I don't know whether that comparison is accurate.
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As to the quality of the melodies, they are simple but on par with the Vangelis, Poledouris and Morricone stuff.
It's hard to draw a clear comparison since its kind of a weird hybrid of different things. I think ultimately my problem with it is that it is too much of a background soundtrack and after listening through the whole album a few times while doing something else it leaves you with few memorable parts. Aside from that Its more or less on the same level as the three you mentioned. Film BGM usually has trouble standing on its own because by its very purpose is in a passive supporting role that should not distract too much from the main piece.
Did you have any particular works in mind that you were comparing it to?
Its debatable if these are even valid comparisons but i was mostly thinking of:
- Persian or Islamic traditional music since this album and some of Fudali's previous works have somewhat of an oriental vibe to several parts.
- European "early music" (which also has a strong oriental influence from certain time periods) since this glimpse of the past seems to be the nostalgic theme of a lot of his work.
I wouldn't sell this album short, nor glorify "folk music" (which is generally rock-infused "reconstructions" of the past, always a dangerous task) as all that complex or interesting.
All old music needs to be reconstructed and there tends to be a huge variability in the quality. There was some other discussion about the importance of production vs composition on the forum. Really composition, interpretation and production all scale off each other as if they were exponents to a base number (the value of the composition). Think of someone with an annoying voice trying to sing opera, it doesn't matter how genius the original composition was its still going to be irritating to listen to.
Most Neo-Folk compositions seem to always be missing some character that the real compositions from the various older periods had. It almost always fails to have the right atmosphere and that mental time traveling effect (software synths sure as hell dont help the situation much either). Maybe its just too hard to wrap your head around the way of thinking and aesthetics of a time period when you're 200+ years out of touch.
I guess a lot of the character and what makes a piece memorable comes down to the memetic qualities of some of its patterns. This seems to be what good pop music is based on - coming up with simple viral patterns that stick in peoples heads and making them want to replay/refresh the memory. Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 could be considered pop music despite being more complicated from a theoretical point of view its still pretty easy to listen to and follow along with.
If the elements of a what makes a good song remain the same across genres the question is what separates good music from bad music then? I guess bad music relies mostly on its social context to be accepted. Were listening to dubstep because its the newest thing, if you're not into it then you've just subtly excluded yourself. Or fuck i love batcave bands but i've listened to everything 200x already, sure the scene is dead but i still want more because i've internalized it, so next time someone apes one of those bands ill buy into it because theres nothing better going on. Kinda like when you think someone is lying to you but you want it to be true so badly that you just accept it anyway. Being an outsider entering a new culture/subculture tends to distort your perspective of things too. Everything seems so new and interesting at the start but eventually it wears off and you start to see all the bullshit that was under the surface come to light.