The Music of the Hobbit (Now with possible Spoilers)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Only the 90 second clip is available, so far as I can find.

[Dave_LF]

Yeah; looks like they did a pretty thorough job of clearing them out.

[Dave_LF]

But here's what I was talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXTAE1VSSD4

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here it is:

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/ ... st-goodbye

[Dave_LF]

Against PtB's advice, I've been listening to the 90-second clips. So many have a kind of "rolling hoofbeats" thing going on in the background. It's often quite understated, but once you realize it's there, it strikes you just how much it affects the feel of the piece. I don't mean this as a slight, but it gives several of them the flavor of a mid-century Old-Testament grand drama--I keep imagining films like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments. The soundtracks all have a lot in common, but each has a couple unique properties of its own that make it stand out as well--I think the hoofbeats may end up being B5A's. RotK did much the same thing during (eg) The Fields of the Pelennor (which was a cavalry battle of course), but it wasn't nearly as distinctive or as pervasive across the entire soundtrack. Though I do think RotK is the score this one reminds me of most.

To the Death is a pretty solid example.
And then you have Battle for the Mountain (with the new Ironfoot theme).
And Ravenhill, which gives the same treatment to a couple of familiar themes.
Same story with Sons of Durin.

And I might as well stop there, before this just turns into posting links to every track.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Great observation. I've listened to the clips again, and I certainly hear that running throughout. And though I appreciated it more the second time around, I am certainly not struck by it in the same way that I was with Shore's excellent DOS score. And while I love the old epics, their soundtracks were usually not a strong suit, IMO.

I wonder if PJ's decision to not use so much of Shore's great DOS soundtrack led him to create something a little more conventional. Or if this is just how Shore interpreted the epic finale...

But of course, we'll need to wait until the full album is released to make a final judgment.

[Passdagas the Brown]

I don't mind Boyd's closer, but I fear he oversings it (too many riffs, runs, and embellishments in his singing). It makes the song a little cluttered, and hurts the rhythm.

In all, the Hobbit credit songs don't match the beauty and melancholy of "Gollum's Song" or "Into the West." Though I think they're all better than "May It Be," which sounds like mood music from one of those "relaxation" CDs.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Gollum's Song is definitely still my favorite, but I would put The Last Goodbye second, or perhaps closely behind Into the West. I agree that May It Be" is the worst of the bunch, and concur in your description of it.

[Elentári]

à chacun son gout....

"May It Be" happens to be my favourite of the lot....

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I know. I saw your list at that thread over at TORN asking for people to rank the end credit songs.

[sauronsfinger]

I finally was able to hear the Boyd closing song and feel it is best of the three HOBBIT closing tunes. In fact, of the six Middle-earth films - I would put it second only to the great Annie Lennox INTO THE WEST. The Boyd song is well performed and has a beauty about it while the ROTK closing song was both beautiful, poignant and powerful all at the same time.

[Smaug's voice]

May it Be remains my favorite. All I know is that the song has a very Elvish quality to it and Enya's voice is pretty close to my imagination of Elvish-singing. If that makes it "mood music" from relaxation CDs, then so be it.

Anyway, The Last Goodbye is inching closer to the 2nd place of Gollum's Song, for me. Unless we count in "Use well the Days" which is still marvellous. I never warmed up to "Into the west" like everyone else though. It's great as a standalone, but it has a certain Western feel to it (pun intended) that strikes me as un-Tolkien.

[Passdagas the Brown]

What's "Use Well the Days," precious?

[Alatar]

It's the original Annie Lennox song for RotK that was replaced by "Into the West". You can hear it on the appendices, or I'm sure a quick Google will turn it up.

[Elentári]

Glad to know we share the same great taste, SV!

I adore Annie's voice and I fell in love with "Use Well the Days" the first time I heard it/saw it on the music documentary on the LotR EEs (or was it the extra disc that came with the RoTK OST SE?) and I dearly wish it could have been used somewhere...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

May it Be remains my favorite. All I know is that the song has a very Elvish quality to it and Enya's voice is pretty close to my imagination of Elvish-singing. If that makes it "mood music" from relaxation CDs, then so be it.

I don't find it is "Elvish" at all. More like "New Age-ish".

[Alatar]

Since none of us know what "Elvish" is I guess this is a pretty subjective discussion, which is why I hate to see comments about "good taste" as if those who disagree have bad taste.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Who has suggested that in this discussion?

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Sent from my LG G3 using tapatalk

[Passdagas the Brown]

I also didn't see anyone mention good taste or bad taste, but I may have missed something.

[Elentári]

It was obviously me...though Al has apparently chosen to take it differently to how it was meant. Surely it is a standard convention to comment on someone having good taste when you discover they like the same things as you? I was certainly not meaning that every one who does not like the song has bad taste. One could equally say the comments about "New Age" and my tastes being likened to a relaxation CD are not exactly endearing and veering in that direction...