A recent Hollywood Reporter assignment has me thinking about the musical bible that John Williams wrote for Star Wars... and how it's been reverently, and irreverently, treated over the years.
I couldn’t agree with you more. The faux-Williams scores have always left me cold, while the music of THE MANDALORIAN and ANDOR reflected the freshness of their stories and characters. Thanks for another great piece, and one that proves with succinctness and wit that you will never run out of compelling John Williams topics to write about!
Excellent piece! Thank you for both this and the HR piece. I think you have the healthiest view of Star Wars music (and the entire franchise) of anyone I've read in the last fifteen years. Basically, let it be what it's going to be. Yeah, some of it's going to downright suck. But we don't get Andor without suffering a couple from the other side of the spectrum.
I adore that you included "Empire Jazz." For me, that album came along as my appreciation and study of jazz was starting to grow, and the idea of adapting such well loved themes in that way opened up the world of jazz arranging to me at a very early age.
I do have to add two items to your list, though. I think the score that Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab created for "Jedi Survivor" is a fantastic piece of writing that probably sits alongside John Powell's "Solo" as a way to maintain a unique voice while honoring the spirit and sound of what John created.
I also can't believe you left out The Electric Moog Orchestra! I wore out two 8track (that's right kids, 8track) tapes of that version in my dad's car.
It's always a joy to read your work. Thank you from a fellow cult member.
Thank you so much, William! I am sure I left out SO many things, this ocean is so vast. You're not the first to recommend Jedi Survivor to me, and I plan to spend some time with that album... it's just hard for me to get past the barrier that the interactive experience it was designed for is not something I'm going to be able to do.
Fantastic read. Both this piece and your Hollywood Reporter article touch on the relationship between art and fandom/pop culture. John is a rare artist whose work has become so famous and enmeshed with the culture that it’s truly taken on its own life. I feel like you could write many more articles unpacking this…
Nice read. I disagree about the copycat scores like Shadows of the Empire and Jurassic Park III being shallow and hollow. I only say that because of Star Wars music itself being very intentionally an imitation. I can't get on board with loving an imitation but not loving an imitation of an imitation....otherwise basically all film music would be off limits.
From the FSM 1978 Williams interview where he (used to) talk openly about "it being consciously a pastiche."
I have a hard time dealing with the perception that Williams's Star Wars music is all a work of unmitigated genius. It's wonderful...I like or love most of it..but none of it is original. At least that used to be Williams' position himself.
In that New Yorker piece piece 15-18 years ago he called Williams “a master pasticheur with no style of his own” and then the more recent piece he did on Williams, Listening to Star Wars, when he interviewed him directly and got weak in the knees, he wrote “it’s become fashionable to dismiss Williams as nothing more than a pasticheur.”
My feeling is...it's all good. The Meco, the disco, the bad Christmas songs, the badly re-orchestrated and unauthorized suites, and even the shallow and hollow homages.
In the end of the day, they all owe a debt of gratitude to Korngold who is not often enough mentioned in the conversation about Star Wars music. it's more often Holst, Stravinsky, and Mahler who make the cut.
You're right that they're all steeped in imitation; some just feel more intentionally straitjacketed / airless to me than others.
The issue of pastiche is one I've thought about a LOT, and deal with quite extensively in the book. I would definitely push back on the idea that none of JW's Star Wars is original; much of it is draped in familiar orchestrational costuming, for sure, and idioms that John did not invent—but it's original in both melodic content and in the Godard sense of: It's not where you take it FROM but where you take it TO. (And I find Alex Ross' evolution on this more of a pure change of heart rather than anything hypocritical.)
But think you for your robust comment! Keep ’em coming.
I was mostly going off that candid 1978 minute interview when Williams seemed much more comfortable with the open idea that it was pastiche: I remember him saying something “not in terms of original melody and harmony.” None of that really matters to me. You end up in the old “rush to the patent office” idea of art. But it’s interesting to me that Williams moved away from the use of the word pastiche. For much of the audience going to the movies it can’t be pastiche if they never heard of the originals.
As for Ross…yes of course he changed his mind…credit to him. But why did the original NY’er article disappear, the one in which he called Williams a master pasticheur (for all his music)?
Not sure about the disappearance; I have a copy, and in fact quote from it in the book!
I think early on JW talked of pastiche as much out of insecure self-deprecation as candor; the classical world treated him as a hack, and Hollywood composers had long internalized that kind of damnation of their work, an attitude that he inherited to some degree. Also, the first Star Wars score is by far the most blatant in its referentiality (part of its whole concept). But I DO think it's important to distinguish pastiche (not inherently bad or inartistic) from plagiarism.
The fact that you can include not only relevant, but completely new quotes from interviews you've even conducted yourself in these writings makes the subscription worth every penny!
I couldn’t agree with you more. The faux-Williams scores have always left me cold, while the music of THE MANDALORIAN and ANDOR reflected the freshness of their stories and characters. Thanks for another great piece, and one that proves with succinctness and wit that you will never run out of compelling John Williams topics to write about!
Thank you Steven! The well is, from my perspective, truly bottomless.
Excellent piece! Thank you for both this and the HR piece. I think you have the healthiest view of Star Wars music (and the entire franchise) of anyone I've read in the last fifteen years. Basically, let it be what it's going to be. Yeah, some of it's going to downright suck. But we don't get Andor without suffering a couple from the other side of the spectrum.
I adore that you included "Empire Jazz." For me, that album came along as my appreciation and study of jazz was starting to grow, and the idea of adapting such well loved themes in that way opened up the world of jazz arranging to me at a very early age.
I do have to add two items to your list, though. I think the score that Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab created for "Jedi Survivor" is a fantastic piece of writing that probably sits alongside John Powell's "Solo" as a way to maintain a unique voice while honoring the spirit and sound of what John created.
I also can't believe you left out The Electric Moog Orchestra! I wore out two 8track (that's right kids, 8track) tapes of that version in my dad's car.
It's always a joy to read your work. Thank you from a fellow cult member.
Thank you so much, William! I am sure I left out SO many things, this ocean is so vast. You're not the first to recommend Jedi Survivor to me, and I plan to spend some time with that album... it's just hard for me to get past the barrier that the interactive experience it was designed for is not something I'm going to be able to do.
Fantastic read. Both this piece and your Hollywood Reporter article touch on the relationship between art and fandom/pop culture. John is a rare artist whose work has become so famous and enmeshed with the culture that it’s truly taken on its own life. I feel like you could write many more articles unpacking this…
Thanks! I most likely will...
Nice read. I disagree about the copycat scores like Shadows of the Empire and Jurassic Park III being shallow and hollow. I only say that because of Star Wars music itself being very intentionally an imitation. I can't get on board with loving an imitation but not loving an imitation of an imitation....otherwise basically all film music would be off limits.
From the FSM 1978 Williams interview where he (used to) talk openly about "it being consciously a pastiche."
I have a hard time dealing with the perception that Williams's Star Wars music is all a work of unmitigated genius. It's wonderful...I like or love most of it..but none of it is original. At least that used to be Williams' position himself.
In that New Yorker piece piece 15-18 years ago he called Williams “a master pasticheur with no style of his own” and then the more recent piece he did on Williams, Listening to Star Wars, when he interviewed him directly and got weak in the knees, he wrote “it’s become fashionable to dismiss Williams as nothing more than a pasticheur.”
My feeling is...it's all good. The Meco, the disco, the bad Christmas songs, the badly re-orchestrated and unauthorized suites, and even the shallow and hollow homages.
In the end of the day, they all owe a debt of gratitude to Korngold who is not often enough mentioned in the conversation about Star Wars music. it's more often Holst, Stravinsky, and Mahler who make the cut.
You're right that they're all steeped in imitation; some just feel more intentionally straitjacketed / airless to me than others.
The issue of pastiche is one I've thought about a LOT, and deal with quite extensively in the book. I would definitely push back on the idea that none of JW's Star Wars is original; much of it is draped in familiar orchestrational costuming, for sure, and idioms that John did not invent—but it's original in both melodic content and in the Godard sense of: It's not where you take it FROM but where you take it TO. (And I find Alex Ross' evolution on this more of a pure change of heart rather than anything hypocritical.)
But think you for your robust comment! Keep ’em coming.
I was mostly going off that candid 1978 minute interview when Williams seemed much more comfortable with the open idea that it was pastiche: I remember him saying something “not in terms of original melody and harmony.” None of that really matters to me. You end up in the old “rush to the patent office” idea of art. But it’s interesting to me that Williams moved away from the use of the word pastiche. For much of the audience going to the movies it can’t be pastiche if they never heard of the originals.
As for Ross…yes of course he changed his mind…credit to him. But why did the original NY’er article disappear, the one in which he called Williams a master pasticheur (for all his music)?
Not sure about the disappearance; I have a copy, and in fact quote from it in the book!
I think early on JW talked of pastiche as much out of insecure self-deprecation as candor; the classical world treated him as a hack, and Hollywood composers had long internalized that kind of damnation of their work, an attitude that he inherited to some degree. Also, the first Star Wars score is by far the most blatant in its referentiality (part of its whole concept). But I DO think it's important to distinguish pastiche (not inherently bad or inartistic) from plagiarism.
The fact that you can include not only relevant, but completely new quotes from interviews you've even conducted yourself in these writings makes the subscription worth every penny!
Thank you! Lots more to come.