Hello mister_gs.

I think the composers are who must decide the title of the track. It depends on their imagination, their feeling or a reference to the concrete scene for which the track was composed. Anyway, there are a number of scores that were never intended to be released on LP or CD and the composers didn't bother in naming the different cues. That's why these tracks refers only to the sequence or to the place they take in the movie.

I think you can have a more active or evocative listening experience when the tracks have a descriptive title, but in the case there is not a title, the best option is listening to all the tracks as a whole, just as if they were a symphony.

Greetings,
Angel

angeldibujo, March 24, 2007; 3:20 PM

The original vinyl pressing of Klute offers no track titles whatsover. The Harkit release does. I wonder if they are original production or composer titles or were given to each cue by the people at Harkit.

Same goes for Birdman Of Alcatraz. Vinyl/none. Varese CD/yes.


victoravalentine, March 24, 2007; 4:31 PM

who cares about track names... I really don't need them.
on most japanese or france or whatever country CDs you also won't be able to find any names because you don't understand the language (if you didn't learned that).
So.. hu ha what names are good for... absolutly nothing. :)

I for myself do never read the names when I listen to new CDs.

Just listen to the music and feel it and you will have your own names.


eddy

1701, March 24, 2007; 5:28 PM

IMHO track 1... is still better than eg Malcolm is Dead, XXX's death, etc.... :)

petrkocanda, March 25, 2007; 6:16 AM

Agree with the replies here....Track titles are generally made up by the composers themselves, or in some rare cases by stupid music executives. Personally, I think it's irrelevant if a track has a title/name or not....It's the music which is the important thing. I looked at that particular soundtrack listing you linked in your post, as who's to say that "Sequence 1", etc. isn't an appropriate way of naming those tracks? After all, films ARE made up of scenes, or "sequences".....Descriptive titles are really not necessary.

kriegerg69, March 25, 2007; 8:26 AM

This raises another question. A lot of times you encounter M1, M2, M3... etc. as tracknames on
promos. What does the M stand for?

chris, March 25, 2007; 1:33 PM

maybe it means "MIX" or something?
hmm

1701, March 25, 2007; 2:23 PM

For the "M" thing, I'm not sure, but sometimes it seems to refer to the movie's reels (like in Aliens Deluxe Edition booklet).

Naming the tracks is not so important in film music, as each score play generally as a whole. But I do enjoy when composers (or composers assistants) include puns or make fun with the tracks names (it's obvious on Chris Young albums, but sometimes on Goldenthal or Beltrami albums too).

milio.latimer, March 25, 2007; 2:54 PM

For example, all of Hi-Hat records's tv score releases (Heidi, Pinocchio) were named by the record company. The track titles are very vague, but it's still better than "Track 1" or "Sequenza 2".

philkws, March 25, 2007; 5:10 PM

For the "M" question: I guess "M" means "master", the finished and polished track, that is.
"M14", I think, refers to the final and used version for sequence 14 of the movie or the relevant
track on the soundtrack album.

Christian.Quatremain, March 28, 2007; 6:34 AM

This has bothered me as well. I have found some help at gracenote.com they usualy have track nmaes there.

symetristudios, April 3, 2007; 3:09 PM

Thanks for all the replys. I stilll love track names, though of course the music as a piece of art stands for itself.

The M question seems to be solved as well, and I connect to those who say that it stands for "Master".

Finally thanks to 'symetristudios' for the hint of gracenote, I'll check them out intensively.

So long

mister_gs, April 4, 2007; 12:11 PM

I prefer track names, too.

It makes searching for a specific track and the movie scene it is connected with pretty easy.
When the title of the track is formulaic, I don't care, since, as we all agree, the music is the
thing that counts.

As for Gracenote, I didn't know that they offer track names where the original CD has none.

Are we talking about untitled tracks or untagged mp3 files here?

Christian.Quatremain, April 10, 2007; 6:21 AM