Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Had to sit with my brother-in-law this morning so I'm getting a late start. 

17 comments:

  1. Hey Sparkles -- the opening credits for SPARTACUS. Music by the absolutely great Alex North, and visuals by the equally great Saul Bass.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rcJdBH1VDc

    But the movie is about gladiators and the source material was written by Commies, so you don't care how brilliant this is.
    :-)

    Sad, really.

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    1. My father knew him when he was young. I don't recall him ever commenting on his music. I've seen a number of movies he composed for and, for the life of me, I'm having a hard time remembering the music. I don't remember the music for Spartacus, I saw the movie, once, on TV, I don't remember the music at all.

      You cheapen the word "great" by promiscuous assignment of it. He made lots of money, no doubt, the musical community who get to decide whose music is going to continue into the future would seem to have, so far, not found greatness in it. I looked and found other than the 18 available recordings of "Unchained Melody" included in a number of compilations of pops material, many of the recordings recyclings of the same performances by the Boston and Cleveland Pops, a military band or two and the annoying James Galway, there are a total of two recordings of North conducting music for movies available. I don't think it counts as "greatness" when it's a composer conducting his own music for the movies he wrote them for.

      "Brilliant" is another word you throw around like glitter on a 5th graders homemade valentine. There's precious little brilliance in Hollywood movies or movies that come from anywhere. Movies are flash and trash, not brilliant.

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    2. The comment, you mean? Cause that'd be right.

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  2. "I've seen a number of movies he composed for and, for the life of me, I'm having a hard time remembering the music."

    Oh, I have no doubt you're having such a hard time. Fortunately, the much smarter than you folks at Nonesuch didn't, and released a terrific album of North's film music in the late '90s. It was in all the papers, Sparky.

    https://www.nonesuch.com/artists/alex-north

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  3. Twenty one years ago, I wonder how many copies it sold. Plenty of records you hated probably sold fifty times more copies, hundreds of times more. It's amazing how the musical world seems not to have been performing his music on the strength of that.

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  4. I love it when you start equating the value of art with how commercial it is.

    It's so hypocritical and stupid.
    :-)

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    1. A. Stupy, I'm only using the pop-music standard of judgement, B. North composed for Hollywood movies, which are all about the money. C. I was making the point that one album in 21 years is a pretty good indication that artists are not clamoring to perform and record his music and the music industry isn't exactly feeling pressure to put it before the public. D. Returning to point A. you're the one who is always claiming that your z-list crap music has a place in the market. As I've pointed out to you before, so did the immortal work of Prudence and Patience, much more of a presence than your drivel.

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  5. Stupy, I'm only using the pop-music standard of judgement"

    So the only way to judge art is if it's commercially successful.


    Good for you, Sparky, for finally admitting that's how you view things.
    :-)

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    1. It's the standard you live by, you're always equating the carting of the shit music you love with its quality. I'm not the one who has that standard, you do.

      You are mentally deficient. And it's getting more boring than I want to continue with at my age to continue with this. You don't do a thing to make it challenging. I'll admit that the only reason I've done this is so you'll mention it at Duncans and you'll get the rump commenting community upset with you. But that's getting thin for me, too. I think I've gotten all of the use I can out of the Eschaton range. I'm looking for newer examples of pseudo-lefty folly. You've bored me.

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  6. "As I've pointed out to you before, so did the immortal work of Prudence and Patience"

    Patience and Prudence. Not Prudence and Patience. You could look it up, schmucko. Like you could look how many people Phil Spector murdered. :-)

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    1. You have yet to explain to us how you know, for a fact, how many people Spector murdered. How do you know he didn't kill other people you don't know about? You can't answer that so you have to come up with bullshit distractions. Well, I suppose you can't cancel US engagement in Syria or the like so you do what you can.

      They were two sisters, those were the names they used. The ordering of them is superfluous to the point.

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  7. "North composed for Hollywood movies, which are all about the money."

    Beethoven, of course, composed for free. :-)

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    1. You accused me of equating North being paid for writing music with the quality of the music he wrote, I merely pointed out the irony of that since in every way his music was all about money.

      You choose your dodge as ineptly as always, if you wanted to choose a more unlike composer to North it would be Beethoven whose music was and has been and always will be played because of its quality and importance. North will always be a never-revived composer of Hollywood crap. I haven't found he ever wrote concert music, do you know of any? I use the word "know" very loosely, it being you I'm asking.

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  8. "North will always be a never-revived composer of Hollywood crap."

    So your argument is that North sucks because he's not Beethoven.

    Get back to me when Beethoven wrote something this brilliant that was synched to something as fabulous as this visual montage.
    :-)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=-spQt_tLBeI
    ]

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    1. Steve Simels, Music Critic believes the opening sequence for Spartacus is a greater musical achievement than Beethoven's Fidelio.

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  9. "I merely pointed out the irony of that since in every way his music was all about money."

    Wow. Nice way to cop moral judgements about people and artists you know nothing about. Especially since they're Jewish.

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    1. Jews? YOU THINK ANYONE WHO IS INVOLVED WITH HOLLYWOOD MOVIES WOULD DO IT FOR FREE!? JEWS OR GENTILES? Oddly, enough, I don't recall anyone doing a Hollywood movie on a charitable basis. I wasn't making a moral judgment, I was making a judgment about the obvious character of the music they wrote, In the case of the movies Alex North wrote for, I can't recall which one would trigger the need to consider it in any but commercial terms.

      I've known a lot of Jewish musicians who compose and perform their music with little to no hope of making money from it but you generally hate those composers. I think you've slammed way more Jewish composers here when I post their music than I've criticized. And even those who I have criticized, myself, I still hold that it is wrong for other people to misrepresent their music when they perform it. All composers have a right to have their music played the way they intend it to be played. Didn't I say that about Irving Berlin just last week?

      I don't consider it immoral to be a mediocre composer unless the music has immoral content or is produced as part of promotion of immorality. It's not a sin to be a mediocre composer. Especially if the composer is the only one who ever conducts or performs their mediocre music. I suppose if another conductor did perform as part of an entirely commercial promotion of something like the minor 1990s attempt to push movie music, so as to attract new people to "classical music" and they don't follow the composers intent that might impinge on questions of musical honesty, other than that, its moral significance is trivial, as is the music.

      You don't get to play the Jew card, you wore yours out by misuse and overuse. I would imagine most Jews who know you would not choose as big an asshole as you to be their spokesman, you, a Stephen Miller of the play-left.

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