Well, dear readers, I know it’s just not done. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I know it’s just not done, and yet I’m about to do it. Competing record labels never talk about let alone praise another label’s product. That has been my experience, at least. I have never played that rather inane game because a good job is a good job no matter what one may think of a competing label or the folks who run it, because sometimes there are just personality differences and other things that come into play. All this preamble to say that yesterday I got the new three-CD set of A.I. Artificial Intelligence, music by John Williams from the Steven Spielberg film. I’ve talked about the film many times in these here notes over the years and yes, I’m a huge fan of it. It was not the right time for the film when it came out but I predicted that people would reassess it in future years and would come to see it for the wonderful film it is. That’s already happened to a certain extent and will continue to happen. Oh, there are folks who haven’t seen it and hate it anyway, there are folks who saw it but haven’t revisited it and therefore hate it still, and there are the handful of us who loved it then and love it now.
But the score in indisputably one of John Williams’ greatest. I don’t think much of film music in the past two decades, with some rare exceptions, but A.I. I absolutely love. The original soundtrack was like a highlights album, not very well put together and kind of a joke. Then there was a two-CD highly sought after Academy promo. I had that, too, and it was better, but not put together very well and missing stuff. A friend put together a nice presentation based on those two releases and that did me very well for a while. And I’m not one of these “I need every single note written” people – less is more sometimes. But knowing this label as I do, I knew they’d get around to it and they have. And it’s the release all us A.I. fans could have hoped for. The first two CDs have the score as written by Mr. Williams – some of it was futzed with during post production. The score is just stunning from cue one right through to the end credits. What’s truly wonderful about it, are not only the gorgeous themes and their variety, but how the whole of it plays like a big musical story and journey. I’ve already listened to it twice and it’s playing as I write these here notes. The third CD is filled with alternates – I don’t really care about those – they’re not sufficiently different but I suppose it’s nice to have them. The packaging is very nice – large booklet with excellent liner notes by Jeff Bond. In fact the only nitpick I have is the inlay card, where the track titles are printed so small that it’s almost impossible to read them. However, they’re also in the booklet, where they can be read much more easily. In short, if you love this music, this CD (limited to 3000 copies) is for you. I’ll get no thanks or even acknowledgment from the label owners for tub-thumping their release (which I’ve also posted about on the Film Score Monthly board), and I don’t really need it – if any other label owner posted something nice about one of our releases, you can be sure I would say a nice thank you. But that’s just me.
Yesterday was a day, I suppose. I didn’t fall asleep until almost three-thirty, woke up at nine-thirty, fell back asleep immediately and finally got up at eleven. I answered e-mails, assigned a few songs, then went and had a Cobb salad without the turkey and bacon – just ham, cheese and avocado, in ranch dressing, with a bagel. A friend joined me about halfway through the meal and that was fun. Then I picked up no packages, after which I came home. I confirmed the dates of the Sami show and am just awaiting final confirmation before I actually announce them – we will, however, happily be at The Grove Theater, where we did Inside Out and the workshop of the Sami show. Maybe we can have a haineshisway.com get-together of some sort so some of you out-of-towners can see the show and then have a meal. I’d really like that.
I did some more work on the computer, had some telephonic conversations and then it was time to mosey on over to some little theater in Atwater Village (to say this place was off the beaten track would be a gross understatement) to attend a meeting about this whole 99-seat theater thing going on here. It was a meeting I actively and occasionally relentlessly pushed for. I was fought about it, I was castigated by some, but in the end those doing the fighting and the castigating found out just how many people agreed with me and suddenly there was a lot of backtracking and the meeting finally happened. It was good to put faces with names, there was good energy in the room, and the meeting, for me, did exactly what I hoped it would do – gave me some answers which I really wanted to have. There’ll be another meeting in a month.
Someone brought four pizzas to the meeting, but I was strong and didn’t try them. I did, however, stop at Gelson’s on the way home and got a little Super Chinese slaw and some potato salad, along with a few melon balls. I usually don’t buy the potato salad there because they stopped making the kind I like, and it never looks that good to me, but that batch I saw did look good so bought a container of it. And boy was it ever good – it was perfect and I ate all of it up instead of just the one or two bites I’d intended.
Today, I’ll send out the rest of the music as soon as our final two cast members are finalized (I sent out some of the music yesterday), I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I think I may have a visit with Mr. Nick Redman, then I’ll relax.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals and seeing a couple of shows, and doing lots of errands and whatnot. And in tomorrow’s notes I’ll post some videos from the last Kritzerland show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, send out music, finalize our final two cast members, eat, hopefully pick up packages, maybe have a visit, then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite film scores of Mr. John Williams? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have some articial intelligence.