Back to the Future—er, Past

I have been consistently and notoriously behind the times since, well, forever. (Maybe that’s a contradiction in terms.) I have yet to purchase an iPod or any form of portable audio device, unless you count the Walkman I owned a couple hundred years ago. The only reason I have a DVD player is because someone gave it to me for free. I still do my writing on a glorified Etch-A-Sketch. (Granted, it’s a bona fide computer, but not much of one.) And as you all know, I recently—or finally—purchased my first cell phone. I guess you could say I’m stuck in the past.

It may come as no surprise, then, that I bought my first video game soundtrack only last week. I’ve loved film scores for over a decade but I haven’t dabbled in any related subgenre. So yeah, purchasing my first game score was pretty exciting. I felt like I had burst onto the stage of the Modern Age.

The CD is Mercenaries, composed by Michael Giacchino and Chris Tilton. And yes, it rocks. Great themes and orchestration, and some magnificent choral writing as well. (Click here to listen to a five-minute suite from the score, the second half of which includes a sampling of the choral work.)

Admittedly, the album has been out for a couple of years. I could have been one of the first to preorder the CD and get a copy autographed by Chris Tilton himself. I mean, I listened to the online suite at the La-La Land Records site and really liked what I heard. So why did I wait until now? Well, it was on sale for the month of September only. You see, money talks. More appropriately, the prospect of paying less money is what did the talking. So did word-of-mouth praise for the album (and the fact that I’ve had some interaction with Chris Tilton), but the reduced price is what did it for me. Money well spent, let me tell ya.

So, that’s my music plug for the month.