Until a few years ago there was barely a whisper of help when trying to decide which soundtracks to buy, but for some reason the last few years has seen the appearance of a several buying guides. Although there have been several editions of Gramophone's guide, the most comprehensive took the form of the Videohound guide which reviewed hundreds of scores for film, TV and the stage. It was concise, contained all the most important facts about the score, including track listings and provided an out of five bone (don't ask) rating along with a short commentary.
This second edition is, well like the last one; bit longer, has some more reviews and is organised a bit differently. The original was divided up into film soundtracks, TV soundtracks, musicals and compilations (arranged by composer/actor and then miscellaneously). This one lumps all the scores for film, TV as well as musicals together, which does make navigation a fraction more long winded. There are several indexes at the back to make finding a listing reasonably easy, although I doubt the value of being able to find scores listed by producer.
One of the biggest complaints against the original was the apparent inconsistency between the reviews which are written by several different writers, although the bulk are written by the editor, Didier C Deutsch. On the one hand there is Mr. Deutch's reviews which are more often than not extremely gushing. On the other hand there are reviews by writers such as Film Score Monthly's Jeff Bond who seems to have picked up many of the Jerry Goldsmith scores, but reviews with a generally much firmer hand. This obviously leads to inferior scores apparently getting glowing praise compared to what are generally considered classics. Quite how one might give Horner's The Name of the Rose five or Williams' much maligned (but much better than we thought, but not this good) Lost World five also and then something like Jerry's The Final Conflict (reviewed by Jeff Bond) only gets four and a half despite being considered one of his finest works. Of course there are other strange ratings such as Mr. Bond awarding all of the original Star Trek TV scores five. I' m sure they are perfectly good listening, but are they really better than Herrmann' s fabulous Vertigo which only gets four?
An extra feature of this edition is a Top Ten Essential scores listing for most of the major composers but including a few superb, but forgotten composers like Georges Delerue as well as many Golden Age composers such as Miklos Rozsa. These are obviously only a guide, but if you want to try and start an Ennio Morricone collection, it is almost impossible to choose scores from the hundreds he has written (although they are generally excellent) and so this provides a good place to start. If you know the composer, then you' ll almost certainly find problems with these lists (one of the most bizarre being that the infamous Titanic only receives 2 in the review - I didn' t think it was that bad - but is one of Horner' s top recommended scores, yet some of his superb early efforts such as Star Trek 2 are omitted).
I suppose you can complain all you like, but it is a useful reference, even if the internet is now providing us with hundreds of reviews by dozens of different reviewers. Although almost all like myself, are just fans, you do at least get to know what one reviewer likes and dislikes and so when a book of this nature contains so many curious anomalies, it is hard to know what to think. Of course it is only a guide and should not be taken as gospel, but I do feel that it is in need of bit of careful editing to try and moderate the ratings, if not the reviews themselves. Most large tomes of reviews are written by many different people, but the best ones don't use a ratings system, which is probably for the best. I feel that ratings tend to induce people to make comparisons, when of course you can' t really directly compare music in such a way. Even if you do, then you quite possibly shouldn' t. Soundtrack Express does of course use a rating system, but I do all the reviews myself and will try and ensure that if one score gets a higher rating than another that I really do think it' s better. Also, I received complaints when I stopped using a rating system and so continued use.
All in all, this is the most comprehensive book of soundtrack reviews on the market and is therefore recommended albeit with a little trepidation. Of course anyone reading this review will either know about the book already or use the internet as a primary source of information, but if you want a tome to peruse in bed while listening to your latest disc, this might be the guide for you.