Have to say, very interesting column you wrote today, Doug. It's a topic I've often thought about, which albums work better longer or shorter. I know there's a lot of film music fans out there who prefer to have 70-minute albums in all cases, and take length as a major factor into whether or not they will buy a score. However, in my case, I'm not really sure many scores demand lengthy treatment. As much as I would love to have expanded albums of certain Goldsmith scores, I prefer his careful approach to creating an album, rather than the "let's fill the cd with 79 minutes, regardless of how diverse or interesting the score is" approach taken by James Horner.
Completely agree with you about "Basic Instinct"... it was just about right at forty minutes. On the other hand, I was thrilled with the deluxe edition of Jerry's "Total Recall". Then are big scores that work great at an hour, but are stretched a little thin when you turn them into a 2-cd set. Morricone's "Marco Polo" is a good example of this... I love the score, but it's kind of difficult to get through the whole thing, seeing as it doesn't really change tone very often.
If a score is going to require more than 45 minutes or so of my time, I expect it to be worthwhile. Great music is great music, and if it's worth my while, I'll be glad to make the investment. Something like "Captain from Castille" comes to mind. But if it's just a good score, but not particularly great... maybe Horner's "Four Feathers", or Beltrami's "Underworld: Evolution"... it tends to fall under that category of "scores I like that I just don't listen to that often." If I feel like Horner, I'm more likely to reach for "Iris", or if I feel like Beltrami, I'll pick up "Hellboy". Shorter albums are certainly more appealing when it comes to 80% or so of film scores.
Fortunately, in this age of cd burners, I'm able to make my own versions of lengthy albums, simply trimming bits that are either somewhat uninteresting or are simply repeating material. Loved David Arnold's "Casino Royale", but found the album overlong, and some pieces in the midsection to be really rather dull. So, I cut it from 75 minutes to around 50 minutes, and also added the song to the beginning. An easy solution, and I'd far rather have to do that than have too little material. So, you won't catch me complaining about albums that are too long, for fear of going back to the days when many albums were too short... but seriously, there really aren't many scores these days that need more than 45-50 minutes at most. I listen to Elmer Bernstein's wonderful "Frankie Starlight" album all the time (another great example of a perfect little short score album)... I suspect that if it were 70 minutes long, I would listen to it far less, and that would be a shame.
Back at ya later
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