“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

When Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was released in December 2011, the online film music fanbase had just calmed down from ranting and raving about the duo’s first foray into the holy realm of film scoring, The Social Network. Feelings ran high, especially after they snatched the 2011 Best Original Score Oscar from all the other honourable composers. So when Reznor announced a massive two and a half hour long 6-LP-Set for Dragon Tattoo, soundtrack critics around the world must have been completely baffled. And indeed they were… Regardless of the debatable quality of the music, the package it came…

“Maleficent” by James Newton Howard

I‘m back from my summer hiatus with kind of a surprise. If not for you, then at least for me. Because I didn’t expect to feature James Newton Howard’s Maleficent on my site at all. This one totally came out of the blue. I’ve already heard rumors that it may be the next big thing among film-score-enthusiasts, but I when I gave it a spin for myself, I was downright blown away! Two spins later I was already looking for source images and, just like this score keeps getting better and better, my custom cover series kept growing bigger and bigger. The…

“Snowpiercer” by Marco Beltrami

I‘ve read an interesting interview with Marco Beltrami the other day in which especially one quote of him stood out for me and made me think. On the question, whether he thinks that genre movies and scores would stick out if they were as offbeat as Snowpiercer, Beltrami said the following: Well Im not sure what the “genre” is for “Snowpiercer,” but yes, if every movie was an original idea and was focused on creating something new rather than imitation, than they would stick out! Even if a movie doesn’t completely work (which is not the case here), it is better to strive for…

Lost Covers, Vol. 1

I don’t know why, but a few days ago, late at night, I was thinking about all my “failed” attempts at creating well-crafted cover art. I was visiting the Final Fantasy Shrine Forums, browsing through all that awesome cover art posted there and I wondered how much time the people over there invest in this creative, time-consuming hobby. Are they as nitpicky as me? Everyone loves his own creations, otherwise we wouldn’t publish it, but for my part it sometimes degenerates a bit. I often spend hours on one single image. I’ve created one cover with thirty-three different font types,…

“True Detective” by T Bone Burnett/Various Artists

True Detective may be my TV surprise of the year so far. This HBO series is superb in every way! Be it the original characters (Nic Pizzolatto) and their portrayal (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson), or the brilliant direction (Cary Fukunaga) and stunning cinematography (Adam Arkapaw). Everyone involved with this series performs at the top of the game and I cannot recommend it highly enough. But the game-changer for me has been T Bone Burnett’s meticulous selection of songs, that are featured so prominently within each episode. He assembled a collection of songs that is utterly fantastic. Unfortunately there hasn’t been an official soundtrack album yet, neither…