Movie score fan

I am a huge fan of movie scores. My love started when I was young and my mother was a member of Columbia House Music Club. I am not even sure if they exist any more but every month they would send a flier in the mail and you selected an album or many and sent it back. If you did not want anything offered you could not just ignore the flier. If you ignored it Columbia House would send their monthly selection. One time my mother neglected to fill out the "No thanks" and we received an 8-track tape of the Star Wars score. I played the tape and it was love at first sound.

My dear mother hated it. Part of it was that as a child I played that 8-track tape almost every day. this became expected as I learned that she would automatically show disdain for anything that I enjoyed. I guess that is for another blog post at a later date.

I have no classical music training. I played the sax for a couple years in grade school but you can imagine how my love of John Williams and my frustration at playing Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater over and over and over again. With the eyes and understanding of age I now lament the fact that I did not stick with it. If I had there is a chance I could be playing the music I love so much. As it is I listen and enjoy.

Star Wars was a gateway drug that lead to a love of Jerry Goldsmith, my first CD was Star Trek The Motion Picture, John Barry, and James Horner. I can not speak to why the music is good. I can not give any real reason other than "I love it" or "I hate it" Movie scores are pure emotion for me.

My love of movie scores also moved me into an interesting hobby, the collection of movie scores. Music stores always have the popular music but the soundtrack sections are usually pretty small. Finding soundtracks could be difficult at best and many times impossible. Movie scores, if released at all were usually small runs making some of them extremely rare.

I have had successes. I found a site called filmscoremonthly and they had just put The Towering Inferno for sale. 25 dollars for the only official release of the score and limited to 3,000 units. I could not get my credit card out fast enough. That cd is selling on the second hand market for about $250 now. It is the crown jewel of my collection.

I have had failures as well. I once found a cd of Quigley Down Under. I held it in my hand and thought I can pick this up later. I never saw another one and the secondary market was asking $145 dollars. I kicked myself for years for not laying down 17 bucks to pick it up when I had the chance. I now have a copy for the score was re-released a few years ago after Basil Poledouris passed away. The remastered and extended edition was 25 dollars.

Today the landscape for score fans has changed. there are now specialty online retailers that only carry movie scores and even produce their own limited edition releases just for fans. The world is bright and sunny for us fanatics and it is only getting better with companies like www.screenarchives.com