Re: Ennio Morricone RIP

From the AV Club.

Lots of music in the comments as well.

I'm sure that everyone on this forum has heard by now that the great Ennio Morricone has died. The Maestro is my all-time favorite composer, and I cannot imagine the cinema of the Twentieth Century without his marvelous music. His influence on rock, of course, is enormous. When Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow burst upon the scene decades ago, I savored the Morriconesque spaghetti western sounds of their songs. Peter Hook has stated that the bassline of New Order's "Blue Monday" was inspired by Morricone, and certainly Visage's "Malpaso Man" is a terrific tribute to both Clint Eastwood and Morricone. Hail and farewell to a musical titan!

Incidentally, this is my first post on the forum. I began reading TP in 1981, and bought all five music guides as they were released. Many, many thanks to Mr. Robbins and his fellow TP writers for all their hard work through the years. Their articles and reviews (even when I disagreed with them!) were, and remain, a blessing to lovers of music outside the mainstream. Trouser Press changed my life!

Yikes! Sorry to have duplicated this thread.

In the last 4 years or so, I have become obsessed with spaghetti westerns and have come to love the music of Bacalov, De Masi, Nicolai, Ortolani, and others. But Morricone is the gold standard, with only Bruno Nicolai close to his equal. Everybody knows The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and the other Eastwood spaghetti westerns, but Morricone scored such great music for many others...The Return of Ringo, The Big Gundown, The Great Silence, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Mercenary, Face to Face...all worth checking out. I've recently started getting into giallo, and while I don't enjoy his scores in those films quite as much, they are still very good.

My all time favorite Morricone score was to the switched-on Mario Bava classic "Danger: Diaboik." Which I saw for the first time in the late 80s to mind-bogglement. The film was based on an Italian comic strip about a super-criminal and the film plays like a Bond knock-off where the [anarchist] villain is actually the protagonist. Morricone's theme "Deep Down" is the most spellbinding song of erotic fixation I can imagine!

The rest of the score is hazy, psychedelic, bachelor-pad music that sounds like several disparate genres thrown in a blender on "frappé." It's the furthest thing from the typical Morricone sound.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Yes, sir! I revere Mario Bava, and "Danger: Diabolik" is my favorite film. (In fact, one of my old college friends is an audio commentator on the recent Shout! Factory Blu-ray release.) "Valmont's Go-Go Pad" is Morricone at his most outlandish, and I can listen to that composition endlessly.

Not to sound too boastful, but John Philip Law signed my widescreen laserdisc of "Danger: Diabolik." I told him at the time that it was a good thing that I had only first seen the film at the age of 25. Ten years younger and I'd have been scarred for life. When I saw the actual comics they had none of the sauce the film had.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

I'm positively emerald with envy! I managed to rent a 16mm copy of the film in late 1985, eight years after reading about it in Philip Strick's classic Science Fiction Movies book. The picture was everything I'd hoped it would be, and more. I fell hard for Marisa Mell!

At least you saw it a few years before I did! But the print I saw was different to what came out on home video in America. Different dubbing entirely. I taped it off of a public access local cable show called Dr. X's Cinemondo - hosted by a guy who used to teach English at my junior high school a dozen years earlier. And showed it to all of my friends immediately.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

I rented the print from the long-defunct Films, Inc., one of the many 16mm rental companies that were everywhere back in the day. I was the student president of my college's Film Committee, and there was a charming lady named Jemi (bless her!) at the business who gave us deep discounts on the obscure movies I programmed. If I recall correctly, the dialogue dub (now here's the rub) used for Orion's videocassette and Paramount's laser releases was a remixed version due to the loss of the original English audio. The DVD and Blu-ray contain the correct English audio master.

The scene in which--after Diabolik has blown up the country's tax records--Minister of Finance Terry Thomas urges the public to "come forward voluntarily to pay the tax he thinks he owes" always makes me laugh like hell.

His score for THE THING is a favorite, creating a suitably desolate atmopshere without any electronics. Here's "Beastality": [www.youtube.com]

Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to have your mind BLOWN:

[www.youtube.com]

In the pre-internet days, I spent serious money for a copy of this soundtrack, pretty much for this song, which I played obsessively.

Clearly I need to dig into this man's vast catalog. Anyone who uses bedsprings undergoing sexual activity as a rhythm track is OK with me.

What's a good place to start? Is there a good compilation that includes more than just his Western themes (which seems to be all I see at a cursory glance)?

Here are some suggestions. The Virgin and Bear Family collections are particularly good.

Film Music Volumes 1 & 2 (Virgin)
Canto Morricone Volumes 1 &2 (Bear Family)
Main Titles Volume One (DRG)
The Singles Collection Volume Two (DRG)
Morricone in the Brain (Bella Casa)
Crime and Dissonance (Ipecac)

Enjoy!

Thank you.

Listening to Film Music Vol. 1 right now. I have Vol. 2 coming in the mail, as well as Morricone in the Brain, plus Crime and Dissonance also sitting in my to-be-listened-to pile. (Which is substantial - the quarantine has not been good for my wallet.) I knew the theme of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," of course, but I'm surprised at how many more of these themes I recognize, like "The Sicilian Clan" and "Chi Mai."

"The Sicilian Clan" and "Chi Mai" are wonderful, and I especially like "Come Maddalena." That composition's a real earworm. "Le Marginal" and "Le Vent, le Cri" are standouts on the second Virgin volume. Hope you enjoy all those discs!