Can we all please agree that Shunsuke Kikuchi is a totally sweet musical genius?

[Captain-Sora]

Oddly enough, the older I've gotten the less enamored I am with supposed geniuses like John Williams. The thing about Williams is that outside of his big themes his background music scores are forgettable or annoying while set to the films they are composed for. There are maybe, what, four or five good pieces from Star Wars, his biggest franchise? The Star Wars main theme, the Imperial March, Duel of Fates and Battle of the Heroes. The rest I cannot even remember.

My man Jerry Goldsmith had a similar issue. His main themes for Star Trek are great, but a lot of the background music just sounds like noise meant to dictate an emotional response. It's the same phenomenon you see in most Hollywood movies and it feels like eating raw sugar. Tasteless and headache-inducing. The only time I can think of his score being damned near perfect as a cohesive whole was Rudy. That was a movie that knew how to drive the emotions home.

I have to disagree there. The reason why Williams and Goldsmith were often held in such high regard among film score aficionados is specifically because their underscoring is generally really solid. They don't just do great themes on their own, but they weave, rearrange, and play with their leitmotifs in various interesting ways, and it all often complements the narrative very well. There are some restrained and less noticeable cues here and there, and some don't lend themselves to a stand alone listening experience as easily (which is a natural result of doing lengthier features and scoring to the actions on-screen a good deal more), but I usually find the entire package of each score to have a lot of solid material. When I think of scores simply being "noise," I think of the Hollywood Blockbuster scores of today where it's just droning ambient/minimalist music with no discernible melodies until the action scene starts. The likes of Williams and the late Goldsmith didn't really lower themselves to that. They'd keep things melodically consistent and interwove reoccurring motifs throughout them in really neat ways.

Kikuchi actually scores Dragon Ball in a similar vein and plays with his leitmotifs a lot too. Unfortunately, that aspect of his work in Z often goes unrecognized because people usually remember the score as it played in the show, not in the movies that the majority of all that music was composed for. When you piece together the cues of a certain film and play it all in chronological order, one can notice a good deal of reoccurring ideas established for each movie, and hear how Kikuchi played with them a good deal. Every movie villain has some musical identity (with a few pieces being rehashed for Freeza, Cell, and Buu), along with a handful of motifs being associated with a general idea or some other character(s).

[JulieYBM]

I have to disagree there. The reason why Williams and Goldsmith were often held in such high regard among film score aficionados is specifically because their underscoring is generally really solid. They don't just do great themes on their own, but they weave, rearrange, and play with their leitmotifs in various interesting ways, and it all often complements the narrative very well. There are some restrained and less noticeable cues here and there, and some don't lend themselves to a stand alone listening experience as easily (which is a natural result of doing lengthier features and scoring to the actions on-screen a good deal more), but I usually find the entire package of each score to have a lot of solid material. When I think of scores simply being "noise," I think of the Hollywood Blockbuster scores of today where it's just droning ambient/minimalist music with no discernible melodies until the action scene starts. The likes of Williams and the late Goldsmith didn't really lower themselves to that. They'd keep things melodically consistent and interwove reoccurring motifs throughout them in really neat ways.

Kikuchi actually scores Dragon Ball in a similar vein and plays with his leitmotifs a lot too. Unfortunately, that aspect of his work in Z often goes unrecognized because people usually remember the score as it played in the show, not in the movies that the majority of all that music was composed for. When you piece together the cues of a certain film and play it all in chronological order, one can notice a good deal of reoccurring ideas established for each movie, and hear how Kikuchi played with them a good deal. Every movie villain has some musical identity (with a few pieces being rehashed for Freeza, Cell, and Buu), along with a handful of motifs being associated with a general idea or some other character(s).

Kikuchi's music--even for the movies--would just jump out at the viewer. It wasn't 'underscored' nor did it play subservient to the rest of the work, it was an equal or leading piece of the film or episode, especially the transitional pieces.

I took a few listens to the Hans Zimmer soundtrack for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises last night. Those two scores definitely sound like noise that used the same two or three instruments. Certainly, Williams and Goldsmith use a slightly more varied number of instruments, but the effect is the same. It holds no interest and when I actually think about it I feel like I've just eaten sixty-three cups of sugar.

[ShadowDude112]

I have to disagree there. The reason why Williams and Goldsmith were often held in such high regard among film score aficionados is specifically because their underscoring is generally really solid. They don't just do great themes on their own, but they weave, rearrange, and play with their leitmotifs in various interesting ways, and it all often complements the narrative very well. There are some restrained and less noticeable cues here and there, and some don't lend themselves to a stand alone listening experience as easily (which is a natural result of doing lengthier features and scoring to the actions on-screen a good deal more), but I usually find the entire package of each score to have a lot of solid material. When I think of scores simply being "noise," I think of the Hollywood Blockbuster scores of today where it's just droning ambient/minimalist music with no discernible melodies until the action scene starts. The likes of Williams and the late Goldsmith didn't really lower themselves to that. They'd keep things melodically consistent and interwove reoccurring motifs throughout them in really neat ways.

Kikuchi actually scores Dragon Ball in a similar vein and plays with his leitmotifs a lot too. Unfortunately, that aspect of his work in Z often goes unrecognized because people usually remember the score as it played in the show, not in the movies that the majority of all that music was composed for. When you piece together the cues of a certain film and play it all in chronological order, one can notice a good deal of reoccurring ideas established for each movie, and hear how Kikuchi played with them a good deal. Every movie villain has some musical identity (with a few pieces being rehashed for Freeza, Cell, and Buu), along with a handful of motifs being associated with a general idea or some other character(s).

Kikuchi's music--even for the movies--would just jump out at the viewer. It wasn't 'underscored' nor did it play subservient to the rest of the work, it was an equal or leading piece of the film or episode, especially the transitional pieces.

I took a few listens to the Hans Zimmer soundtrack for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises last night. Those two scores definitely sound like noise that used the same two or three instruments. Certainly, Williams and Goldsmith use a slightly more varied number of instruments, but the effect is the same. It holds no interest and when I actually think about it I feel like I've just eaten sixty-three cups of sugar.

[ekrolo2]

I dig his moodier pieces the best, the dude knows how to set up a really good, even frightening, atmosphere. His action tunes? Eh, I'm not crazy about them, I think Yamamoto excelled there.