BOFA Standard OST Cover Art30 seconds not enough for you? Perfectly understandable. So for those of you who want just little bit more of a taste of Howard Shore’s final score in the Middle-earth Saga, iTunes has granted your wish.

The Special Edition Album of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is now up for pre-order in the iTunes US store, and along with that pre-order come 90-second samples for each track. This provides a much clearer idea of what to expect from this score – and if you ask me, the word you’re looking for is BIG. Or EPIC. Or GARGANTUAN… (you get the idea). Continue reading “‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ Soundtrack up for pre-order on iTunes US Store with 90 second samples!”

OrchestraAmazon UK has put up some fantastic samples from the Special Edition Album of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (as well as supplied us with an updated track list).

Click on the soundtrack cover below to get your first listen to Howard Shore’s magnificent score, as well as Billy Boyd’s poignant “The Last Goodbye”. Continue reading “‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ Soundtrack Samples!”

OrchestraThanks to Amazon’s France website, we now have the track list for Howard Shore’s score for the third and final Hobbit film The Battle of the Five Armies. We don’t yet know which of the tracks will be extended on the Special Edition Album, but there are definitely two bonus tracks at the end of disc two, as well as some reordering of the final tracks. Continue reading “‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ Soundtrack Album track list revealed!”

Billy nbffWe finally know Billy Boyd (Pippin from The Lord of the Rings trilogy) will be performing the end credits song for the final film set in Peter Jackson’s cinematic Middle-earth. Warner Bros. have posted their ‘For Your Consideration’ list for “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” listing all the people and categories they want Hollywood to pay attention to come Awards Season. On that list for ‘Best Original Song’ is “The Last Goodbye” written by Billy Boyd, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh, and performed by Billy Boyd. It now seems that the use of Pippin’s song “The Edge of Night” in the recently released teaser for the film was a bit of foreshadowing. That song, with the lyrics coming from the last stanza of Tolkien’s ‘A Walking Song’ and the melody written by Billy Boyd himself, demonstrates a great level of empathy on the part of Billy for the melancholic feeling at that point of “The Return of the King”. It seems almost too perfect that Billy should be called upon again to deliver what promises to be a very emotional and fitting ending to all things Middle-earth. And because it’s fun to speculate, you will notice 15 other categories listed ‘For Your Consideration’ on that list, many names familiar to us all. Who do you think might get a nomination this Awards Season?

Ring Cycle by John Cockshaw (2014).
Ring Cycle (2014) by John Cockshaw.
TheOneRing.net has previously chatted with British artist John Cockshaw, and profiled the his evocative Middle-earth landscapes.

In addition to being a Tolkien enthusiast and an artist, Cockshaw is also a film score geek. In this article he draws on the analysis of musicologist Doug Adams to reflect on how Shore deftly employs musical constructs to bring Middle-earth to our ears.
Continue reading “The Ring resounds in Middle-earth”

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.