There is a terrible trend in soundtrack music today. It's a trend that has been going on for awhile now. The trend is everywhere. Television or film, animated or live action, it doesn't matter.
Film music has become stale, minimalistic and synthetic.
I have blogged about this before, and things have gotten worse. Soundtrack music used to be thematic. Whether the music was orchestrated, electronic, or synthetic. The music had soul. It was
inspired. Today, film music has lost its inspiration. Most composers these days seem to see film music as simply a paycheck, and nothing more. While there are exceptions, they are few and far between.
It should be noted that theme songs have been hit harder that scores, but that's slowly changing for the worse. For instance,
in my last post, I talked about the score for the upcoming series
Legend of Korra. Even here you see the slide. When you compare the music of
Korra to the music of
Avatar: The Last Airbender, the
Korra music sounds less inspired and less thematic. The music of
Airbender was awesome. The music of
Korra feels like stock music, and they were created by the same people. Another good example is the new
ThunderCats series
which does not even have an opening theme song.
The trend isn't just confined to cartoons either. As
EricJohnson at the Soundtrack Fans Ning group noted:
The
music industry, in general, has been favoring less experimental sounds ever
since the era of disco. Just compare scores from Planet of the Apes or Death
Wish to movies from the 1980s onward. I'm overgeneralizing here, but there
still is a noticeable trend. The Loudness War also comes into play, where the
instruments have become very compressed and overblown, e.g. Pirates of the
Caribbean.
While the minimization of soundtrack music continues, there are a few bright spots. These few good soundtracks should be encouraged to grow. For instance, the trend is stronger in television than cinema. As for television, Nickelodeon has better music than Cartoon Netowkr these days (in spite my earlier rant), and animated comedies have better music than everything else.
It should be noted that anime music hasn't see the same decline. It could be a cultural thing, but anime fans can be assured of great music in the stuff they watch. Anime discussions often include the music as well as the anime themselves. Most anime fans can name their favorite composer and performing artist as well. Maybe there is something to learn here.
As animation fans, we may have to try some of things those otaku have done over the years. We can buy soundtracks that do actually come available to buy, and support series and films with great soundtracks. We can listen to licensed radio and streaming sites such as
Toon Radio to show that there is still a market for soundtracks. Finally, we should include the music every time we discuss a television series or film.
Either way, we need to make film music cool again. I mean,
how many cartoon soundtrack composers can you name? Do you know who sings your favorite theme songs? If we change this, maybe, we can save the music.
EPISODE 50 WOOT!! With us making this historic episode, we are here to discuss the CN Upfront shows and to talk about Adult Swim bringing back Toonami for April Fools. We are joined by or past co-host DaftPunkFan.
