Hi folks – editor of Cinemusic, Ryan here. In the past few days you might have visited this site and been warned that it was an “attack” website. Well, that’s not entirely true. Yes, Cinemusic is popular with soundtrack enthusiasts and general Googlers, but it also appears that several internet med peddlers love it too. Which is why they keep uploading malicious PHP scripts to the site to direct you to their low-priced stuff (I want to avoid using keywords). In the next few weeks the site will be undergoing a complete overhaul and an, er, injection of content (new and old!) so please bear (McCreary?) with me while I work out the kinks.

“Have you shipped a million of those things!? Ship ‘em all! We’re gonna take ‘em out a whole new door!”

They say marijuana is the gateway drug. For others, the gateway into this spiraling out-of-control expression of social misfortune slash hobby of soundtrack obsession was Danny Elfman’s life-altering score for Tim Burton’s Batman (now known as Batman ’89, because some neophytes praising the latest Batman films were not even alive in 1989). I was alive — and how — at an impressionable 12 years old when Batman rocked my world. Right now you’re wasting your precious time reading this useless, set adrift on a memory bliss, due to Elfman’s score. You never forget your first, and there are few “first scores” as memorable, important and timeless as Batman. Now, why the hell am I blathering on about Elfman’s most ubiquitous effort? Brace yourselves, because La-La Land Records, apparently tireless in their efforts to release a tantalizing soundtrack album for every day on the calendar, as dug deep into the bat caves to present a 2-CD Batman soundtrack to send true dark knight note fans into a foamy frenzy. The pinhead puppets of geekdom will no doubt gobble up copies of LLL’s set like late-night martinis. Read on the details. Read more…

Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman will be feted with BMI’s Richard Kirk Award for career achievement at the performance rights organization’s Film & Television Awards on May 19.

Portman will be the first woman to be honored with the award since the org started giving it out 25 years ago. In 1996, Portman established another precedent as the first woman to win an Oscar for original score for Emma. She also was nominated by the Academy for her music in The Cider House Rules (1999) and Chocolat (2000). Her other credits include Nicholas Nickleby, The Joy Luck Club and The Manchurian Candidate plus such TV pics as HBO’s Grey Gardens. Read more…

Via TheWrap.com on Emmy Awards rule changes:

…in a crushing blow to theme song geeks, the Academy is getting rid of the main title them category. Somewhere, Danny Elfman is pissed.

Effective for the 2010-2011 awards year, the Main Title Theme category will be eliminated and replaced with a new category, “Music Composition for a Nonfiction Program.” Details about the placement of main title theme achievements are still being discussed by the Music PGEC.

This one loomed over the collective film music nerdom like a humming behemoth from space, but La-La Land has finally announced they are releasing a whopping 5,000 copies of David Arnold’s sci-fi action score for (am-I-the-only-person-who-notices-how-shitty-this-movie-is?) Independence Day as a 2-CD set, effectively more than doubling the original album (hurriedly issued by RCA Victor back in 1996, when I still had hope for the future). The cat was essentially out of the bag thanks to Mr. Arnold, who in the middle of sending out a barrage of nonsensical messages into the Twitterverse, revealed La-La’s master plan. Faster than a virus can be uploaded from a Mac to an alien spaceship, word spread and mouths foamed.

As if releasing one calamitous blockbuster score on the same day wasn’t enough, the La-La-lers have also announced they are re-issuing in complete stereo John Williams’ The Poseidon Adventure. You may remember that Film Score Monthly first issued this title (thought not entirely in stereo sound) which quickly sold out. If you were angling for one on eBay, put a stop on that PayPal transfer and order up what is promised to be a glossed up edition. Read on for the blurbage… Read more…

Composer Christopher Lennertz forwarded me this note about an exciting project for a worthy cause. Head over to Facebook and join the Hollywood Helping Haiti group for further details.

A Symphony of Hope: The Haiti Project

Many of the worlds top composers are coming together to write and record a new symphonic work that will be available on both CD and DVD to music lovers around the world. All proceeds from this project will go to Hands Together in order to help the people of Haiti. The recording will take place in May of 2010 in Los Angeles and will be available this summer. Read more…

New York Magazine wonders where the trailers and promos for Warner Bros. upcoming comic-book adaptation Jonah Hex are. Detailing the troubled production, they focus almost entirely on the situation surrounding the music. Director Jimmy Hayward ported his Horton Hears a Who! composer John Powell over to Hex, to collaborate with heavy metallers Mastodon.

“The band had been brought in by Hayward to collaborate on the score with Horton’s composer John Powell back in September 2009. However, the re-shoots and subsequent reediting meant Powell, who was already booked for Tom Cruise’s Knight and Day and Doug Liman’s Valerie Plame pic Fair Game, had to leave. “There was no animosity,” says Hinds. “He was just like, ‘If you haven’t figured out what you’re doing cinematically, I gotta go.’”

Read more…

Matthew Vaughn’s profane and violence-loaded comic-book adaptation Kick-Ass is all out of bubble-gum on April 16th, when it takes names at the North American box office. Accompanying Vaughn’s indie-geek-cred visuals is an original score with contributions from no less than four composers (John Murphy, Henry Jackman, Marius De Vries, Ilan Eshkeri–who scored Vaughn’s Layer Cake and Stardust), and an additional cue from Danny Elfman (“Walk To Rasul’s”)! There’s a mix of classical, contemporary pop-punk, electronic, and standard ballads (Elvis singing “Battle Hymn of The Republic”!). The soundtrack album, while featuring exactly no score material, is fairly comprehensive. 14 of the songs that appear in the film are included and are available digitally on iTunes (from Polydor) and on CD at Amazon.com from Phantasm Imports. Read more…

Gird your wallets, folks, because soundtrack labels are working hard to separate you from your hard earned bucks (or monthly welfare checks, whatever the sad case may be). Here’s a rundown of what’s available in limited numbers now and what’s due in in the coming weeks.

Film Score Monthly:
White Dog – Ennio Morricone (3000 units)
Lalo Schifrin: The Cincinnati Kid (5 Disc Set) – Lalo Schifrin (2000 units)

Intrada:
Cervantes – Les Baxter (1200 units)
Billie / Popi – Dominic Frontiere (1000 units)

Kritzerland:
The Man Who Would Be King – Maurice Jarre (1000 units Sold Out!)

La-La Land Records:
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – Miles Goodman (1200 units)
Dutch – Alan Silvestri (1200 units)
Speechless – Marc Shaiman (1200 units – delayed)
Eraser (Expanded) – Alan Silvestri (3000 units)
Dragonslayer – Alex North (3000 units)

Perseverance Records:
The Runestone – David Newman (1200 copies)

Tadlow:
The Message / Lion of The Desert (2CD) – Maurice Jarre (2000 copies)

Varese Sarabande:
The Goonies – Davie Grusin (5000 units)
The Spiral Road – Jerry Goldsmith (3000 units) Read more…