As with any compilation with John Williams at the helm, you can expect his own themes to dominate the air. Whether this is the man's ego speaking, or simply that his music really is that great, hearing the same concert arrangements of Jaws, E.T., and Star Wars over and over again is tiring. With this album recorded in 1996, it's baffling why Williams wouldn't spice things up with a performance of Schindler's List. Also tiring on "The Hollywood Sound" is the prevailing need to cater to the soft ears of the mainstream population with geriatric performances from the collections of John Barry and Alan Menken. Certainly, the universe must surely have had its fill of the "John Dunbar Theme" from Dances With Wolves, and with the presence of the arguably more romantic Out of Africa on the same album, the later track was unnecessary. Or perhaps Williams could have arranged the two pieces into one larger Barry love-fest... not a difficult prospect given Barry's predictably static structures. If Williams had wanted to stir up the crowd, a rousing performance of Barry's The Lion in Winter would have worked. As for Alan Menken, you might have to forgive Sony and Williams for catering to the Disney dominance of the time. Menken was right at the end of his reign in 1996 anyway, though, and a snippet from Hans Zimmer's The Lion King might have done nicely. Among the older cues, the wealth of recognition is spread around a bit better. One Hitchcock, one classic fantasy, one swashbuckler for fun, one epic, and few other notable tidbits are spread around between Hollywood's most famous composers. The performances from Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather Part II are well done, though perhaps the most vivacious performance on the album is for Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Robin Hood. Still, the album is plagued by a poor sequence that follows Robin Hood with Jaws (a great performance there, however), among other problems. Not only is the album not grouped by genre, but it isn't offered in chronological order; there is simply no sense to the presentation on "The Hollywood Sound" and it kills the album's listenability. For veteran collectors, some individual performances might be of interest, but the album is aimed too directly at the mainstream to do much good as a whole.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download