Thursday, April 30, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

“Stelvio Cipriani’s sensuous and sinister score for The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire is typical of the Italian thriller genre. The theme musically describes the carefree existence and ultimate vulnerability of the story’s leading lady. Gentle guitar and keyboard figures sprinkle over swaying strings, swooning female vocalisms and a sexy Latin rhythm, suggesting sunny days of shopping on the plaza and nights of passionate love by a crackling fire. What she doesn’t know is that her life soon will become a nightmare of sinister strangers, drug-induced hallucinations, raging paranoia and knife-wielding maniacs."

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

As Elvis devoted the bulk of his creative energy to moviemaking during the ‘60s, the quality of his music suffered. His ‘60s soundtracks are often padded with outtakes from much earlier sessions and rarely feature more than one or two memorable tracks. Having originally made his big splash on the small screen (most famously on The Ed Sullivan Show), it seems apt that after squandering his talent on half-baked theatrical releases the King had to retake his throne with a comeback TV special in 1968.”

– from Chapter 7: Rockin’ Revolution of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

“By selling sin in the guise of seemingly well-intentioned sex hygiene scare films and vice racket exposes, the legendary ‘Forty Thieves’ and their progenitors managed to show audiences a bit of thigh, breast or bottom before hastily packing up and high-tailing it to the next town. When the raincoat crowd got their fill of one type of exploitation flick – such as the natives-gone-wild ‘goona-goona’ pictures – the skin-dependent filmmakers produced pasty and g-string burlesque shorts or not-so-naughty nudist camp docudramas. Needless to say, such skid row cinema was too low-profile to warrant legitimate soundtrack releases, not to mention an actual score. In fact, most striptease and stag films of the period featured canned recordings of generic jazz, nameless lounge exotica and incognito big band blues… by long-forgotten groups with cheeky names like the Genteels, the Lushes and the Whips who cut 45s of stroll, jive and slop for seedy joints with names like Louie’s Limbo Lounge and the little films they subsidized.

– from Chapter 3: Sexploitation Serenade of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

Spasmo’s centerpiece is ‘Stress Infinito,’ a masterful slab of experimental suspense music. Dissonance and discord lead to disorientation in this diabolically designed labyrinth of despair. If that sentence seems overwrought you can blame it on the music, which is impressively single-minded in its mission to undermine sanity wherever it may be sequestered. At the onset Morricone summons jarring electronic sound effects that pierce the writhing orchestral discord before setting down a simple beat offset by angular brass and keyboard lines. Eventually the volume and tempo verge on hard rock, but in the least conventional sense possible. Easy listening it is not…”

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979


Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

Caligula is an apt example of how the sexual revolution of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s exhausted its creative potential, and its welcome in mainstream cinema, by the end of the decadent ‘Me Decade.’ The film’s initial promise of depicting the depravity of ancient Rome with artistic integrity and historical accuracy was undone by the whims of a powerfulman [Penthouse publisher and film financier Bob Guccioni] who – like the film’s self-serving and delusional main character – squandered the good will of an empire, namely the moviegoing public. By the time Caligula hit theaters, filmgoers had discovered the advantages of home video and discreet viewing pleasure in time for a wave of new conservatism, at least in the United States, which had long been a major market for European sexploitation films.”

– from Chapter 3: Sexploitation Serenade of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979


Book Excerpt of the Day

“The importance of music to black crime films can’t be overstated. Bear in mind that radio spots for films like Shaft and Superfly often call attention to the soundtrack artist, practically in the same breath as the movie’s star. This emphasis on the music further reinforces the idea that in blaxploitation films the music is as much a character as the flesh and blood men and women who populate the frame. Outside of Hollywood’s classic movie musicals, no other genre can truly claim that distinguishing feature.”

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz & Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Monday, April 27, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

“To create the sense of uneasiness that is critical to any suspenseful mood, [Bernard] Herrmann used dissonant harmonies that eschew comforting resolutions. What made Herrmann the master at manipulating audiences is the virtuosity at using nagging ostinatos and inconclusive harmonies to tweak their expectations while rarely providing the melodic reassurance.”

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“The intro from Faster Pussycat! KILL! KILL! is the iconic Russ Meyer soundtrack number. It combines a sublimely twisted monologue about sex and violence with a walking bass line and Philly-licked cymbal ride that lurches into a rollicking rock ode to ‘Pussycat’s’ rebellious ways – complete with ‘go, baby, go’ taunts from the strip club patrons featured in the film’s frantic opening montage… It’s frenetic style-hopping perfectly complements the director’s virtuoso editing style.”

– from Chapter 3: Sexploitation Serenade of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

“A more notorious entry in the soft-core art house genre is The Night Porter, which explores a psychosexual relationship between a hotel porter (and former Nazi officer) and a hotel guest who was once his teenage sex slave in a concentration camp. Daniele Paris’ claustrophobic score features a creepy, slow-motion tango theme with plodding piano patterns, off-kilter trombone notes and saxophones that simultaneously warns of imminent ruin and invites one to succumb to it. It’s a perfect accompaniment for the twisted dance undertaken by the fateful lovers.”

– from Chapter 3: Sexploitation Serenade of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“’The Godfather’s Waltz’ opens starkly with solo trumpet, stating a plaintive melody punctuated by low discordant chords on piano and strings. With the trumpet silenced, a sad violin takes up the melody, joined by lilting guitar rhythms, accordion and woodwinds. This intimate instrumental ensemble elicits the exclusivity of mafia family life.”

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz & Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

“While there’s no mistaking this eerie, angular, tension-mounting score [The Thing from Another World] for anything other than a sci-fi/horror spine-tingler, it’s interesting how its harsh, brassy character mirrors the story’s militaristic leanings. In the film, the military runs roughshod over the empirical curiosity of the film’s scientists to destroy the alien invader. In that sense [Dimitri] Tiomkin’s busy, hot-blooded score is perfectly suited to the conservative socio-political undercurrent of the story, while its use of theremin serves as a convenient aural metaphor for the alien threat hanging over mankind…”

– from Chapter 5: Sci-Fidelity & the Superhero Spectrum of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“To break down the racial wall entirely it took a film made by a black person for a black audience… Melvin Van Peebles’ scandalous, X-rated, audaciously titled feature, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song. As the film’s writer, director, producer, soundtrack composer and star, Van Peebles almost single-handedly activated the genre that would later be dubbed blaxploitation. In order to avoid industry union rules, he claimed to be making a porno. It become the highest grossing independent film up until that time, pulling in $16 million with extremely limited distribution. Unlike today’s ‘indie’ hits, however, it did not garner the filmmaker any big-studio offers. The film’s gritty subject matter and provocative marketing tagline (“Rated X by an All White Jury”) served to alienate mainstream Hollywood from the brash auteur…. Hollywood’s response to Sweetback’s stunning success was to transform a fairly generic crime thriller about a private detective named John Shaft into a genre-busting box-office smash.”

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz & Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Friday, April 24, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

“Perhaps the first Hollywood production to ‘respond’ to the spaghetti westerns was Hang ‘em High, featuring a score by [Dominic] Frontiere that shamelessly imitates the [Ennio] Morricone sound. Bells toll ominously and harmonica moans moodily as electric and acoustic guitars square off for a duel. Then brass bursts forth, kicking up dust with a galloping rhythm.”

– from Chapter 4: Staccato Six-Guns of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“In the eleventh hour, United Artists requested a theme song [for Thunderball] that fit the bill lyrically to maximize exposure. Having struggled with the general concept of a ‘thunderball’, John Barry and Don Black rushed to complete the explosive theme in time for the movie’s release. Singer Tom Jones delivered in one take and blacked out after belting the final high note.”

– from Chapter 2: Spy Symphonies of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

"Staccato's theme aptly evokes an urban jungle's sweltering atmosphere. The rhythm section prowls along like a panther on the hunt, while brass and woodwinds soar above in the canopy of night."

-- from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz & Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer's Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Book Excerpt of the Day

"Nothing says 'rebel' like a leather jacket, and no one looks more rebellious in leather than a man or woman on a motorcycle. A leather-clad malcontent -- fists forward, gripping handle bars, revving an exhaust that growls like a metallic pit bull -- is rock at its most ornery and non-conformist."

-- from Chapter 7: Rockin' Rebellion of Kristopher Spencer's Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

What the Book's Readers are Saying

Highly accessible genre-based examination of movie music, February 9, 2009
By Randall Larson (BuySoundtrax.com)

Kristopher Spencer's Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979: A Critical Survey by Genre, takes an unusual but highly accessible approach in its examination of music for movies. Noting the significant change that transformed Hollywood film scores as the Golden Age waned and the advent of pop, jazz, rock, avant-garde, and other styles began to be assimilated into film scores, Spencer, the founder of [...], illuminates the "Silver Age" of movie music in this winning and very readable volume. The composers of this era of film music history "changed the way movie music was made," asserts Spencer, who examines in depth the changing role of music in seven genres of moviemaking: crime thrillers, spy movies, sexploitation films (think Lolita, Barbarella, Vampiros Lesbos, Last Tango in Paris), Westerns, science fiction, horror films, and rock and roll movies. While the latter might be obvious in its use of music, Spencer explores the changing role of rock music as a song soundtrack to such films as The Endless Summer, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Easy Rider, The Graduate, Saturday Night Fever, and many others, and shows how the beat-and-rhythm heavy music had its own place aside more dramatic and progressive orchestral film scores. Each chapter includes a dozen recommended soundtracks for your buying or bidding pleasure, and the result is a fascinating look at the evolving world of film music as it pertained to specific genres of film music during its Silver Age. Spencer's evaluation of horror film music, for example, is a concise overview of the use of music in films of Roger Corman, Hitchcock, Hammer, and others, including a prolonged and very fascinating overview of music in Italian giallo horror films of the 70s. Spencer's long chapter on Western scores proffers up an excellent summation of the music for Italian and German Western films and the groundbreaking effect of Italian Western music on so much of cinema. The chapter on science fiction scores evaluates the progression from 60's pop, atonal sci-fi music, and the resurgence of symphonic film music in the later 1970s. There's not an extensive musical analysis of individual films or composers, but there is a perceptive overview of the kind of music that embellished these movies and how that kind developed and changed over the three decades covered by this book. In all of this Spencer calls out attention to significant nuances in the development and style of genre film scoring and illuminates much of the music for these types of films, and their musical relationship together as members of the same genre (or sub-genre, or sub-sub-genre, in some cases), that is valuable to any serious study of movie music.

Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, MovieGrooves, McFarland, and other online retailers.

What the Book's Readers are Saying

Wow!, March 18, 2009
By Rich Patterson (Minneapolis, MN)

My god, this book is encyclopedic in it's scope. Every paragraph is jam-packed with interesting facts and observations to the point it made my head spin. It's so dense with information that I started reading it a page at a time. Even then I found myself being overwhelmed. This isn't so much a comment on the writing as it is on my personal level of comprehension and retention. In fact, I think Spencer does an excellent job of taking the catalyst of a genre and tracing it through all of it's influences and offshoots (reminds me of James Burke's "Connections" series from the BBC). I just wish I could hear snippets of everything so I could make the same mental, musical connection as the author (although I can only imagine the licensing nightmare of such a compilation). I started getting into film scores a few years back and I wanted to know more about the origins of styles. This book delivers on that plus a whole lot more. It's introduced me to a host of previously unknown composers and films, and has since compelled me to spend WAY too much money on expanding my CD and DVD collection. This is mandatory reading for any maven of television or motion picture soundtracks. It's an intensive, exhaustive treatise and may just be the defining work on the subject.

Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, MovieGrooves, McFarland, and other online retailers.

What the Book's Readers are Saying

Accessible and absorbing book about film music, October 27, 2008
By S. Morris (UK)

Some books about film music can be a bit dull and dry - nothing like the subject which they are covering. This book isn't one of them. I read this from cover to cover in a couple of days and now I'm starting again. It covers the sort of film music that many of us want to listen to and read about - but it just doesn't get the same coverage. A book that covers Italian crime-funk scores of the 70's?! Here it is. And much more besides. Highly recommended.

Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, MovieGrooves, McFarland, and other online retailers.

What the Book's Readers are Saying

An excellent soundtrack survey, November 18, 2008
By Rick Lieder (MI)

A fine soundtrack survey, especially if you have an interest in pop culture and how movie scores reflect it. Nice to see the attention Spencer gives to scores of films neglected by most academic surveys. I liked being able to skip around the genres I was interested in and then finding information on movies, and genres, unknown to me intriguing enough to seek out in the future. The extensive index is a big help. An excellent resource.

Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, MovieGrooves, McFarland, and other online retailers.

What the Book's Readers are Saying

Fascinating and essential for soundtrack fans, February 12, 2009
By sleep no more (Royal Oak, Michigan United States)

Bernard Herrmann, Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin, and Elmer Bernstein are just a few of the names that have invited our hearts to race with a frantic melody during a chase scene, or left us wide eyed and holding our breath with a string crescendo while waiting to find out what was hiding beneath the stairs. From big names to obscure, from blockbuster to cult, Spencer has finally given soundtrack enthusiasts something to sink their teeth into! Loaded with fascinating tid bits, Spencer goes far beyond what you would expect in a book about film scores, and actually manages to inspire the same 'can't put it down' energy of a best seller (which I found a bit frustrating as I kept on wanting to keep tossing discs in the stereo.....but couldn't stop reading!). Brilliant I say.... absolutely brilliant!!!!!!!

Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, MovieGrooves, McFarland, and other online retailers.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

On Sale Now!

From author Kristopher Spencer, founder of ScoreBaby.com — your online guide to groovy soundtracks of the '50s, '60s, '70s and beyond — comes ...

Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979: A Critical Survey by Genre
(McFarland, 2008)

"A fascinating look at the evolving world of film music." — BuySoundtrax.com

Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, MovieGrooves, McFarland, and other online retailers.
Hollywood film scores underwent a supersonic transformation from the 1950s through the 1970s. This genre-by-genre overview of film and television soundtrack music covers a period of tremendous artistic and commercial development in the medium. Film and television composers bypassed the classical tradition favored by earlier screen composers to experiment with jazz, rock, funk and avant-garde styles. This bold approach brought a rich variety to film and television productions that often took on a life of its own through records and CDs. From Bernard Herrmann to Ennio Morricone, the composers of the "Silver Age" changed the way movie music was made, used, and heard. The book contains more than 100 promotional film stills and soundtrack cover art images.

Chapters include: "Crime Jazz and Felonious Funk," "Spy Symphonies," "Sexploitation Serenade," "Staccato Six-Guns," "Sci-Fidelity and the Superhero Spectrum," "A Fearful Earful," and "Rockin' Revolution." Plus, the epilogue looks at the influence of soundtracks on contemporary musicians inside and outside the movie business, including David Holmes, Barry Adamson, Portishead, The Herbaliser and beyond.

"Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979: A Critical Survey by Genre takes an unusual but highly accessible approach in its examination of music for movies... It is a winning and very readable volume… and valuable to any serious study of movie music."
— Randall Larson, columnist on BuySoundtrax.com and author of Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music from the Fantastic Cinema and Music From the House of Hammer