Alf Clausen, the award-winning film and television composer, will no longer compose music for "The Simpsons," the BBC reported. Clausen was the man behind the “The Simpsons” score for 27 fruitful years. With Clausen's dismissal, many have wondered what really went wrong that led to the end of Clausen’s career in the longstanding TV Series.
Clausen told Variety that he was informed by Richard Sakai, the producer of “The Simpsons,” that the show now needs “a different kind of music.” This really took a hit on Clausen.
Alf Clausen’s heydays
In 1997 and 1998, Alf Clausen gained popularity in the music industry right after he won two Emmy awards.
In the early 90's, he had 21 nominations for the longstanding TV series. Early in the 1990-91 season, the acclaimed composer scored over 560 episodes of “The Simpsons”.
WITH REASON, HOMER IS SAD...
— warrior666 (@uefa24) August 31, 2017
YOU'RE THE BEST COMPOSER OF #TheSimpsons EVER!
EVERYBODY LOVES YOU, ALF 👏👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/hODPbFaXgh
Clausen was nominated for Emmy awards for 30 times. He is undoubtedly considered the most-nominated composer in the history of Emmy awards. Moreover, all the music he had created for “The Simpsons” won him five Annie Awards. These major awards added to his popularity. Alf Clausen is undeniably among the highly esteemed creators of animation music in TV history because of the considerable time he spent scoring for “The Simpsons”.
In May, Fox aired the season finale of season 28 of “The Simpsons”. Unfortunately, this was Clausen's last episode.
Real reason for Alf Clausen's dismissal
Speculations concerning the dismissal of Clausen are now swarming the social media. One reason that everybody mostly likely believes involves the cost-cutting measures by Fox, which has been going on in the company for a couple of years.
Ironically though, “The Simpsons” is among the programs that earned enormous profits for the company. Many think it is rather unfair to remove someone who has helped in bringing big profits to Fox.
Cost of Clausen's music
Art should never come cheap. According to a report by Variety, a thirty five-piece orchestra was always used by the composer on a weekly basis.
This is, in fact, what Matt Groening, the creator of the “Simpsons” would really want right from the start of the show. Apparently, these gargantuan expenses would run into millions of dollars spent by the company annually. These expenses comprised the sky-high costs of recording studios, lavish musicians, and amazing orchestration.
Season 29 premieres on October 1. Nobody knows who will replace the veteran composer.