How to handle music changes
I know that this debate has run and run, and been done to death, but I thought some of you might like to compare how Fox handled the music changes on "Roswell".
I got all three box sets for mother's day (in England it was Mothering Sunday today, 26th March), and inside the first is this letter from the exec producer....
Quote:
TO THE FANS OF ROSWELL
As you watch these episodes you will notice that many of the original songs have been replaced with alternative choices. If you're like me, your first reaction might be outrage.
I often fight the assumption that change is good. But, in this case, I was faced with a difficult decision, which was that for budgeting reasons we either had to replace a lot of songs (the license fees are very expensive) or not release the DVD. Spurred on by the belief that the fans of the show would choose to have the DVD released, I set out to make the
best possible {my italics} version of the DVD with the resources we had.
As often happens in creative pursuits, what started out as a roadblock turned into an opportunity. After all, one of the seminal notions behind the music in Roswell was to seek out new music, music about to break. In the spirit of that, I assembled the original Roswell sound team, including Post Producer Tracey D'Arcy, Music Supervisors Kevin Edelman and Alex Patsavas, and Music Editors Marty Wereski and Scott Pettigrew.
What we discovered was a lot of great, exciting, new music and many, many nice surprises. We found that many of the new songs work as well, if not better, than the originals and, at least for me, introduced me to a whole new crop of musicians on the verge of breaking. Of course, there is a lot we didn't replace - All of Joseph Williams' original score remains intact as well as
certain songs we felt we couldn't replace under any circumstances. Dido still sings the main theme (which is still reprised in the final episode), Sarah McLachlan still plays when Max heals Liz and Dave Matthews still serenades us out of the pilot episode. And now, with very few exceptions, I am more excited to watch these versions of the episodes than the originals. So I suppose that I have to grudgingly admit that, in fact, change is good. At least it can be. I hope you agree.
Jason Katims
Executive Producer
Roswell
End quote
To me, this approach is far more respectful to the fans than what Universal did to its USA market.
What do you think?