| The Best of Stargate SG-1 |
| Composed by Joel Goldsmith, Richard Band, Kevin Kiner, and Dennis McCarthy |
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Produced by Joel Goldsmith, Dennis McCarthy, Kevin Kiner, and Richard Band Executive Album Producer: Neil Norman Produced for GNP Crescendo Records by Mark Banning, Chris Neel, and Ford A. Thaxton Original Stargate Theme by David Arnold Release Date: 2001 |
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| Stargate SG-1 is a show that I have heard a lot of good things about, but have not seen aside from the pilot episode. Now that MGM has started releasing nice box sets of the show (in the same vein as the excellent X-Files sets), I will have to check them out eventually. In association with the DVD release of Season 1, GNP Crescendo has also released their companion CD of the best scores from the first season. One of the more interesting things about this release is seeing just how many episodes Joel Goldsmith scored for the series. While Kevin Kiner, Richard Band, and to a lesser extent, Dennis McCarthy, all have selections from their scores, Goldsmith’s work clearly dominates the album. Considering how his original score for the pilot was completely butchered, one has to wonder whether or not he worked out his differences with the powers-that-be, or whether he just had to fulfill his contract. The most apparent aspect of the scores for Stargate SG-1 is that they are pretty much all electronically produced. Some aspects sound more natural, although I can’t really tell there are actual instruments involved or if the synth is just really good in those parts. Both Kiner and Band seem to have the worst time with it, as Goldsmith actually takes pains to make his scores sound as “real” as possible. Still, electronically synthesized music just doesn’t pack as much punch as an orchestra does and the brass sections especially suffer from this. There is nothing that I hate more than synth trumpets and they abound here, which causes some of the cues to fall a little flat. For the most part, the suites are dominated by the action music. Again, Goldsmith's music excels on the CD, even though both Kiner and Band do an admirable job with their respective cues. There are shades of First Contact in track 10 which is interesting to listen to, but occasionally the cues are not all that exciting and tend to follow the TV formula for scoring sci-fi adventure shows. The few quieter moments that do exist are somewhat interesting, and take on a whole new level when the Stargate theme is incorporated. The jazzy performance of it that exists in one of the suites is quite horrendous to my tastes, however, and should have been left alone. While Stargate SG-1 may not have the quality that the Star Trek incarnations had in the past, this is still one of the best contemporary TV sci-fi scores available. Fans of the series, or those looking to check out how Joel Goldsmith is maturing as a composer would do well to check it out. ***1/2 |
| Track Listing - Total Running Time: 68:47 | |
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