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Film soundtrack discussion
Im a soundtrack collector, I have a ton of vinyl and tapes of various quality and I regularly listen to a mixtape or something of film music while doing my work. I lean towards more ambient styles like Prisoners and Arrival by Johann Johannson (rip) as well as Bladerunner the best soundtrack of all time. Also, im not entirely against pop soundtracks where the studio has just got a load of songs and not written their own but often the album release misses out songs due to rights reasons, so its incomplete.
today’s top 5: Vangelis’ Bladerunner, JJ’s Arrival, Prisoners, Jerry Goldsmith’s Chinatown and Tangerine Dream’s Sorcerer.
What are people into? Nothing better than decent headphones and a coffee with a soundtrack.
Almost everything Hans Zimmer touches turns to gold. I have the Inception and Interstellar vinyls on display in my house.
And this might be basic, but I'm a sucker for John Williams.
Williams is considered the GOAT by many for a reason. I don't like Harry Potter at all and don't care about the movies, but thanks to him they have great music that surpasses the films.
Me personally, I'm a Danny Elfman kinda guy.
My problem with Zimmer is how much he copies his own work. Compare "Time" to "Journey to the Line", or "The Battle" to anything from Pirates of the Caribbean.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned The Lord of the Rings soundtrack by Howard Shore yet, I love listening to it while reading. Also, brief side note, any fans of Lord of the Rings music should check this out.
Some other albums I listen to are
Ghost in the Shell by Kenji Kawai
Anything by John Carpenter (Check out his Lost Themes albums if you want more)
Suspiria by Goblin
Alien by Jerry Goldsmith
Mandy by Johann Johannsson
Repo! The Genetic Opera by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich
I should probably stop there, could add some more but don't need to go too crazy.
yes! i have all of these, fantastic. For some reason I have mandy on tape.
A friend of ours played me the Lord of the Rings movie on his £25k sound system last summer, with his new loft cinema projector setup connected. Speechless dosnt cover it!
James Horner is another of this type, Wrath of Khan and Alien
The soundtrack that Goblin (or rather, 'members of Goblin', as the band had split up by that time) did for Tenebrae is also pretty sick. It's more electronic/disco-sounding than their other stuff, which helps it stand alone as a work of music in addition to being a soundtrack. Fun fact: several of its themes are also recognizable as being sampled by the French electronic/disco band Justice!
As soon as I saw soundtracks I was going to jump in and say Blade Runner as well :)
I think a good soundtrack is often one you don't notice because it becomes part of the scene, I'd also throw in there:
Tron Legacy by Daft Punk
The Godfather
Raiders of the Lost Ark which may be controversial but if you watch it and pay attention to the soundtrack you begin to realise that it behaves just like another character on the screen
And one I'm not sure of but I think is a worthy contender would be Dune.
Tron: Legacy is a gem and the soundtrack is such a driving force throughout.
It's one of my favorite movies of all time and I ended up getting the soundtrack on vinyl as well! I still get goosebumps listening especially Adagio for Tron. A fantastic blend of orchestra and techno that brings back feelings of playing in orchestra back in grade school.
I love the Tron:Legacy soundtrack for studying. Or rather my ADHD brain loves it - it keeps it quietly occupied while the rest of my brain focuses on learning!
Since Tron by Daft Punk was already mentioned I'll go with another. It's an older album but the first Matrix soundtrack was a good one. I haven't listened to it in a while but I remember it being a solid album at the time.
Yeah that first Matrix film had such a dynamic and energetic soundtrack by Don Davis, great pick.
Interstellar is the best soundtrack of all time. :)
This is kind of cheating but my next 3 favorites are the Qatsi trilogy. They’re a lot of fun to zone out and code to. Most everyone prefers Koyaanisqatsi of the three, but Naqoyqatsi has always been my favorite and there were a couple of years where I would listen to that album every Friday afternoon to wrap up the work week.
What the hell? Marry me ? 🤠
On a more serious note, check out the soundtrack from About Time, The Theory of Everything and of course my all time favorite: Cloud Atlas ( the cloud Atlas Sextet 🔥 )
I agree with you about Blade Runner. It's the best soundtrack I've ever heard. Just curious: do you listen to the Esper Edition, too? That's my favorite version.
i have different versions, but not the Esper one! I have a Edgar Rothermitch version which is amazing because Vangelis didnt always note down the notes used in his home made synthesisers so its impossible to recreate, play live etc and Rothermitch reverse engineered the entire soundtrack from scratch. It still dosnt quite have all of it, but its a real achievement. Highly recommend
I love to put on a random soundtrack playlist whenever I am reading a book. I agree on Johan Johansson but my favorite is Morricone. Such a hugely impressive catalogue he has with very different types of music and whole new ways to score movies.
Came here to vote for interstellar, but ecstasy of gold is one of my absolute favorite peices of instrumental music. I didn't even think of it as a soundtrack even though it's obviously scored for a quite famous scene, so you're right, morricone for the win.
Some great orchestration in the whole dollars trilogy, but there was also some great work in the score for hateful eight which I think might of been his last original score.
I also learned about Morricone from all the spaghetti westerns but he also has a ton of great songs and scores from various Italian movies. Like the theme for Cinema Paradiso, "Here's to you", "Rabbia e tarantella", "Gabriel's Oboe" etc.
I'll have to check those out, not familiar with much outside of the spaghetti western genre as you mentioned. I'm sure there's a decent Spotify playlist somewhere
Somewhat of a tangent here - I like to listen to soundtracks when I work, but don’t really want to choose them most of the time.
Cinemix has been great for that, and has introduced me to some great tracks too.
It’s even ad-free (donations only, which I’ve never heard them asking for either).
Mushishi soundtrack is like pouring kouki (reference from Mushishi itself) into my ears, and Tower Of God soundtrack gets me going these days.
Also Blade Runner 2049 is the best "ambient" kind of soundtrack imo too :)
ooh and also Tron: Legacy!
I love Mushishi and have written a pastiche of it before :)
Taxi driver. Mostly just the instrumental but has his speech on it as well. As a side note I used to own a Jimmie Hendrix album that was also instrumental which was my go to for background music. Miss that record!
Hermann had such a good run! Citizen Kane, all the Hitchcock scores, Oscar wins and his last film was taxi driver one of the greatest films of all time. Hes like Morricone, an absolute monster
I'm a soundtrack guy as well so great to see this thread! There has been a lot of wonderful suggestions already, many of them are some of my favourites.
Some of my picks:
The Fountain by Clint Mansell
Conan The Barbarian by Basil Poledouris
The Mission by Ennio Morricone
FYI: After quite a hiatus The Soundtrack Show has had some new content recently. I love the host's deep dive into the analysis of various soundtracks. If you haven't listened you might want to give it a try.
https://open.spotify.com/show/1WkH0wMQWzRr2pCJEiPibF?si=3u1qZd3bTa-gMXm-p-5YfQ
Clint Mansell (and Kronos Quartet) also did a great soundtrack for Requiem for a Dream
Inception and Interstellar are two of my favorites. I actually had the privilege of seeing Hans Zimmer live and the Inception suite is probably my first or second favorite live experience of all time (depending on how I feel about Nightwish's "Ghost Love Score" live with Floor at the moment).
An oddball one is Silver Linings Playbook. The music on there is a mix of Danny Elfman's score with some other jazz/pop pieces but it's one of the few movies where I feel like all of the music, score and pop, complement each other exceptionally well.
I also love Yuki Kajiura and I'm not quite sure if this qualifies as film but the Kara no Kyuokai OST hits me right in the feels as well.
Silver Linings Playbook is one of my favorite movies of all time, and that Danny Elfman score is part of it. Particularly fond of this piece.
Sonatine (1993) is one I keep coming back to again and again.
Goblins soundtracks are also always very fun.
Clint Mansell’s work on the 2006 movie: the fountain is hauntingly beautiful.
The soundtrack for Event Horizon is pretty damn great. Michael Kamen & Orbital.
I enjoy a variety of soundtracks m'self, but I think mine are a bit lesser known compared to the types I'm seeing listed so far:
A very underrated one is Justin Hurwitz's First Man soundtrack (also an underrated movie - it was Ryan Gosling playing Neil Armstrong, I don't know how it didn't get much attention, it's not perfect but I love space stuff and I loved it). I particularly love the use of theremin which gives it a unique haunting sound. Quarantine moves me every time I listen to it.
I'm a big fan of soundtracks by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. They always manage to combine a gritty industrial vibe with elegant ambient piano sections.
The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are my favourites.
I have a meager collection of film scores within my larger collection of vinyl,
But my favorites are There Will Be Blood by Johnny Greenwood, How To Train Our Dragon by John Powell (one of my favorite film scores, but I have two different pressings, and both of them are absolute dogshit in terms of audio quality, so disappointing), Deep Red by Goblin, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World which is a compilation pretty much.
Other items in my collection include Annihilation, Vertigo, The Silence Of The Lambs, Fantastic Planet, Lawrence Of Arabia, Donnie Darko, Twin Peaks, Tales From The Loop, Ghost In The Shell, Coyboy Beebop, Drive, and Tron Legacy.
I don’t listen to soundtracks that often, but I do like Patrick Doyle’s for the Branagh Henry V. Wings of Desire has a great soundtrack, but with a combination of spoken parts (in German), soundtrack pieces, and a couple of rock songs, it’s not great background music.
For collection-of-songs soundtracks, you can’t beat A Matter of Degrees or Repo Man. And if just want a collection of movie songs, Stay Awake is a must-listen.
To be honest I haven't bought a film soundtrack for a modern movie in a really long time. The last time I bought a soundtrack was for Anastasia. Though if TV shows count, I did buy the soundtrack for Schmigadoon Season 2
Trying not to go with super obvious scores that everyone loves (e.g most things Nolan and Fincher).
I'll go:
Her by Arcade Fire. It's really nice and relaxing, melancholic even.
Don't Look Up by Nicholas Britell. It's basically a very interesting jazz piece played in different ways.
Marriage Story by Randy Newman. It's basically like a Disney score but for an adult movie. It fits so beautifully with the movie.
Little Women by Alexandre Desplat.
I can actually roll with Desplat for a little bit with his scores for The Shape of Water and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Like Zimmer and Reznor, he's kind an auteur with his music.
Probably my all-time favorite score is Punch-Drunk Love by Jon Brion. It has so many different variations of music and feels both intense and incredibly sweet. It also includes the best version of He Needs Me from Popeye.
There's more I can mention but I think that's enough.
There's a disturbing lack of Daniel Pemberton in this thread.
One and Only Spider-Man, from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse
Take You Down, from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (and The Boys S1 for some reason)
Fun fact: Pemberton also did the music for the USS Callister episode of Black Mirror!
You probably know it, but check out Good Time if you don't.
Amadeus has a phenomenal soundtrack. (I love classical)
I love the soundtrack for the How To Train Your Dragon movies. Some seriously good stuff in there and it matches the films perfectly. Flying with Mother is probably my top track out of the whole score, and Forbidden Friendship is a fan favourite.