craigb
I prefer the works of John Williams personally.
(Though Danny Elfman has done some really good stuff as well!)
Danny has done more Cartoon Music than most anyone you ever heard!
JW is not an "original" composer, per se. His "Star Wars" stands out nicely, however, after one or two pieces, the rest of the Soundtrack is quite a bit of filler for the film, and not clear-cut music that was meant to be heard, and it was obvious that Lucas was only interested in a big blow title to catch audiences unawares, as that theme blared really loud in theaters that even had speakers UNDER your seats, when it first came out ... so you would feel like it was a bigger experience, and get a huge rush off the sound effects, which were dispersed really well over the whole theater, a throwback to many bands already using the "quadraphonic" sound on stage for audiences to get excited.
The stuff I mentioned, is much more ... way up there ... and not just some kind of theme music for 3 minutes, like most soundtracks are. Bernard Herrmann soundtracks, can all be listened to separate from the films, as Hitchcock many times only used a portion of it, and sometimes lowered the volume of the rest and then cut it off as the scene continued. When you hear the Sci-Fi soundtracks by Herrmann, you will be surprised ... it is masterful music, by an obvious composer, instead of a fill'er jingle writer.
Massive difference.
You will see/learn about this, when you listen to Carl Stalling CD's away from the cartoons ... you can't even mane the cartoon the piece of music was for ... and you've seen them all!
That's the greatest trick of all in music ... fool your listener into thinking nothing, or something else. But JW's work has suffered from a director that did not know how to use music at all, and Lucas is not a good example in that area at all, when compared to the masters in that area, like David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, Nicolas Roeg, Werner Herzog, and a handful of others that have strewn the music they used so well, that you almost thought that it was a total part of the film itself! And in all cases, most of the music was its own alone. But try listening to Maurice Jarre ... and realize where that famous theme came from! You probably have not seen that film, as it is not exactly an action film, and its focus is so strong on the acting, as to almost make it boring for many a viewer, specially in America, where a couple of reviewers hated the film, but the Academy got its revenge ... the film took many honors! Maurice Jarre, btw, is the father of the younger Jarre (Oxygene) and is also the only composer in film history to win an Oscar with conventional music and then also win an Oscar with completely digital composition later ... no one else has ever done that in film history.
It ought to tell you what is more important ... and how the music is a difference maker! Not just an addon!