Attn JMS: Crusade's Music

[B5JMS Poster]

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From: PPascal <ppascal at cybercable.tm.fr>
Date: 22 Sep 2000 07:11:13 -0700
Lines: 27

Dear JMS,

I heve been lurking on the group for years, but seldom posted.

I had read lots of contradictory things about Crusade, and my wife and I
have just completed ep 3 (Wells of Forever), from a british video (as
for B5, we buy them directly to an english mail order shop. Crusade has
not been shown yet in France).

I love the show, and I think that the music is a key element to that.
Chen's score for A Call to Arms was good, but Crusade is even better and
I can't understand why there was so much criticism. Especially on the so
called "musical" level. Chen manages to mix languages with a
powerful expressivity, without comparisons with the tons of commercial
world music we get these days; samples are beautiful and imaginative,
and harmonic treatment is really interesting.  I hope that you will
bring him back when (if) Crusade gets revived.

I remember when you wrote that Franke himself got criticised too in the
beginnings of B5 season 1.  I was among those who preferred Copeland's
version, but learned to love Franke's electronic symphonism. Chen brings
something more, that deals with dream and discovery.

Thanks for having choosed him. Too bad TNT killed the show...

Pierre


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 22 Sep 2000 14:56:51 -0700
Lines: 31

The thing about musical tastes is that they are remarkably subjective, and very
viscerally expressed.  That was certainly the case here.

It's a sound unlike what most people were used to hearing, and Evan had never
previously done a soundtrack, so you had a different sound mixed with the
process of finding the moments in a drama, and for some folks, that was
difficult.  I think Evan went from strength to strength as he worked out what
the process was.

Some liked it, some didn't, and I'm okay with that.  I wanted to experiment. 
Too often, people say they want something different, then when you give it to
them, they say they want what they had before.  Nothing wrong with that, just
pointing it out.

Personally, I liked the majority of what he did for the show, and I would make
the same decision again.  You *have* to experiment and try different things,
and risk failing, or you stultify and dry up and die creatively.  

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
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SFX Magazine)




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