Best music

[Burt]

I was watching the 'Enterprise Borg' episode again today. Which has really grown on me. More could have beeen made of it, but hey. Anyways, I noticed the music on was so different than what I usually hear on Trek. It had this...sound...like some terrible was going to happen (And it was) but was not too slow.. The best bit I felt was around when the Borg send that signal that shuts down Enterprise. The only other time I've noticed the music on trek ...Was 'Yesterday's Enterprise'. That had great music on it too. Anyone got any other really good bits from any of the other series of trek? Or any other sci-fi too?

[Celeste]

There used to be a fantastic site called Star Trek in Sound and Vision. They had all sorts of screen shots and audio files of music, dialoge, wallpapers, desktop themes, and anything else Trek related that you could ever want. But it got shut down quite a few years ago cause of the bandwith problems. Sad really.

[Nate the Great]

Well, I'm still a sap for the Inner Light/Ressikan Flute theme.

As for more recent stuff, there's always The Picard Song and The Worf Song. Definitely worth a download.

STISV was a great site, but these days all you'll find are references and dead links to it that are like ten years old. Another reason that I wish that webmasters were required to update at least once a year, be shunted to a site clearly marked as being archival sites, or be dumped. Furthermore, there's gotta be a way for a message to be sent to a webmaster "oh yeah, this link was tested, and the site's gone. You should remove it."

[Zeke]

There's some terrific music in the movies. One of the first CDs I owned was the Generations soundtrack, so I have a soft spot for that one. First Contact had a gorgeous Jerry Goldsmith score which was poorly served by the soundtrack album -- some of the most memorable themes, like the one that plays while Picard and Worf's teams silently approach Engineering, aren't on there at all. On the other hand, Insurrection's soundtrack album gets it just right. My favourite track is "Children's Story," a beautiful two-minute piece that doesn't get its due in the actual film.

[mudshark]

For Enterprise, I remember that the episode "Canamar" had some pretty good, dynamic music, and "The Communicator" had interesting, almost TOS-like bits, as well. Going back to TNG, Ron Jones' score for "Where Silence Has Lease" had some great, spooky stuff in it, particularly during the sequence in which Riker and Worf are exploring what seems to be a deserted Yamato.

[Nate the Great]

I suppose I like Night Bird especially because we've never heard it.

I still like to listen to "You Are My Sunshine" by Seven and the Doc. ("What are we going to sing tonight, Doctor?" "The same thing we sing every night, Seven--opera!" )

Or how about Homn's Betazoid Chime of Thanksgiving? Does that count?

Or "Blue Skies" if only because of poor Worf. "Irving Berlin..."

Or that funeral dirge that Neelix regaled Tuvok with in "Tuvix." "Oh starless night..."

[PointyHairedJedi]

I honestly don't remember any of the music beyond the first three films and the first Star Trek. Of those, the score for the whole Mutara Nebula sequence from TWoK still knocks my socks off, as does pretty much most of the score from TMP.

[Nate the Great]

That reminds me, does anyone say STTMP as stimp and TWOK as twok? I do, sometimes.

To return to music...sort of...

Any opinions on the lack of monologue in the DS9 and VOY openers? Good? Bad? Music so good that talking would spoil the effect?

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

That reminds me, does anyone say STTMP as stimp and TWOK as twok?

No. Just you.

[ijdgaf]

The best music of Trek is, in my mind, the first movie's. No contest. It has a sizable lead above First Contact's.

On that note, I wonder if I'm the only one bugged by what TNG did to TMP's theme. It was so grand and majestic and... quintissential Trek in the film. It just seemed hokey in the credits for TNG. Too sped up, too rushed. Nowhere near as powerful.

[Burt]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Any opinions on the lack of monologue in the DS9 and VOY openers? Good? Bad? Music so good that talking would spoil the effect?

hhhhmmmmmm. Monologue on DS9's opening titles...
Monolouge on a sci-fi show set on a space station...What could they say?

"The Deep Space Nine Project was our Last, best hope for peace.

It failed.

But in the Year of the Dominion War it became something greater.

Our last best hope, for victory...

The year is 2373, the place, Deep Space Nine."


Catchy, eh?

[Derek]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

On that note, I wonder if I'm the only one bugged by what TNG did to TMP's theme.

I've heard other people express that sentiment, but I'm not one of them. I enjoy them both the way they are.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I must agree with Derek. The central theme wasn't the best part for me anyhow - that would have to be the stuff with V'Ger (just love that blaster!).

[Derek]

Yeah, I love TMP's Klingon music and TMP's Ilia's Theme. Those sound great.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

On that note, I wonder if I'm the only one bugged by what TNG did to TMP's theme. It was so grand and majestic and... quintissential Trek in the film. It just seemed hokey in the credits for TNG. Too sped up, too rushed. Nowhere near as powerful.

Yes and no.

I saw TMP in the theater when it was new, and was so underwhelmed by it that I never even thought about watching it again until years later, much less listened to the music. Similarly, I wasn't really aware that TNG had borrowed the same music for its theme until near the end of its initial run.

I did, however, grow very tired of hearing the TNG theme -- it's all surface, too splashy -- even the two-second stinger going to commercial made me grit my teeth after a while. In fairness, I think a good part of my reaction to it may have been the glut of John Williams Movie Music™ that had already been pervading the entertainment biz for nearly ten years when TNG premiered. Even stuff that John Williams never touched had to sound like it had his fingerprints all over it. It was everywhere -- you couldn't escape it -- and a lot of it wasn't very good. (I had a similar reaction to the early DS9 theme because of the self-consciously Copland-y overtones, another entertainment-biz schtick which had really been done to death during the same period.)

Originally Posted by PointyHairedJedi

I must agree with Derek. The central theme wasn't the best part for me anyhow - that would have to be the stuff with V'Ger (just love that blaster!).

And remember who invented the instrument ('Blaster Beam') used during that sequence?

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Craig_Hundley


Edit (OT):

IJD, heard you had tornadoes in your general vicinity. Manage to stay out of the way all right?

[Nate the Great]

Well, I could say something along the lines of "you don't really have time for majesty in only a minute for the title sequence," but that's not true. After all, the 2001: ASO theme carries majesty in ten seconds.

Well, I have to agree to the "watered-down TNG theme" thing a bit, but now that I think about it...what did you expect? It was the eighties! It was a pastel decade, just like the fifties. Pastels are pleasant and all that, but the sixties/nineties are much more bold. Not that bold is better, just different.

[ijdgaf]

Yeah, tornadoes were elsewhere. I'm not even 100% sure where Lake County is (been meaning to look that up).

[mudshark]

North and west of Orlando, looks like. Good place for it (or would southwest have been better?)

[Chancellor Valium]

From Doctor Who: The Invasion of Time, City of Death and Pyramids of Mars.
From Star Trek: The Bashir/Bond thing was very well scored, I thought.
From Generic Sci-Fi Other: SW: KotOR II: TSL gets a special mention for the 'un-Star-Wars-ey sound', and of course, 2001 and 2010.

[Nate the Great]

Oh yeah, Our Man Bashir...