So we've already had the Special collection discussion; the Excalibur really only includes 3 CDs (hard to choose a "best" anyway...) so what about the other main series?
For me by far the best album is Randy Miller's Spartacus. I was blown away, period. Three great themes, excellent orchestrations, epic scale and good performance by a little-known orchestra. I even think it narrowly beats out Yared's rejected Troy as the best film score of 2004! I'm not kidding. And getting it with his very different but still excellent score to Living in Peril (for FIVE BUCKS!) at the same time has really turned me into a Randy Miller fan. The guy has some real versatility.
My second favorite would be the new Echo of Thunder. Great to have a more recent Rosenthal score. The irony of course is that it seems my two favorite Signature collection albums are the two ones that didn't sell out (or haven't yet).
Third favorite would be The Tower. It might beat Echo if it was a full chamber ensemble instead of being mostly synths, but for this score the synths work fine and it's a really good listen.
Next up is The Prodigal. A functional, competent, good score but pretty obviously an early effort from someone who hasn't yet reached potential. I don't find myself listening to it often, but then I don't feel like trading it away either.
Shade...well, I'm not sure "film score" is the right description but it's kinda fun.
And then we come to Last Flight Out -- my only real disappointment. The synths don't work. They sound bad. With a full orchestra, I might rate this three out of five stars but even using my imagination I don't think it's music especially worthy of a release. There are a couple action highlights which are nice to hear but frustrating because they are so flat sounding on synths. The buzz around this was that it was Broughton's equivalent to Under Fire or something like that. In my opinion, it definitely isn't (and I don't care for most of the synths in Under Fire, but I think it's better as music). This is the only one so far I might consider trading for something else.
What do you guys think? I'm definitely looking forward to more!
Yavar