Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Agreed.

The collecting really started in '91-2 for me, with my first CD player, and picked up speed at the end of the decade (income!).

I used to go pretty often to the huge music/book/hi-fi & video hardware chainstore, FNAC (which has opened stores in a few other countries since then); it was literally a 5-minute walk from my home, so I could go there anytime, very regularly, and return to see if a title had arrived.

Like Doug said, the only information I had was from movie posters, and I, too, would skip directly to the composer credit-- I still do, as a matter of fact.
No information, which may have made me miss out on some things, though not too many, I think, as the store had a relatively large selection. I missed things by not buying them because I hesitated, I picked something else, I could not afford them yet, I procrastinated, I thought they would be there the next time and sremain in print and such things.

With hardly any information, most everything was a surprise!
The Star Wars Anthology box, for instance, was a huge one! I had passed on the previous releases so far, because I had found them short and had also noticed there were different releases, so I was hoping for something more satisfying-- and I got it!

Silly as it may seem, it's really in the store that I realized that Superman, Jaws, the Star Wars movies, and the Indiana Jones movies, had all been scored by the same guy. My first score ever was the LP of E.T., which I played countless times, so I knew his name; I had also taped the credits music from the above, but somehow, it did not really struck me how much of this guy's music I liked, and how many such great movies he had scored until I actually saw all those CDs.
Silly and childish, isn't it?

You could not sample anything until the latter half of the '90's (the late '90's?), so the purchases were based on what I knew from the movies, the composers I was beginning to be familiar with (starting with Williams & Goldsmith-- the Gremlins LP was my second score ever), taking small chances on their names, adding up the total time (it was expensive for me, so choices had to be made).

One great thing is that you could really discover movies and scores; nowadays, you have to be extremely careful not to see or read spoilers (even in track lists!), but sometimes you just cannot, because a picture pops up somewhere without any warning, or someone spoils a huge surprise without any warning.

With little money to buy CDs, my collection reamined modest for some time, and scores got to be played over and over again.
Returning to some of them now, after not listening to them in a long while (many new CDs plus overfamilarity) is a very refreshing and nostalgic experience.
Incidentally, The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective is ending right now. I read Doug's & Anakin's messages and started typing this while listening to this CD I had not played in some time.

Playing Jurassic Park brings back fond memories of that time. I had read the articles in Time and Newsweek but they did not tell the whole story; I was eager to listen to the music. It was summer, in the country; it was beautiful. A splendid experience. So was seeing the movie for the first time.

Another such big moment was in the Disney Store on the Champs Elysées; I have no memory what had just been shown on the screen at the other end of the store, but suddenly, a man started-- well, the very time, the very first sound, sounds like yelling; a few words; it sounded African; the images on the screen were sumptuous. It was The Lion King-- it was not even a trailer, but the actual opening sequence. I had never read nor heard anything about the music, and I don't even remember having heard or read much about the movie itself either, and it was a splendid experience.

It's hard to recapture this sort of magic nowadays.

Information is great, but discovering something on your own is even better-- truly discovering it, that is; not trying it because you have heard or read about it, even just the title; really chancing upon something, being able to appreciate it fully without the memory of someone's judgment; not "oh, so that's what they were talking about" and "they were right, it's good", but "wow, I did not know it existed, and it's great", which is exactly what I was able to experience as described above (the Star Wars Anthology set & seeing the "trailer" for The Lion King), but we can no longer experience quite the same way on the Net.

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Andy

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Music composed, arranged and conducted by JOHN BARRY

Do you guys really want to go back to the old days?

I remember walking into records stores and going the soundtrack racks and finding only the latest epics and many, many songtracks. I recall searching months for Alien and Logan’s Run and finally finding a cassette copy of them. Was I excited? Of course. But I was far more excited with the expanded releases we have now not just because of the additional cues but because of all the information that came with it. I know and understand so much more now, that wouldn’t have just buying a CD in a shop. (And let’s not forget that the gems we know enjoy COULD NOT be released under the old distribution made save for a few.)

How about seeing at the end credits that a soundtrack would be released but searching in vain for it because it was never actually released or your local store didn't bother to stock it? The worst part no way at all to find out if it was released or not (unless you were in the business) because unless you were blessed with the rare clerk who actually cared, the information was unavailable. I was working on mysteries without any clues.

Gosh, I still remember thinking I was one island alone regarding my love for scores. Even if I never meet in of you guys in person, just knowing you exist makes me feel less alone. I remember the joy that I discovered when I found one other person who was a score lover. He actually sent me Lucas's Guide to soundtrack collecting. What a revelation. But this was nothing compared to discovering the Film Score Monthly web site. I only discovered it by accident when I won a bid for a Poseidon Adventure CD for 30 dollars and discovered I could buy directly from the label.

Are we spoiled? Of course we are. But it is the labels that we love that have done so and there is no way back. We need each other. Without the hardcore fans and the internet, these limited releases would not be possible. Without the internet and the labels we fans would wandering around searching for rare mainstream releases and wondering if we would ever see The Towering Inferno or Alien or Ghostbusters. Worse, even if was available we would have no way to get it except as a boot from a shady convention dealer, if we were lucky.

I have been a collector (comics, books, movies, music, stamps, toys, etc) all my life and believe me, I understand the allure of nostalgia. But it is a poor guide the future that we want to live in. Your memory is erasing all the frustrations you felt and intensifying the joys.

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No matter where you go, there you are....Wait a minute! That's how it always works out.

Nostalgia...ah, yes, innocence.

But that was then.

We had no Intrada forum\FSM Messageboard then.

Then, we none of us probably knew more than one other person, if that many, who enjoyed the same music we did. My experience was that the record store owner once introduced me to a medical intern who "collected" and thought we would enjoy talking about our shared passion for film music.

I never said more than, "Hello!" when the intern began a droning dissertation of all he had in his collection, how he found them, where he found them, and what some of the most valuable ones were. I only wanted to talk about scores. It never occurred to me that "collecting" this stuff was about "acquisition". At that time, if you collected "by composer", you could count on one hand how many Newman or Waxman or North scores you had. If you collected Tiomkin, it would take two hands.

An innocent time, yes. Does anyone who lived then really want to go back to that? I don't. I "already" had a friend with whom I could share thoughts about film music. Between us, we uncovered much in library stacks about films and film music. I grew up and had a career in the Navy. He grew up and had a career in TV, interviewing film music composers, songwriters, actors, actresses, directors, et.al . We remained constant in our communications over the years and he shared many things with me. Sadly, he died before the internet exploded onto the world and before FSM and Intrada and Varese Sarabande (the CD Club) began catering to the very small clique known as film music lovers

Having the internet and "specialty" forums/messageboards where we can talk about our passion is surely something we did not have then. The forums spoil us...they do . In fact, it's in the forums where we learn about new titles. They've become the primary tool for advertising them...getting the word out to the enthusiastic fans. The forums have connected us and shown us to be very diverse and passionate and "different" from one another.

And who, back "then", would ever have imagined he might have some input as to what scores would get a release? I never did. I also never imagined I'd get a recording that was the "complete score." Go back? Are you kidding?

Back then, we were at the mercy of the big labels in terms of getting any kind of soundtrack release. Sometimes, the releases weren't even "soundtracks" but modified re-recordings. There was never any rhyme or reason as to which scores would be on LP and which would not, but "MOST" would not.

But getting back on track, the "clues" argument is a strange phenomenon. Those who hate clues threads are very curious to me. Why open the threads if you don't like the discussion? I mean, why am I able to completely ignore threads I know will bore me, or incense me, and others are not? Even more importantly, why would "they" want to prohibit others from guessing?

What if a group of people decided that threads about Goldsmith should be banished because the memory of his death was too painful?

What if discussions had to be limited to discussions about serial music vs. non-serial music?

What if discussions could only be started about "new" scores and that older scores had no place in a 21st century discussion group?

Sounds incredible, doesn't it! Why can't people who only want what they want stick to the threads that please them and leave the threads that don't to those who get joy from them? Even better, why can't folks who wish for more intellectual discussions "actually start" the kind of threads they profess they prefer? Instead "we" get chastised/demonized for discussing something "they" consider inane.

It is absurd to me that anyone would attempt to banish film music threads from messageboards because they dislike the subject matter.

Smacks of bookburning, Third Reich, mind control and worse.

But that's my take on it. After all, I didn't introduce the clues! Someone must have thought they would be fun. No one was screaming for clues to be given out...they just started appearing. So...

What a bad person I must seem to be because I've enoyed them, even when I didn't participate in them. All I "can do" is attempt to remove the veil of hysteria being placed upon "clues threads" by the weak-willed individuals tossing out absurd allegations about the clues threads being evil and sucking life out of message boards.

Without them, lately, the only life in the message boards has been "about" them!

Not that anyone really cares, but while I would get paid from MCL Cafeteria's on Wednesday, I would cash my check, then drive 1 hour west to Media Play and look at their HUGE soundtrack collection, this is back in around 1994. I very nice guy there was a huge soundtrack collector, a worker at Media Play. Told me about this company that sells only soundtracks-INTRADA, he had a spare cataglogue on him and gave it to me, and from there I found Intrada and bought a crapload of stuff, or let me rephrase that my family at Xmas time would buy me like 10-20 CD's from them. Then from there I found other great retailers/stores that sell soundtracks, then the internet came and etc. etc.

But to see that first Intrada catalogue, it was the paper kind like a few pages thick, but seeing all those sdtk's that you couldn't find in the stores, man that was cool I wanted them all.

I couldn't have written it better than Doug myself.
His post captured the whole essence of collecting soundtracks, at least for me.

It isn't the clues that makes me buy a certain score.
If it's a score I know and like I'll buy it.

There are some rare ocations I buy a soundtrack I haven't heard.
Then it's from one of my favourite composers.
For instance, I like Bill Conti very much.
But I didn't buy An Unmarried Woman or Neighbours,
they didn't appeal to me.

MEDIA PLAY, I remember them.
I was in school at Logan, Utah and would regularly visit Salt Lake City just for that store and also the Blockbuster Records in Ogden.
Anybody remember Blockbuster RECORDS???

Nostalgia again....

Who doesn't want to go back to the innocence of childhood, or when you began collecting,
but,
as I look at my official copy of BABY....
I have to say
praised be the evolution...
clues or no clues

I completely agree with MWRuger. Ok, nice memories, but... thanks god (and internet) all this is something from the past; alone and with that primitive and inefficient way of collecting, I probably wouldn't have discovered most of the soundtracks I have