Lots of people out there are hating on the score. Here's a long, in-depth review of it, by Christian Clemmensen.
http://filmtracks.com/titles/force_awakens.html
A few snippets:
You witness countless criticisms of The Force Awakens that revolve around the notion that Williams failed to write themes for the picture that you can retain in your memory after the conclusion of the film, and such comments are cheap and without perspective. Only A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, two truly transcendent, classic scores atop the "best of" lists of all time, contained game-changing themes destined to be heard in sports arenas for decades to come. While The Force Awakens, like the four previous scores in the franchise, does not reach those heights, it's arguably closer than all the others. Between the two primary new themes in The Force Awakens, you have material that is not only short and memorable in the case of the villain but flowingly lovely and inspirational in the case of the new heroine in ways that compete with the love theme from Attack of the Clones in terms of tonal majesty. Williams' ability to manipulate the level of tonality in the harmony of chords supporting his themes remains unchallenged in cinema today, no other composer capable of expressing so much dynamic range of emotion with the same set of progressions. He is the master of anticipatory bass enhancement to a theme, holding back the bass region's harmonic resonance during a theme to denote anticipation, turmoil, or immaturity in the story, the melody sounding seemingly unresolved except in specific instances of unison performances deemed worthy of resolution.
To think that a composition such as "The Jedi Steps and Finale," with its incredible end credits arrangement that is not simply an edited amalgamation, is possible from Williams in 2015 would have seemed inconceivable just ten years prior. Not only should this score's detractors remember how lucky they are to have a score of this magnitude from Williams' own pencils in the mid-2010's, but they have to recognize that The Force Awakens, by the grace of the maestro's continued undiminished excellence, is superior to damn near everything else being produced for blockbuster features of the era. It exists at the pinnacle of 2015 regardless of any controversy surrounding the film's reliance upon old formulas, and it eclipses the appeal of the prequel scores and may even surpass Return of the Jedi for some listeners.
It's a powerfully melodic and excitingly complex piece of grand artistry from an era of greatness that seems a long time ago in a movie industry far, far away.
