Poll: Best Composer

[mega48man]

Martin O'Donnell

everything he's done for the halo, series, absolutely amazing.
halo 3, truly touching. i think back to the piano piece from the main menu a lot
halo 3:ODST, it was so new different for halo, the stecahto (SP) and everything, and i loved the mood he help set and how he did it
halo reach, from the commercials on youtube to the soundtrack itself, stunning. it goes from "action, look out" to "hopeless sorrow", and everywhere in between, truly amazing

i also think Hans Zimmer is a true master, his work on the dark knight and inception was so in depth, but halo gets me a little bit more, sorry hans.

 

[WINDOWCLEAN2]

Howard Shore....I love that man/

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Hmm I love John Williams' music a lot, but I'm not sure it makes him a great composer... just someone who is great at catchy and memorable tunes. Maybe that's the point?

I'm a bit sad the following weren't even in the poll:

Howard Shore
Hans Zimmer
James Horner
Harry Gregson-Williams

Some names that should be mentioned in conjuction with some awesome video game soundtracks include:

Harry Gregson-Williams - MGS3
Martin O'Donnell - Halo Series
Jack Wall - Mass Effect 1 & 2
Inon Zur - Fallout 3/New vegas
Petri Alanko - Alan Wake
Normand Corbeil - Heavy Rain

 

[NeutralDrow]

Eh? I thought we were keeping this to film composers.
Snip.

Here here, quote from the OP.

Music has never lost it's integral role in cinema. And ofcourse games too.

I thought that means video game composers are allowed.

Ah, my mistake then.

Yeah, that poll was way too short, then. I question the inclusion of a poll in the first place.

Also, I actually think Daisuke Ishiwatari is better than both of them.

Whenever I try to distinguish between those three, <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIlkvisQM6c>J-E-N-O-V-A, <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKPxXRbYl6s>Iconoclasm, and <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPA3Y-acjb0>Still in the Dark start playing in my head all at once, and I feel a sudden overwhelming compulsion to grab a sword and fight a grueling deathmatch with a kobold horde, led by the colossal blue dragon who killed my father.

Since the nearest sword is a blunt and heavy-as-hell Master Sword replica, the horde is a smattering of fence lizards, the dragon is the outdoor water heater, and my father is alive and well, it's a mildly inconvenient compulsion.

I can't even avoid it with slow, mournful songs, since I just immediately start thinking of <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1JgIg38QBU>Zanarkand, <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqORLlPg-84>Le Ali del Principio, and <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbbKM4DJLQ>Grief, all at once. It's one helping of <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHIyRBkQJEc>For You (Music Box version) away from incapacitating me.

 

[ChocoFace]

Hans Zimmer is superior to all three, in my opinion.

Obviously this.
Anyone dare to question me?

 

[Cpt. Red]

I always liked Jesper Kyd since I played the Hitman games...

 

[IamQ]

Movies?

Joe Hisaishi. No question about it.

Overall?

Either Mozart or Mussorgsky.

 

[tunderball]

Your list is very tiny but honestly I would have picked John Williams anyway. The guys a genius and is responsible for my two favourite soundtracks ever, Star Wrs and Indy.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

Morricone is a GOD! His work with Leone in particular are his masterpieces.

 

[Notashrimp09]

Eh? I thought we were keeping this to film composers, otherwise the OP's list would have to include a number of classical, romantic, impressionist, and modern composers, not to mention Matoi Sakuraba.

I agree. OP ought to specify the area of composition before they enrage (as in: really PO's) anyone who actually studies music.

Besides, John Williams is notorious in the music community for blatantly ripping off other composers. His tunes are catchy, but he's better known for barely dodging those copyrights than producing truly original content.

 

[octafish]

Short list is too short.
No Bernard Herrmann?(Everything Hitchcock did between 1955 and 1964 Cape Fear and Taxi Driver) No Elmer Bernstein? (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Man With The Golden Arm and Cape Fear the remake) For shame. Not mentioning The Mission when talking about Morricone? Terrible shame.

EDIT: Oh and where is Jerry Goldsmith and Henry Mancini? Elfman is so not near the top of a list of great composers.

 

[Antwerp Caveman]

I personally never found Hans Zimmmer very interesting, and Howard Shore just feels to me like trying to be John Williams.

Good job at making an objective poll.

/sarcasm off

At least make the title "Best composer of these 3" next time.

My vote would have to go to daft punk, but since they're not in the soundtrack business for too long, Hans Zimmer.

Well, I was trying to be polite. But the LoTR soundtrack was rubbish. Like the movie it tried too hard to be too epic. Which made all of it suck. And thats pretty much the highlight of his career.

Sure you can make other arguments for other composerss. But it's pretty clear that the 3 mentioned in the poll have had the greatest influence on this field.

 

[Scarecrow]

None of them. This man will always be the worlds greatest composer:

Spoiler

 

[-Adracko-]

Danny Elfman a billion times over. HUGE Oingo Boingo fan here. Elfman is my god

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Trent Reznor and Daft Punk

But usually I go with Hanz Zimmer.

 

[Alade]

I personally never found Hans Zimmmer very interesting, and Howard Shore just feels to me like trying to be John Williams.

Good job at making an objective poll.

/sarcasm off

At least make the title "Best composer of these 3" next time.

My vote would have to go to daft punk, but since they're not in the soundtrack business for too long, Hans Zimmer.

Well, I think I was trying to be polite. But I think the LoTR soundtrack was rubbish. Like the movie I think it tried too hard to be too epic. Which I think made all of it suck. And I think that's pretty much the highlight of his career.

Sure you can make other arguments for other composerss. But it's pretty clear that I think the 3 mentioned in the poll have had the greatest influence on this field.

Instead of saying something trollish like "Fix'd"(I did some grammar corrections too), I'll try to share some wisdom. When commenting on art, if you cannot be completely objective you should imply that your statements are merely your opinion, instead of stating them as fact, which has a bad effect.

 

[Antwerp Caveman]

Well that was quite useless.
1. If those were corrections in my use of language, big deal, I'm not a native english speaker/writer.
2. If that was, how it reads, to make more clear that this concerns my opinion... where do you think we are? This is a forum. A place where opinions are written and shared. It's the entire point.

 

[Antwerp Caveman]

Hmm I love John Williams' music a lot, but I'm not sure it makes him a great composer... just someone who is great at catchy and memorable tunes. Maybe that's the point?

I'm a bit sad the following weren't even in the poll:

Howard Shore
Hans Zimmer
James Horner
Harry Gregson-Williams

Some names that should be mentioned in conjuction with some awesome video game soundtracks include:

Harry Gregson-Williams - MGS3
Martin O'Donnell - Halo Series
Jack Wall - Mass Effect 1 & 2
Inon Zur - Fallout 3/New vegas
Petri Alanko - Alan Wake
Normand Corbeil - Heavy Rain

About the recurring mentions of Shore and Zimmer; why did I not include them? Because I didn't think of them. When I think of legendary compositions like Morricone, his music springs to mind. And then some John Williams. And then my girlfriend immediately and correctly jumps to Elfman.

About Shore, he made the LoTR soundtrack.
I sat through the 3 movies, reluctantly, I actually fell asleep a few times. I love the fantasy genre but this I could not enjoy, too pretentious and too epic.
They're succesfull, good for them. And they have a lot of fans, good for them (probably you).
But is their music special and unique? No.

Zimmer, looked him up after reading his name in this topic.
Wow, he's got quite a few big titles and summerblockbusters on his name, but still, not as influential on the genre.

Now, for your game examples:

- MGS3: aren' the MGS soundtracks lately just rehashes of the MGS 1 soundtrack? (Been a while since I played, correct me if I'm wrong)

- Fallout 3: Absolutely lovely soundtrack, I always had Galaxy News Radio on ingame. But it's not applicable, because the person who assembled the songs didn't compose them.

- Halo/ Mass Effect (very similar music): well... Halo is popular due to marketing, and the free copies you got with most Xboxes, not due to being a good and innovative game. I played the first 3, co-opped the campaings, but it's not memorable at all. The music is very appropriate to the game, but is it influential to the genre? Or has that music itself been influenced by others? I think the latter. And Mass Effect is just 3rd Person Halo with a leveling system.

 

[Anarchemitis]

There are two great composers who made excellent music for film (one of which is still living), but never made music with the intention of it being used for film.
Tchaikovsky for one. The Nutcracker suite has been adapted to animation many times over, but I bet you didn't know Disney actually made a movie out of one of his ballets:
Entirely Tchaikovsky's orchestration. (Performers information cannot be found. Conducted by Frederick Stark)
This was written about 12 years ago by a man named Arvo Part, who is a still living Minimalist composer from Estonia.

 

[Raven's Nest]

About the recurring mentions of Shore and Zimmer; why did I not include them? Because I didn't think of them. When I think of legendary compositions like Morricone, his music springs to mind. And then some John Williams. And then my girlfriend immediately and correctly jumps to Elfman.

About Shore, he made the LoTR soundtrack.
I sat through the 3 movies, reluctantly, I actually fell asleep a few times. I love the fantasy genre but this I could not enjoy, too pretentious and too epic.
They're succesfull, good for them. And they have a lot of fans, good for them (probably you).
But is their music special and unique? No.

Zimmer, looked him up after reading his name in this topic.
Wow, he's got quite a few big titles and summerblockbusters on his name, but still, not as influential on the genre.

Now, for your game examples:

- MGS3: aren' the MGS soundtracks lately just rehashes of the MGS 1 soundtrack? (Been a while since I played, correct me if I'm wrong)

- Fallout 3: Absolutely lovely soundtrack, I always had Galaxy News Radio on ingame. But it's not applicable, because the person who assembled the songs didn't compose them.

- Halo/ Mass Effect (very similar music): well... Halo is popular due to marketing, and the free copies you got with most Xboxes, not due to being a good and innovative game. I played the first 3, co-opped the campaings, but it's not memorable at all. The music is very appropriate to the game, but is it influential to the genre? Or has that music itself been influenced by others? I think the latter. And Mass Effect is just 3rd Person Halo with a leveling system.

Wow, I completely disagree with just about everything you have said...

Its actualy difficult to find a more varied and deep musical score than Howard Shore's score for the Lord of the Rings. I'd go as far to say it's the greatest piece of film music since Star Wars and there would only be a few that might disagree with me. All three films have a unique musical feel, the character themes are instantly recognisable. Honestly, I don't know how you can pass this off as not special...

Hans Zimmer is probably noted for being the second most influential film composer since John Williams. His work on epics like Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean, Batman and Black Hawk Down have literally inspired hundreds of scores across many different platforms. To say that his work is not influential on the genre is just completely inaccurate!

And have you actually heard the Halo and Mass Effect soundtracks? They sound nothing alike... I'm not commenting from a fan boy perspective but the music for the Halo series has probably been the best part of games. And as for Mass Effect, they are two unique scores across both games featuring a previously seldom heard cross between 80's synth electronic music and some competent traditional orchestral elements. The second brought us some of the finest music ever produced for a game in my opinion. (I'm not even going to dignify the 3rd person halo comment with a response)

Frankly, omitting the likes of James Newton Howard, Howard Shore, Jerry Goldsmith, Joe Hisashi, James Hohner, Michael Giachinno, Hans Zimmer, Tenmon, David Arnold and Patrick Doyle is tragic and and indication of your lack of knowledge regarding film musical composition.