New, 14-disc Ron Jones TNG soundtrack box set!

Mine got shipped to the UK yesterday. Can't wait to get it! Personally I'm looking forward to the Q Who score the most. I've been after a clean version of that soundtrack for years.

As a gamer I'm also looking forward to getting the Starfleet Academy/Starfleet Command scores.

 

Indeed, "Datalore" and "11001001" are both stellar, the former surprisingly so as I had forgotten about that great motif for Lore and the early, wondrous cues for arriving at the planet and searching Soong's lab. "The Battle" I need to listen to again as it didn't make the biggest impression on me, but I know it has good moments.

Tough to pick an overall favorite disc from the collection... although disc 8 and 9 would be contenders!

 

The Battle is visually one of my favorite episodes, so that is probably why I love it so much. However, I think my single favorite cue in it is the opening captain's log, "Stand By." Then there is that simple but haunting theme used throughout the episode to signify the past event at Maxia. It makes a really interesting blend with Jerry Goldsmith's TMP theme in "Hello Old Friend." That's a nice, albeit short, piece. Some other stand-out cues for me are: "Hero of Maxia," "The Gift," "Caught Up," "Stargazer," "No Response," and "The Battle." For me, the music of this episode just tells the story all too well, probably because of my familiarity with it after watching it so many times.

And yeah, 8 and 9 are pretty great discs. As for great moments... there's tons of those sprinkled throughout!

Data's Day has a few, especially the theme used during his various logs to Commander Maddox. The final track "Understanding/Becoming" seals the deal with goose bumps.

Offspring starts off really impressive, but gets a little bland for me in the middle, until the end where it renews the heart strings with "Lal's Death" and that ride-off-into-the-sunset moment, "Thanks for the Memory Chips."

I absolutely love the Last 2 tracks of Q Who. That creepy early Borg theme really stands out too.

I already had some previously released tracks from Evolution, ("Double Star" is awesome) but it is nice to have it in completion now.

And of course, those several episodes with Klingon Motifs, both bitter and sweet, are easy to adore.

 

Starting from the beginning, this set ROCKS. "The Naked Now" has an awesome score, from the great Courage-inspired openings found in cues like "Captain's Log" to the driving, EPIC action cues like "Exploding Star" and "Repulsor Beam." I'm just imagining later TNG or VOY episodes scored like that...amazing.

"10100101" also has a truly epic score. "Stealing the Enterprise" is a truly epic cue, and there's also the goosebumps-inducing "Back to Order" which is very TMP-esque.

This set is truly great, and I'll have more comments later.

 

Got it today, without a fine. This is now officially the most ugly CD boxset in my collection. Damn, what an eyesore.

But the music is magnificent. Tonight I sampled some music from The Defector, The Nth Degree and The High Ground. I listened to my favorite score, Q Who in its entirety. As of tomorrow I will go through the set disc by disc beginning at disc 1.

 

I never in my wildest dreams thought we'd ever get this much Star Trek television score. Ever. We've gotten more with this set than likely we have, combined, with every other CD release over the past 3 decades.

I'm loving the guy in charge of the music now; I read an article when the TWOk expanded came out, that the new head of that division was a big fan of scores and especially Trek ones, and was the driving force for these releases. It's fantastic and I want to thank him.

I've got a massive collection of Trek music already, all the scores you can find, but this... just wow. Totally wow.

Now I hope we get some new material from DS9 and VGR as well. I'd be fine with some "Best Of" sets even -- 2 or 3 CDs covering the best of unreleased DS9, and then 2 or 3 for VGR.

 

Why would you think that?

Look closely at the set. The color scheme matches that of the DVDs. The photos on each disc and season correspond with photos published from their corresponding seasons. The font used and the emblem on the box all match appropriately with the "TNG era."

Being that there are 491 individual tracks on this set, I'm quite ok with the fact that each case is simply photos and track listings.

I guess my big question is ... if you find it so ugly, what exactly where you expecting?

 

I live in Europe, and our DVD packaging was completely different from the US release.

My thoughts exactly. Just because I didn't like the packaging, doesn't change my enthusiasm for its content.

 

I would love to have more DS9 music. Heres hoping...

 

^^I for one wouldn't mind a similar box set along the lines of the Ron Jones project, for some of Jay Chattaway's work. I very much feel that he, like Jones, was sometimes wildly creative but that his creativity was stymied by oppressive overlord Rick Berman. His early TNG scores are superb, as are his later DS9 and Voyager scores ("Call to Arms", "Scorpion" and "Endgame" immediately spring to mind).

 

I've been working my way through season 1. The first disc is a bit unsatisfying; there's some interesting stuff in those first few episodes, but mostly Jones just reuses the Courage fanfare and the Goldsmith theme over and over, and it gets a little repetitive. As the season goes on, though, his scores become richer and he develops more melodies of his own. I just listened to "When the Bough Breaks," which is one of my favorite scores of the season and has perhaps the fullest, most extended melodies of his TNG scores so far. And of course that means the classic "Heart of Glory" score is next.

What's interesting is that I'm generally not so fond of electronic scores, but I'm okay with Jones's use of electronics. I think it's because he found an interesting electronic sound, one that generally didn't sound quite so cheesy as electronic music often does. And also because he wasn't trying to pass off electronics as a substitute orchestra the way so many scores do these days, but was just letting them be their own distinctive voice added to the texture of the orchestra. And because he came up with beautiful melodies, whereas a lot of the electronic TV scores in later decades were a lot less melodic and more atmospheric.

Still, my favorite parts of Jones's work are when he really cuts loose with the full orchestra. He does great stuff there. I'd love to have a collection of his DuckTales scores.

 

I also find the season 1 scores to be quite repetative and sometimes too long. But there are some gems like "11001001" and "When The Bough Breaks". Then there are a lot of scores that offer some fantastisc tracks between the mediocrity, like "Skin of Evil" with its brilliant closing track "Tasha's Farewell."

I'm at disc 6 at the moment and the "Q Who" score is obviously a highlight of the entire set. It was recorded using the largest orchestra ever on the show and the action cues are magnificent. But the entire score is very melodic. There's enough material in those 25 minutes for 3 or 4 episodes.

 

Personally, I love the use of the Goldsmith and Courage themes, and wish they had continued throughout the series. But, that's not to say that I don't enjoy the ones that used them sparingly or never. I even enjoyed the rejected "Booby Trap" action cue that had almost a pop/dance flair, but the one they used instead was enjoyable as well.

 

I have nothing against the use of the themes themselves; indeed, I really enjoyed the things Jones did with the Goldsmith theme, since I always regretted that we didn't get more Goldsmith movie scores following up on TMP (and his later scores didn't make very heavy use of the TMP theme). But the first few scores tended to overuse the Courage fanfare and not have as much melodic variety as subsequent scores. Basically, the quality of the scores is improving as I go, and that's hardly a criticism.

 

"Yar is Down" (Tasha's death scene) from "Skin of Evil" still brings me to tears, after more than two decades. Unfortunately, the rest of the SoE score (aside from the finale) is kind of repetitive.

"We'll Always Have Paris," with its budget-saving mostly-electronic ensemble, is definitely the weakest score of the first season. I doubt I'll be revisiting this one much.

All in all, I'm finding that Jones's TNG work, at least in the first season, was heavier on the electronics than I'd realized, and I'm getting a little tired of that aspect of it. I'd also forgotten how many of his TNG melodies were played at very high pitch. I tend to prefer music with a lot of baritone and bass in it.

 

I've found that, much as I love the music, I need to take this in short bursts. After awhile, I get a little tired of it and have to listen to something else. But it's such a great set to have, a lot of my favorite TNG scores were from the first half of the series and mostly because of Ron Jones.

 

Like many recent Film Score Monthly albums (including Star Trek II and III), I was involved with this one and I just wanted to thank everyone who has purchased this set for supporting these kinds of specialty releases. A lot of hard work goes into them and it's nice to know that people are buying and enjoying them.

 

Seriously, thank YOU. I have so few "holy grails" left now, but these were huge.