation (Watson) loved Menza's stuff and told him it was great.

I mean, it was pretty horrible but they kept greenlighting it nonstop.

[Kakacarrottop]

I really like his score too. It's like Wasserman's score but not as good.

I completely agree with this statement. Just watch this dub comparison clip of Vegeta killing Guldo for example, Johnson was obviously taking inspiration from Wasserman in the more tense scenes, although the main difference was that Johnson's music didn't have that weird chanting/shrieking choir vibe going on.

[GS7X7]

I just feel so bad for the guy reading his interview on Dao, you can tell he still feels bad about fan reactions. Kinda makes me want to give the dude a hug.

Besides, Funimation did dual-sountrack options on the redub dvd's, so there never really was any need to bash the dub score too much in the first place.

[Attitudefan]

I really like his score too. It's like Wasserman's score but not as good.

I completely agree with this statement. Just watch this dub comparison clip of Vegeta killing Guldo for example, Johnson was obviously taking inspiration from Wasserman in the more tense scenes, although the main difference was that Johnson's music didn't have that weird chanting/shrieking choir vibe going on.

I think so too. But those shrieking/chanting parts are the reasons I think the ost sounds great. It always gives me chills hearing that.

[TheUltimateVegito]

I'm one of the few people who really liked Nathan's score. Not only did it add to the remastered feel, but it definitely had memorable/stand out tracks.

Monster Zarbon theme, Vegeta vs Goku theme and Ginyu Force theme were some of my favorites, with the Goku vs Vegeta theme being the best. That theme fit the fight perfectly.

Heck, I even prefer Nathan's score over the Saban score.

[SaiyaJedi]

I have a hard time believing that Nathan Johnson is well-known enough to be bashed. Most of the fans of the Faulconer score that I've seen online have no idea that someone different did the first 68 episodes at all, let alone have an opinion about his work versus Faulconer's.

[GS7X7]

One disturbing trend I noticed in Menza's and Johnson's interviews that each of them discuss being given a limited budget by Funimation.

Now, it's not like dub scores are always inferior to J. scores.... Sailor Moon's dub is a great example of a dub score that's done really well so it's not impossible. But if they wanted to replace the score I really think they should have been willing to invest more money. I know during the Saban days that they had to pinch pennies because they were not a wealthy company by any means but after a year of so on Toonami was when Gen made his famous "We have more money than we know what to do with! I'd prefer not to say how much!" comment. If Faulconer and all the rest had had expanded budgets I think we would have seen much more musical variety, perhaps even local orchestras getting involved. It seems Funimation was only willing to invest more into the music budgets during some of the movies.

[DerekPadula]

The formatting on this interview is really gross.

The actual content is nice, at least.

Sorry about that. The interview is 3 years old and was formatted for a previous theme. But I just cleaned up a few things.

I noticed the link to part 2 of the interview wasn't working, so I fixed it. Also to the Mark Menza interview.

It'd be nice to interview Faulconer some day, but he never returns my emails. I suspect it's because he doesn't want to have to be honest about the questions I'd ask him.

[GS7X7]

The formatting on this interview is really gross.

The actual content is nice, at least.

Sorry about that. The interview is 3 years old and was formatted for a previous theme. But I just cleaned up a few things.

I noticed the link to part 2 of the interview wasn't working, so I fixed it. Also to the Mark Menza interview.

It'd be nice to interview Faulconer some day, but he never returns my emails. I suspect it's because he doesn't want to have to be honest about the questions I'd ask him.

My apologies, I'm likely to blame for that.

http://www.animecauldron.com/dbzuncenso ... racts.html

I spilled the beans on him hiring others long ago. While my source for info (friend of somebody who kinda knows Funimation) was inaccurate, everything else I said about Faulconer was later publicly confirmed. What I wrote likely empowered Morgan and others to speak up and it's now fairly common knowledge that Faulconer had a helping hand. He even e-mailed sometime before then- I was kinda surprised how nice he was, given my previous rabidness.

I feel a lil' bad for Faulconer. But.... nobody makes ALL the music to a tv show by themselves! Certainly Toei didn't have just one guy. The best thing Faulconer would be able to say is, "Yes, of course I employed others to work for my company to help me and gave them directions on what to compose, some tracks of which I approved and some I didn't. That's normal in the business." It'd probably be better for him than saying nothing and letting hearsay grow.

http://www.faulconer.com/Jon_Allen_Inte ... intro.html

Interestingly enough, the interview page uses a lot of the same html type as Planetnamek.com did- likely why the message was added at the top "Planet Namek Lives!" A small insider reference to indicate that some form of the site still remains active.

[Ringworm128]

The "poor man version of Shuki Levi's score" thing is something I've seen popping up, and I have to say I'm one of the few who don't agree. To me the Levi score just seemed like droning metallic noise. The Ginyu Force entrance and the "my wrath" scene are the only two scenes I can think of where the Levi score fitted or added something to the atmosphere. The Johnson score also went for a "droning" sound but to me Johnson actually added some flavor. Also he had some interesting ideas music wise, the SSJ3 Goku vs Janemba track's mix of slow, dark, ominous music mixed with fast heavy metal riffs is something I find interesting as a music fan.

[ABED]

The "poor man version of Shuki Levi's score" thing is something I've seen popping up, and I have to say I'm one of the few who don't agree. To me the Levi score just seemed like droning metallic noise. The Ginyu Force entrance and the "my wrath" scene are the only two scenes I can think of where the Levi score fitted or added something to the atmosphere. The Johnson score also went for a "droning" sound but to me Johnson actually added some flavor. Also he had some interesting ideas music wise, the SSJ3 Goku vs Janemba track's mix of slow, dark, ominous music mixed with fast heavy metal riffs is something I find interesting as a music fan.

I don't agree, but I have to ask, what about the hero theme that plays when Goku arrives in the nick of time to save Gohan and Kuririn? It's played when he arrives on Earth and Namek. I think it's a great piece of music and I get a little misty eyed (not literally, but you know what I mean).

[Kakacarrottop]

The "poor man version of Shuki Levi's score" thing is something I've seen popping up, and I have to say I'm one of the few who don't agree. To me the Levi score just seemed like droning metallic noise. The Ginyu Force entrance and the "my wrath" scene are the only two scenes I can think of where the Levi score fitted or added something to the atmosphere. The Johnson score also went for a "droning" sound but to me Johnson actually added some flavor. Also he had some interesting ideas music wise, the SSJ3 Goku vs Janemba track's mix of slow, dark, ominous music mixed with fast heavy metal riffs is something I find interesting as a music fan.

I admittedly haven't heard that much of Johnson's score, but it just didn't strike me as anything particularly creative, the Levy score on the other hand at least felt like something different and new (in the fight scenes at least). Also when i hear the term "droning metallic noise" i think of the Faulconer score, not the Levy score.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

The "poor man version of Shuki Levi's score" thing is something I've seen popping up, and I have to say I'm one of the few who don't agree. To me the Levi score just seemed like droning metallic noise. The Ginyu Force entrance and the "my wrath" scene are the only two scenes I can think of where the Levi score fitted or added something to the atmosphere. The Johnson score also went for a "droning" sound but to me Johnson actually added some flavor. Also he had some interesting ideas music wise, the SSJ3 Goku vs Janemba track's mix of slow, dark, ominous music mixed with fast heavy metal riffs is something I find interesting as a music fan.

I admittedly haven't heard that much of Johnson's score, but it just didn't strike me as anything particularly creative, the Levy score on the other hand at least felt like something different and new (in the fight scenes at least). Also when i hear the term "droning metallic noise" i think of the Faulconer score, not the Levy score.

If anything the droning metallic noise sounds like Menza