Some of you might have noticed a little box from Crowdscience popping up in the lower right corner. Don’t worry, it’s harmless. I am simply trying to find out who you are and why you are here basically. It pops up at random times and it lookes like this:

If you see it, please feel free to complete the survey and give me some personal feedback so I can make the site even better. 6 people have taken it so far and it has proven to be very valuable already but we need more, a lot more to get an insight into who you are and how to make the site better for everyone.

If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please feel free to do so by clicking here (you will be seeing our front page but with the little box popping up in the right hand corner). Take the survey and please add your feedback at the end of it.

Thanks so much for participating!

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Welcome to the first of 12 summaries I plan to write in 2010. I thought it would be nice with a summary post of each month that has passed to celebrate what we love the most: film music. Soundtrack Geek isn’t just Soundtrack Geek anymore, we now have Soundtrack Fans and also Soundtrack Geek Game Music. In addition we are on Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed and a lot more places, but this will not be a summary of everything, that would probably be a 10.000 word post and you wouldn’t want that, trust me.

At Soundtrackgeek.com we had 7 reviews:
Daybreakers by Christopher Gordon
The Book of Eli by Atticus Ross
The Spy Next Door by David Newman
A Single Man by Abel Korzeniowski & Shigeru Umebayashi
The Hurt Locker by Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders
Leverage by Joseph LoDuca
Legion by John Frizzell

At Soundtrack Geek Game Music we had 1 review:
Army of Two: The 40th Day by Tyler Bates

At Soundtrack Fans the following happened in January:
We have now 486 members!
63 new soundtrack videos for you enjoyment including samples from 2010 scores such as A Single Man, Armored, Army of Two The 40th Day and Mass Effect 2. Also uploaded was 10 Harold Faltermeyer videos and 15 Jeremy Soule videos. Click here to sign up and join the fun! It’s 100% free!

Other Articles:
If you haven’t done it yet, check out the comprehensive list of the top 73 scores as judged by the film music websites. Some very interesting reading and would suggest that Up by Michael Giacchino who as won 3 awards so far is in fact not in the top 10. If you want some healthy discussion, read the interesting article by Steven Anthony called “On Film or Standalone“.

Did you know that the legend, YES LEGEND, Harold Faltermeyer is back? He will write and compose music for Kevin Smith’s latest project Cop Out. I feel the excitement! That’s why I wrote the article: 15 Reasons Why Harold Faltermeyer Will Rule in 2010. If you love Harold F (Who doesn’t?), then you need to check that out.

In award news, Michael Giacchino won 3 for 3 with Up starting with Critics Choice Awards & Golden Globe Awards and then recently Grammy Awards. IFMCA, BAFTA and Academy Awards next? Speaking of International Film Music Critics Awards, here are the nominees this year (and yes, Up by Michael Giacchino is there again)

We also revealed that Alexandre Desplat will do the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows while The Wolfman is pleased that Danny Elfman is back on board!

So what will happen in February at Soundtrackgeek? We will do a lot of reviews!

Definitely:
Armored by John Murphy
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus by Mychael Danna & Jeff Danna
The Road by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
Between The Folds by Gil Talmi
Extraordinary Measures by Andrea Guerra
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lighning Thief by Christophe Beck
The Descent: Part 2 by David Julyan
Tooth Fairy by George S. Clinton
Mass Effect 2 by Jack Wall
She, A Chinese by John Parish
Leap Year by Randy Edelman

Maybe (Depending on availability of the scores and time):
Dark Void by Bear McCreary
Uncharted 2 by Greg Edmonson
Halo: Legends by Tetsuya Takahashi, Yasuharu Takanashi
Edge of Darkness by Howard Shore
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan/Razor by Bear McCreary
The Wolfman by Danny Elfman

Hope to see you all in February and beyond! Happy listening!

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Let The Games Begin!

Did you know that Soundtrackgeek.com now has it’s own game music section? Well it does and it’s spectacular, or at least it will be.

I have long been toying with the idea. I’ve asked around and a lot of people are missing the game music section because I didn’t have any before. Sure there were the random game reviews by Steven, Jon and occasionally myself. Sometimes there would even be newsworthy item to post, but it’s definitely something that needed improvement. In the beginning, Soundtrackgeek.com was mostly about movie soundtracks and movie scores. Lately it’s been all about movie soundtrack plus a little game music put in for good measure.

with the new Game Music section, it will only be about game music and I hope you all treat it kindly. I was wondering if I should just add more games stuff in the normal site, but I realized that I wanted to keep it a little bit separate. I thought about buying a separate domain (I still might), but I decided to keep it inside the family. No it’s not gamegeek or something like that. I have simply called it (drumroll…) Game Music! Yes I know, genius! You can find it quite easily by clicking my link in the menu bar (I will probably add more visibility to this section soon), or you can click here: Game Music.

Right now I have added 3 articles about Monkey Island, Modern Warfare 2, Top 20 Game Soundtracks and more will be forthcoming. Game Music deserves it’s own place and now it has on Soundtrackgeek.com

See you all there and please let me know in the comments section what you think about it!

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Just a test. Seems I have had some problems today with posting, so I’m doing a test post. Nothing to be alarmed of

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Hi everyone!

It’s been a long time since I “spammed” you with messages from your favorite social network Soundtrack Fans, but here I am again with some awesome news!

Ning, the host of Soundtrack Fans has opened up Pandora’s Box, or pretty close. They have opened up their own “app store”, except everything is free and integrated with Ning.

The next time you go to Soundtrack Fans, you will notice a few small differences, mainly with the menus. They have changed! Oh no!

Oh yes!

There are secrets buried in those menus, so have some fun exploring, but since I am no fun I will reveal what’s there.

You might notice that members, events, photos, videos, groups and forum are gone, but don’t panic! It’s all there in submenus. Members and events are under the Main menu while photos and videos are under Soundtrack Content and groups and forum are under the Discuss tab.

You will notice a brand new tab called Soundtrack Tweets. It’s one of those spanking new apps I was talking about. We are all on Twitter, right? RIGHT!? *panicking*. Under this tab you will find the latest buzz about soundtracks right here in our own little network. How cool is that!

Wait…. there’s more!

Under tab nr. 5 which is called Discuss, you will not only find your favorite forums or groups but something brand new! It’s not shiny, but it’s pretty darn cool. Share It! Is just what we need to be able to keep tabs on what’s happening in the world of film music. You know Digg, right? The site where you can submit and vote on stories. Well now you can do it within Soundtrack Fans, but the kicker is that it’s all about film music news! So the moral of the story is: You find anything interesting about film music, please share the story!

Well this is exciting, but wait… I wasn’t planning it, but this is becoming a trilogy. Under the Discuss tab there’s a fourth option with the mysterious name Vox Box. It’s a wonderful application to create and answer polls and suggestions! So keep creating wonderful suggestions and polls for everyone to see!

There’s a limit however. We can only have 4 apps at a time, but I would love to hear your suggestions on what to add next. Come see the Ning App directory here: http://about.ning.com/ningapps.php and then tell me what you want to have. Personally I am lurking on the review app so you can write your own reviews, but it’s currently not working… doh!

We are now 355 members strong and currently have over 1600 film music videos for you to see. I hope this “spammy” message didn’t ruin your day completely

So what are you waiting for? Go visit Soundtrack Fans and have a look!

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I guess you are, or you wouldn’t be reading this now would you? The reason I ask is because I have just launched a social network for Soundtrack Fans. Think of it like Facebook meets Soundtrackgeek, add a little MySpace and a dash of YouTube, oh and Last.FM.

There are many reasons why I have done this, and in fact Soundtrack Fans has been online for a while. Over 6 months in fact. I haven’t touched it n a while, because I have had so much on my plate, but there are already members there as you can see in my sidebar to the right below the recent posts.

So why now? Why create it over 6 months ago and just leave it dormant? Well something happened today that made me take action and it was the dreaded YouTube. As you may know, I’ve been using YouTube to make videos and previews of all the soundtrack reviews etc. Well NO MORE! You heard me! I have a love/hate relationship with YouTube. I love all the great stuff you can find there, but when they don’t play by their own rules they can be troublesome. In fact this morning when I logged on, I couldn’t and here’s why: Soundtrackgeek on YouTube. Did you notice the nice text in mesmerizing pink? This account is suspended. Wonderful I thought! Well it so happens that someone reported me (I won’t mention names) and YouTube without warning just suspended my account.

So what does it mean? It means my almost 400 videos are gone, so are all the previews on my reviews and my old score of the day project. Which brings me back to Soundtrack Fans. Within that site, I have about 1000MB of storage space for videos, so I will reupload everything I can and use the videos from my own social network on Soundtrackgeek.com.

Here’s the best part. You can upload videos too! In fact, I want you to. Just go to SoundtrackFans.Com and join and create discussions, upload music and videos, create groups and make friends with soundtrack fans as yourself. So I ask again… Are you a soundtrack fan? If the answer is yes go to:

SOUNDTRACKFANS.COM

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Another reviewer for Soundtrackgeek.com. Read her intro below and read the exciting and comprehensive review of Alien³ tonight!

Mina Rhodes was far too young to be watching Alien 3 when she did, and she watched it many times! Still a good few years off reaching double figures, repeat viewings of the unholy union of David Fincher’s imagery and Elliot Goldenthal’s score was to have a profound effect, and a soundtrack geek was born.

Nowadays her love for that score is still unlike any other; its effects on her are as longstanding as those it had on the film scoring landscape upon release. Being a soundtrack geek also brings with it the frustration of the film score community’s general ignorance regarding her favorite composer, Kenji Kawai. If you’re reading this and have no idea who she’s talking about you soon will!

Besides Goldenthal and Kenji, she is also a huge fan of:

Philip Glass, Angelo Badalamenti, Wojciech Kilar, Michael Nyman, Trevor Jones, Mychael Danna, Alexandre Desplat, Ko Otani, Jerry Goldsmith & Alberto Iglesias

Her all time top ten scores are:

“AVALON” by Kenji Kawai
“Alien³” by Elliot Goldenthal
“The Hours” by Philip Glass
“Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Wojciech Kilar
“The Piano” by Michael Nyman
“The Dark Crystal” by Trevor Jones
“Angel’s Egg” by Yoshihiro Kanno
“Birth” by Alexandre Desplat
“Rosemary’s Baby” by Krzysztof Komeda
“The Rapture” by Thomas Newman

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Soundtrack Geek wishes you a happy new year!

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The staff of Soundtrack Geek wishes you a great soundtrack Christmas!

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Congratulations everyone, because this is not about Soundtrack Geek or me. Exactly 1 year ago, my crazy ideas transformed into reality. To be honest I didn’t know what I was doing at the time except that I knew I wanted to write about my passion and connect with great people and maybe one day talk to my favourite composers. I can happily say that all my goals have been met and more. This year I have written about my favourite subject, connected with great people sharing my passion and also talked to a few composers who I truly respect. It has been an awesome year!

A few months back, before the summer months I was going through a personal dilemma. Keeping up this site took so much of my time that I seriously considered quitting it, but instead I decided to handle my time better, find ways to improve my methods and enjoy it a lot more than I did. I guess I lost the plot a little. As great as it is to be able to write about what I love, listen to wonderful new scores and talk to composers and friends about my passion, it is really hard work, especially if you forget why you are doing it.

Why am I doing it? I have come to realize that I need to do this. I love writing; I love film scores, and so combining those two are perfect. I just have to keep things in perspective a little and not feel pressured to do it. If I feel pressure, then the quality will suffer and I can’t enjoy what I do. It is just a hobby, not a full-time job meaning I have to make a living and I have to make time for my wife, my family and friend and my job. By doing all of this, I have gotten better at life believe it or not. I have gotten better at handling time and pressure plus my writing skills are always improving. Remember my first review? Resident Evil: Extinction. That was a horrible review, but I had to start somewhere. I was experimenting a lot and didn’t quite know what I was going to do with this site. Now I have a great understanding in how all this works and what I want to do. The next year will be exciting as I have a few other projects regarding soundtracks that will get its premiere. I am writing my 2nd year anniversary post as we speak and in 1 year from now I will see if it went the way I thought it would go.

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