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I was getting some great advice on the World Music thread, so I thought I'd start a similar one about soundtracks.
First off, what I'm not looking for: I don't want any soundtracks that are just collections of the pop music played in the movie as an excuse to sell a soundtrack (e.g. Spiderman). Also, no collections of oldies that the director likes (e.g. the Wes Anderson films).
What I am looking for: Music of any genre composed (or at least arranged) by a single person specifically for a film. Compilations are fine also, provided that they are actually an integral part of the film's plot, AND were written for the film (e.g. Strictly Ballroom).
Here are some of my favourites:
-The aforementioned Strictly Ballroom -The Fugitive by James Newton Howard (a great mix of orchestral and jazz with legend Wayne Shorter on sax) -Twin Peaks (tv series, not movie) by Angelo Badalamenti -Superfly by Curtis Mayfield (some of the best funk/soul ever recorded) -Tomorrow Never Dies by David Arnold (not a great movie, but the techno/orchestral mix is fresh and exciting) -Charade by Henry Mancini -Pee Wee's Big Adventure by Danny Elfman -Gattaca by Michael Nyman (a recent favorite) -Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass (a landmark in minimalism) -Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by Tan Dun with Yo-Yo Ma -A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guraldi (the best Christmas album ever made, and some legendary jazz in itself) -And finally, the two best Disney soundtracks of all time, "The Jungle Book" by I-don't-know-who (but performed in part by Louis Prima) and "Robin Hood", by Roger Miller.
And, although it's breaking my own rules, I have to give an honorable mention to Stanley Clarke's collection of soundtrack music called At the Movies.
Okay, that's not half of the good soundtrack music I have, but it's good to get the list started. If you agree with any of these feel free to second them. If you disagree, feel free to tell me why. And if your favorite soundtracks don't belong to movies (video games for example), so much the better. Otherwise, add your own favorites. And thanks in advance for the good leads.
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Here we go, for a fun mix, pick and choose. All here are gems:
Legends of the Fall (James Horner) Spitfire Grille (James Horner) Princess Mononoke (Joe Hisaishi) Spirited Away (Joe Hisaishi) Raiders of the Lost Ark (John Williams) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (John Williams) E.T. (John Williams) The Empire Strikes Back (John Williams) Black Beauty (Danny Elfman) Batman (Danny Elfman) Willow (James Horner) Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris) The Postman (James Newton Howard) Unbreakable (James Newton Howard) Dinosaur (James Newton Howard) Gladiator (Hans Zimmer) As Good As It Gets (Hans Zimmer) the Prince of Egypt (Hans Zimmer) Gettysburg (Randy Edelman) Dragonheart (Randy Edelman) Gods and Generals (John Frizzel/Randy Edelman) Lionheart (Jerry Goldsmith) Alien (Jerry Goldsmith) Total Recall (Jerry Goldsmith) Forrest Gump (Alan Silvestri) Back to the Future (Alan Silvestri) Contact (Alan Silvestri) Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menkin) Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore) The Two Towers (Howard Shore)
posted
Great list, Taalcon. I wanted to reply to it.
As long as you got us on the topic of Jerry Goldsmith, one of the most prolific soundtrack composers of all time, I wanted to add my favorite of his soundtracks to the list, which is Papillon. It's one of his first, to an old Dustin Hoffman/ Steve McQueen prison movie. The movie is interminable, but the soundtrack is great.
And while we're on the topic of Star Trek composers (I'm sure we all know that Goldsmith composed the ST:TNG theme), I wanted to add my favorite Star Trek soundtrack, which is Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country by Cliff Eidelman.
And although I have a good sized stack of John Williams, and love nearly all of it, my favorite is Schindler's List.
Finally, I wanted to second the LOTR soundtracks by Howard Shore. Good call. Those are some of the best soundtracks I've heard, and they get better every time I hear them.
That's all from me.
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The only sountracks I really know are anime soundtrack, but I'll mention some others.
The Rocky Horror Picture show soundtrack's hilarious... Oh Brother where art thou, it's country music but I like it! Ohmiga!!
OK, here's some anime ones.. I can't talk about the Cowboy Bebop sountrack enough... And I love Utena's soundtrack..
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Anything by Ennio Morricone. (The Mission, Once Upon A Time In The West, Everybody's Fine, etc.)
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Wings of Desire
Faraway, So Close
Until The End Of The World (director was Wim Wenders, and I wish there were such a thing as a *full* soundtrack available for the original 6 hours of movie)
There's a bit from the score of Hedda (the only bit I've heard, as I've never seen the movie) that is very moving.
Oh, and Passage to India. The music from that is *incredible*.
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Amen to the Morricone. My favorites are "The Mission", "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly", and "Cinema Paradiso". Speaking of Italian composers, Nicola Piovani's soundtrack to La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful) is absolutely brilliant.
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One that I enjoy that hasn't been mentioned yet is Mission Impossible II (the score not the soundtrack - the soundtrack is full of music "inspired by" the movie) by Hans Zimmer. Posts: 1635 | Registered: Aug 2002
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About a Boy by Badly Drawn Boy. I was very surprised by it.
The soundtrack to Signs is good, though I can't remember who did it.
And, though I'm not sure it meets all your requirements, I LOVE the soundtrack to The Power of One . Lot's of good African music with a hokey pop piece thrown in the middle.
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Soundtracks are the only music I listen to these days. Some of my favorites:
The Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore) The Two Towers (Howard Shore) The X-Files: Fight the Future (Mark Snow) The Truth and the Light: Music from the X-Files (Mark Snow)
...and, uh, yeah. That's about it. I'm sensing a theme here...
quote: The soundtrack to Signs is good, though I can't remember who did it.
James Newton Howard. Who is my current favorite practicing composer. Williams, Goldsmith, and Horner - while once at the head of their game, are losing it. JNH is still composing amazing fresh and versatile scores.
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I'd like to second Porce's Nightmare Before Christmas... man, I thought I was the only one who still had that soundtrack.
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The Godfather - Nino Rota The Piano (especially the, um, piano solo "The Heart Asks Pleasure First") - Michael Nyman Braveheart - James Horner, a masterpiece of work, far superior to Titanic, which he won the Oscar for. The Truman Show - Burkhard Dallwitz and Phillip Glass
I sometimes wonder if soundtracks are the modern version of orchestral music; where today's Mozarts and Bachs work.
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The soundtrack to Amelie is beautiful. I've listened to it a million times and it never gets old...
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Legends of the Fall is the best soundtrack of all time. I cannot listen to it without tearing up. My other favorites:
Empire of the Sun Seven Years in Tibet Almost Famous Jerry MaGuire (SP?) Sleepless in Seattle Dying Young
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What makes the Gladiator soundtrack so great is that Hans Zimmer had Lisa Gerrard do all the singing. You just can't go wrong with that combination.
Last of the Mohicans theme song was done by Clannad, and where Lisa Gerrard's voice is full of bravura, Maire Brennan is haunting and maudlin.
Matt B. - Michael Nyman's work in The Piano was stellar.
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Walker (Joe Strummer) is a fabulous one, as is Strummer's soundtrack to Straight To Hell featuring the Pogues and many others.
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So far, my two favorites already mentioned are Charade and Sleepless in Seattle. But there are more, maybe later when I get home I can post the entire list.... hehehehe....
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Thanks for replies and ideas everyone. Since someone mentioned Princess Bride (which I heartily second, except for that annoying "Storybook Story" vocal track at the end), I had to add that Knopfler's soundtrack to Local Hero is also excellent.
I'm going to add a few more I forgot.
Pat Metheny (one of the best jazz guitarists of all time) did the soundtrack to "A Map of the World", and it's unique and brilliant.
I don't know if this fits the rules, but the movie "Stop Making Sense" is the best concert movie ever filmed (and, yes, I have seen "The Last Waltz", "The Song Remains the Same", "Bring On the Night" and "Rust Never Sleeps"), and the soundtrack is one of the gems of my collection.
Speaking of Philip Glass, he did a soundtrack to the old silent film Dracula a few years ago, and it's quite good.
While we're on the subject of Hans Zimmer, I just picked up the soundtrack to The Thin Red Line and I liked it a lot. The only other one of his I have is M:I 2, and while I like most of that, Thin Red Line is a more consistently well-made album.
This may sound cheesy, but I just got "Escape From Television" by Jan Hammer, which is a collection of his Miami Vice music, and it's great. Better than you'd think.
Vangelis did many great soundtracks. My favorites are Antarctica and Blade Runner. Or if one didn't want every soundtrack he ever made, his album "Themes" is a very good sampler, and you'd even get the theme from Chariots of Fire without the thoroughly boring rest of the album.
And finally, I can't believe I didn't mention the soundtrack to The Wall my first time around.
Okay, that's it this time. Again, I have more soundtracks (and I'm sure I'll be buying more after the great leads I've been given here), but I think I've listed all the ones in my collection that are guranteed to please.
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My absolute favorite soundtrack is 'Spicy Stewed Doughnuts'. It's a Trigun soundtrack, anime I know, but it's strictly musical (except for the last track, which is in Japanese), and the guitarist on it is AMAZING. Trust me, you'll love it from beginning to end.
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I want to get the soundtrack to the Matrix Reloaded. I really enjoyed the music in the movie, I hope the soundtrack will live up to my expectations.
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Yes. It's an album, but it's also the soundtrack to a movie. Have you not seen it?
By the way, as long as anime came up, I forgot... I've got the soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop, and I wanted to second whoever brought it up before. The Japanese have a way with finding what other cultures (such as ours) do well, taking it, messing with it, and giving it back to us better. This album is a perfect example.
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Speaking of anime music, Gundam soundtracks are consistently amazing. They contain a good mix of techno, pop, vocals, and classical music.
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Silent Running, eh? I'd never heard of the movie or the soundtrack. But I looked it up on IMDB, and it says that it was scored by Peter Schickele. If I'm not mistaken, that's the PDQ Bach guy. That's so amazingly cool. I've never heard any serious, non-PDQ music composed by him, but it sounds very interesting. The guy's a genius. The soundtrack is not available on Amazon. Where did you get it?
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Kiss Me, Kate Guys and Dolls I second Chess Beauty and the Beast (Bway version) West Side Story Anything Goes Chicago Oliver! Man of La Mancha
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Silent Running is a Bruce Dern movie -- almost a solo act really. Great Sci-Fi flick.
The soundtrack has lots of Joan Baez -- I think it's her best work.
I don't have the record anymore. Lost in a move somewhere. It was old when I bought it.
But the movie is still available on DVD or video and that's a treat in itself. Icarus recently acquired a copy for Cor and we intend to watch it someday soon!
I don't remember Peter Schickele's name on it, but if so, he is indeed the guy behind PDQ Bach.
I got to see "them" in concert back in my college days. It was a hoot. My favorite was called something like "Fanfare for plastic tubing" or something like that.
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OT: *playing* PDQ Bach music is an amazingly difficult endevor. You really have to rehearse it until you are sick of it. If not, you have the tendancy to bust out laughing in the middle of a performace. In "Suite for an awful lot of winds and percussion" it took me forever to stop laughing at the waltz section which is played by the low and high brass, played on mouthpieces.
Back on topic. Although the music of Cowboy Bebop is really good, you are missing the full impact if you don't watch it to really see how they use music to influence the mood of each scene, its masterfully done. The same musician worked on Trigun, which is also good, especially towards the end of the series.
More favorites: Ligeti's music, although not written for film, was used in "2001", "Eyes wide shut" and "The Shining" to amazing effect.
About this one, I know its mostly pre-recorded music, but it was "scored" that way, not as a showcase for pop music: High Fidelity!
Did anyone mention Blue Velvet?
Or American Beauty?
How about Platoon? Pi? Liquid Sky? The Fifth Element?
Thats all I can think of right now.
Great thread.
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Actually, "Batman", "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure", and "Black Beauty" have been mentioned. Those are the ones I remember seeing off the top of my head. What are your favorites.
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The Princess Bride soundtrack is good, but part of what makes it so good is the way it fits perfectly with the on-screen action. It doesn't have the same effect if you listen to it just by itself.
In terms of musicals, I absolutely love the Phantom score. Best thing about the play.
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That's Michael Nyman, the guy that did The Piano. I included Gattaca in my original post, but it's always good to have someone agree. Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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I just picked up a couple of John Barry's old James Bond soundtracks for larfs, and they're much better than I'd have imagined.
Thunderball is quite good. It contains the trademark soaring brass themes, and some great subtle, ominous woodwind/ mallet percussion sections. And of course, the track "Search for Vulcan" is a lounge music classic.
However, of the two, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the indespensible one. He tries his hand at cool jazz, and it's as good as any I've ever heard. It's offset by a surprising amount of synth music, an experimental notion to be sure in 1969, but it sounds as practiced and exciting as any modern techno. And, lest we forget, the theme song "All the Time in the World" is, as far as I know, the last single recorded by Louis Armstrong. And he sounds as good as ever.
I just had to add these to the thread. They're well worth the money you'd spend on them. I'm going to go buy some more right now. I'll tell you how it turns out.
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Danny Elfman was mentioned - Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands are two of his (and two of my favorites...) I'll add to that list of Elfman soundtracks Black Beauty - the music is gorgeous. Another of my recent favorites is the Red Violin - that soundtrack is phenomenal.
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