Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Another "gem" from TVT, October 12, 2005
WOW! 100 top themes...and all original! Unfortunately, "all original" by TVT standards, can sometimes mean recorded off the TV. I started out hopeful. I thought that maybe they'd actually contacted the studios and replaced a lot of their previously released material (lame covers or bad quality broadcast versions) with "original" source recordings. Aside from a couple of exceptions, the majority was pretty much what you'd expect from TVT. 100 all-time top TV themes, eh? By the looks of it, the top 100 was more a choice of availability than popularity (21 Jump Street?).
Hey TVT, how about spending some time and money and going after the authentic material. How long must we be subjected to yet another release of the "Charlie's Angels" theme with John Forsythe's narration. And what's up with the "Dynasty" theme? What happened to the main horn section? Instead of removing music tracks from a theme, how about removing all those irritating sound effects, like on "Starsky and Hutch", "The A-Team", "Fantasy Island", "MASH" etc. The Batman theme was cool and was original source material. It was nice of Film Score Monthly to do all the leg work since TVT was too lazy to do it for themselves(this version was included on the 1966 Batman movie Soundtrack released a few years ago).
Bottom line, if there are themes on this CD that you must have, then a bad version is better than no version at all. But for serious TV theme collectors, we'll just have to be satisfied with the rare TV soundtrack release from FSM or other such labels and collect the themes one CD at a time.
In response to the other reviewer,...Mr. Lowe, you don't know, Jack! Sound effects and narration on the themes may be fine when you're getting together with your drunken buddies to play "Name That Tune", but serious collectors of television music would prefer CLEAN versions of the themes.
|
|
|
48 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Docked a star for sound quality., August 25, 2005
As a fan of TV themes from way back, it's good to hear that in this compilation TVT Records finally went authentic instead of using the many "re-creations" they have issued in the past.
Now, someone needs to introduce those folks to a little bit of technology I like to call an "equalizer". The "classic" themes on this set sound mostly like someone stuck a microphone up to a TV speaker to record them. (Maybe TVT Records found the tape I made of TV themes back in the 60s?) A LOT could have been done to make the songs sound a whole lot better than they do here. And it wouldn't be inauthentic--that shrillness in so many of the old themes was installed to counteract the effect of land line distribution way back when, not because the producers wanted to pierce your ears from the inside.
A couple of inauthentic edits have been applied, too: The Mary Tyler Moore theme has the MTM logo "meow" spliced in, in place of the final note. Cute, but it doesn't work. The Addams Family theme (which suffers from too much noise reduction, btw) and The Jetsons theme have the beginning and ending themes spliced together.
With the older themes, a lot of times TVT has given us the ending theme only, which is going to sound wrong to a lot of people. You won't hear Rod Serling on the Twilight Zone theme. And I don't know what exactly went wrong with the Flinstones theme, but it ain't right.
Nitpicks? Maybe. But TVT Records wants to splash "All Original" on the cover, so I think it's fair to point out these things.
I won't argue over whether these are truly the 100 greatest TV themes. They definitely got some of the good ones. THE greatest TV theme, in my opinion, isn't here, but you can hear it at my web site (see my sig line, above).
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Perfect, but Very Good, November 12, 2009
NOTE: This review is for the product titled: All-Time Top 100 TV Themes [SOUNDTRACK]
Like the title says, this dual-disc CD was not perfect, but is very good. This is based on two fronts:
Theme collection: I think its fair to say that no one person could ever compile a comprehensive list of the top 100 theme songs due to selection preferences/bias. Further, its important to note that this is the best THEME songs, not the best shows.
Technical Audio Quality: Some tracks are studio-quality, others seemingly recorded straight off of a VCR. All of the themes are at least acceptible.
I have no regrets purchasing this CD.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
~ J.A.C. Redford
~ Eddie Albert
~ Morton Stevens
~ Classic TV Game Show Themes
, recommendations and new releases on SoundUnwound 
