Battlestar Galactica: Season One
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Free Music Notes for Battlestar Galactica: Season One
Free Music Review: Battlestar Galactica: Season One Soundtrack
Hit: 5 Stars
Bear McCreary is one of the best composers. His combination of different musical themes are breathtaking and emotional. Free Music Review: Season 1 indeed better than the miniseries even the music (quote from Edward James Olmos)
Hit: 5 Stars
Like the title the music has just gotten better and better..After a very well written score by Richard Gibbs and miniseries by Ronald D. Moore who knew what things were to come after 2003. After negotiating with Sci-Fi channel something has started with television never seen before. I've never seen viewer response either on the internet or just being at work quite like this before in television history. Every generation has a tv show that touches the heart and imagination for ages but this tv show is unheard of where unfortunately not appropriate for under the age of 14 yet it truely is a tv show for the ages in all walks of life. Sure this is a science fiction show but by reading reviews and hearsay I've joined the unofficial street team and recommending this show to people of all ages. Not only has the show gotten better in the first season from the mini series but also the music as well. Richard Gibbs introduced some music which includes some in the first and 2nd season but being former Oingo Boingo musician decided to go to feature films, Bear McCreary who assisted Richard has taken the baton and has visually turned this series into an epic just by the score itself. Not often where a tv show can rise to new heights or completely be critically acclaimed in the first season already. Where most tv shows still need for character develpment and story arc introductions where here not only did Ronald Moore turn the 1st season into new depths of television watching but also did Bear McCreary and I don't think that the first season would be quite as good as it is without this wonderful disc that comprises multiple music from the freshman season of show that sets new standards in television.
Not quite often does a tv show capture the realistic imagination of audiences quite like this but after reading multiple reviews of the show and soundtracks it brings new life into a generation where television shows haven't been quite the same as before and the music alone is evidence of that where no tv soundtrack sounds quite this good until now..
Now as far as the review of soundtrack goes easily up there with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings plus Braveheart as one of the greatest ever made. Oviously Passacaglia is one of the favorites but there are so many to choose from that I'm not going to review each track rather here you definitely should watch the show first and then the musical experience is doubled because you can understand where the music is coming from by underscoring each event that is happening in the movie. Without being biased it's one of those that still sounds great without watching the show but again some tracks are understood more after seeing the show. The soundtrack starts with the prologue with the #6 theme from the miniseries and then goes into the US version of the Main Title and ends the cd with the UK version of the Main Title and in between some of the best underscoring in television history.
Back to the Main Title Us version--I can understand why it doesn't work in the context of the show but on it's own I still enjoy the theme very much having Bear put in so many hours of his time to write music for one of the greatest television shows in history. By no means should you compare this score to the original show at all it's entirely a unique piece of writing that stands on it's own. If you like tribal, ethnic, middle eastern style of writing you definitely are in for a real treat in this 78 minute 30 track package with great inner notes and pictures as well from the show.
Free Music Review: A New Space Opera...
Hit: 5 Stars
Fans of Star Wars (and I include myself here-in the fanATICAL category), there's a new kid in town.
Yes, Battlestar Galactica (or BSG as we "in the know" call it) is HOT. This is not the Battlestar we grew up on in the early eighties...this show takes it to a whole new level that leaves its predecessor (and inspiration) in the cosmic dust.
The score is quite different from the traditional sweeping orchestral themes and bombastic marches that we're all used to (and love dearly). Opting instead for a soundscape more akin to tribal/eastern-styled earthy music, Bear McCreary and Richard Gibbs composed a score chock-full of dramatic tones and gentle strains that draw out the emotions of the listener. Listening to this soundtrack, one can imagine total war, and romantic ecstasy...sometimes on the same track.
I found the score (as well as the show) as creative as anything out there and much more so than most of the hailed and praised fare that the networks push on the TV audience. BSG deserves the accolades and awards that too many unworthy shows receive every year.
Drama, Action, Love, Death, Social Challenges, Politics and Religion. Art does imitate life, and the score to the greatest TV show to come around in a long time delivers the soundtrack to accompany it all.
Free Music Review: I love BSG
Hit: 5 Stars
The music from season of BSG is awesome...if you like that sort of thing. It has a moody mix of middle eastern instruments (including a few tracks with Taiko style drums) and voices. It's not your typical 'sweeping strings' type of soundtrack. It's much more subtle and moody, creating more of an atmosphere than painting sweeping vistas.Free Music Review: even better than Gibbs' miniseries/pilot score
Hit: 5 Stars
First off, let me say that the new BG is arguably the best science fiction series ever seen on TV. The acting, design, and plot is orders of magnitude better than those of the 1978 series. There is really no comparison--and no need for die-hard fans of the original series to feel threatened by this one. They are apples and oranges. Admittedly, the new show would not have resonated as it does in a pre-9/11 world. But I think the sense of paranoia that permeates BG harks back to the Cold War mood of the B scifi films made in the US in the 1950s, to great effect.
That said, the other great thing about BG is the music. This is not the grandiose, orchestral SF score we're using to hearing from John Williams or the late Jerry Goldsmith. It breaks new ground, with its mix of Middle Eastern woodwinds, Japanese taiko drums, and heavy use of chorale pieces, both wordless and in Gaelic and Sanskrit. And again, not to denigrate Williams. It's simply that Gibbs/McCreary go in a totally different direction, and they do it brilliantly.
I first bought Gibbs' score of the miniseries, which thankfully became the pilot for a series I follow with great enthusiasm. It stands on its own very well, yet establishes a deep, textural mood for the post-holocaust remnant of the human race, as well as for the Cylons, whose "plan" seems to be to join with their human creators by creating a hybrid race, fulfilling their destiny in a kind of apotheosis. These are certainly not the "toaster" characters from the Glen Larson series, though I still have a fondness for Andy Probert's centurion design.
Getting back to the Season One score: This music really builds on what Gibbs had done, capturing moods from standout episodes and even coming close to establishing Wagnerian leitmotifs for some of the characters, or at least the relationships between them. The "Prologue" is a nice brief, ominous rendition of the Cylon cue from the pilot, that we hear at the start of each episode, and is a nice treat, as are the US and UK versions of the main title (variations on a theme, really), which serve as "bookends" to the CD.
Celtic flutes beatifully capture Adama's love for his son in A Good Lighter, and this is reprised with male chorale and is fleshed out in Wander My Friends. Two Funerals is a mournful, militaristic piece which recalls the US version of the Main Title, where Card Game and especially Two Boomers are more operatic tracks which seem to include some synth and/or electric guitar.
Some guilty pleasures can be found in Battlestar Operatica, The Dinner Party, and Battlestar Muzaktica, which make use of female vocals and are among the lightest of the tracks. The score would otherwise be unrelentingly heavy, I think, and not as much a pleasure to listen to.
For me, the masterstrokes of the score are Passacaglia and the similar Shape of Things to Come. These two tracks relate to a vision given by Six to Baltar of "their child." Passacaglia is a sweeping, requiem-sounding piece which moved my nearly to tears, and Things to Come is a briefer, more triumphant denouement piece. This passacaglia form is expanded upon further in Allegro in the Season Two score.
In sum, I think that the baton has been seemlessly passed from Gibbs to McCreary. Gibbs took on the formidable task of musical exposition for what would become a series, and McCreary's work builds on it nicely, is less monolithic, and takes the listener in ever-new directions as we continue to follow our intrepid heroes through the galaxy in search of Earth. I can say with confidence that the Season Two score is better still, and I only hope that a Season Three score becomes available soon.