Soap fans tend to be loyal to specific series, although they might venture to another when favourite actors – trapped playing villains, heroes, hussies, or princesses – move to a rival show (unless the hairstyles or colour change is just plain blacchy).I’ve never watched Days of Our Lives – just couldn’t get into it – so the test for a non-fan is whether the music stands on its own.
My own comparison, in terms of the use (or non-use) of in-house music librairies is General Hospital, which I watched in High School and gave up on when older characters kept making the same dumb marital blunders, teen starlets were given feeble kidnapping or mystery talew, and the pattern of story threads were repeated using newer and younger actors, and older ones were seen once a week, waving behind desks to ensure veteran fans 'classic characters' weren’t completely useless, and the actors were still alive.
I don’t recall GH actually having original music during the late eighties because I remember hearing cues from John Carpenter's Christine and Jerry Goldsmith's Basic Instinct used instead for suspense motifs and character motifs. Maybe it was laziness, a smaller music budget, or maybe the producers felt they could get better quality music if they went to a film library instead. The result for my ears was horribly distracting, particularly when Goldsmith’s Basic Instinct theme – which is eerie and beautiful – was played again and again in chopped up, badly looped versions.
Days was different, because they’ve had original music for at least 10 years, and that’s what La-La Land’s 2-disc set carries: suites of expertly edited themes by composers Ken Corday and D. Brent Nelson. Check out the review, because the set's a good sampler release that also flatters the underrated composers.
I couldn’t get into the good/bad Marlena and old/new John Black nonsense, but at least the wonky characters inspired the composers quite well.
- MRH
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