There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to use music as part of our human expression.It…doesn't have to do with articulation of a language,but with something spiritual.-John Williams
David, I love this. Such a great question that's yielded so many soundtracks I love and others I look forward to listening to for the first time. But still there are a few that deserve to be added:
First, if for completeness if nothing else, why isn't Fantasia on here? That's got to be the ur-soundtrack.
Second, Volker Bertelman's soundtrack to All Quiet on the Western Front is astonishingly good. I saw this at Dolby's in-house theater and heard Bertelman talk about it. He made the point that they wanted a theme short enough to use very flexibly, even in very short cinematic beats. His four-note theme is terrifying enough that I'd jump into that fishing boat from Jaws to escape.
Third, The Exorcist, particularly the Michael Oldfield Tubular Bells theme. When I think "soundtrack" that's the first tune that pops into my head.
Finally, something I just saw last night, the new Saturday Night Live flic by Jason Reitman, with music by Jon Batiste. Batiste wrote all the music virtually in real time - composing live to go with scenes that had been shot that day. The result is complex and propulsive, and serves as a match for (and Rietman says as the villain in) the story of the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of Saturday Night Live. The music is the villain because the villain (and maybe ultimately the hero) of SNL is the time pressure of putting the show together.
Just want to shout out Reznor/Ross's score for Challengers, which absolutely made that movie as fun as it was. (My kids still request it in the car, and I'm always happy to oblige them—just great, high-energy stuff.)
Other recent favorites are The Green Knight (Daniel Hart), Titane (Jim Williams), and Enys Men (Mark Jenkin).
Thank you for this amazing piece; this is truly an impressive list of contributors and selections. I mean, Thirwell alone! It's something I'm going to have to come back to a few times.
My personal additions would be the extremely unsettling and infectious (and also heavily banjo featuring) score for Ravenous by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman, which has always stuck with me, and then maybe Oldboy by Jo Yeong-wook, which is a very cool collection of waltzes punctuated with electronic and minimal pieces that fit tone of the movie very well.
I'm not sure if anime qualifies here, but if it does, the legendary and overpowering East Asian folk/symphonic choral fusion score for Akira by the radical and hundreds-strong musical collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi (led by the polymath molecular biologist and composer Tsutomu Ōhashi under the pseudonym Shoji Yamashiro) definitely deserves a spot on any list, as do Princess Mononoke by Joe Hisaishi and Paprika by Susumu Hirasawa (also of the Japanese electronic band P-Model).
I'm not including it in my list, but it's an interesting trivia fact that Keith Emerson once actually did the soundtrack for an anime film called Harmageddon, a somewhat infamous collaboration between Akira director Katsuhiro Otomo and Metropolis (the anime) director Rintaro
Thanks for this feature. I would add the work of Tangerine Dream to this list.
Especially their soundtracks for Sorcerer, Firestarter, and Wavelength.
David this is just a stunning and amazing job. Take a bow to your own soundtrack!
Cool idea!
Also:
The Social Network / Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Bullitt / Lalo Schifrin
Moonlight / Nicholas Brittell
Under the Skin / Mica Levi
Great list but would add all the soundtracks Nick Cave & Warren Ellis have done. Especially The Assassination of Jesse James.
Mogwai’s Atomic and Kin as well as the Larry Clark/Harmony Korine film Kids.
David, I love this. Such a great question that's yielded so many soundtracks I love and others I look forward to listening to for the first time. But still there are a few that deserve to be added:
First, if for completeness if nothing else, why isn't Fantasia on here? That's got to be the ur-soundtrack.
Second, Volker Bertelman's soundtrack to All Quiet on the Western Front is astonishingly good. I saw this at Dolby's in-house theater and heard Bertelman talk about it. He made the point that they wanted a theme short enough to use very flexibly, even in very short cinematic beats. His four-note theme is terrifying enough that I'd jump into that fishing boat from Jaws to escape.
Third, The Exorcist, particularly the Michael Oldfield Tubular Bells theme. When I think "soundtrack" that's the first tune that pops into my head.
Finally, something I just saw last night, the new Saturday Night Live flic by Jason Reitman, with music by Jon Batiste. Batiste wrote all the music virtually in real time - composing live to go with scenes that had been shot that day. The result is complex and propulsive, and serves as a match for (and Rietman says as the villain in) the story of the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of Saturday Night Live. The music is the villain because the villain (and maybe ultimately the hero) of SNL is the time pressure of putting the show together.
Just want to shout out Reznor/Ross's score for Challengers, which absolutely made that movie as fun as it was. (My kids still request it in the car, and I'm always happy to oblige them—just great, high-energy stuff.)
Other recent favorites are The Green Knight (Daniel Hart), Titane (Jim Williams), and Enys Men (Mark Jenkin).
Thank you for this amazing piece; this is truly an impressive list of contributors and selections. I mean, Thirwell alone! It's something I'm going to have to come back to a few times.
My personal additions would be the extremely unsettling and infectious (and also heavily banjo featuring) score for Ravenous by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman, which has always stuck with me, and then maybe Oldboy by Jo Yeong-wook, which is a very cool collection of waltzes punctuated with electronic and minimal pieces that fit tone of the movie very well.
I'm not sure if anime qualifies here, but if it does, the legendary and overpowering East Asian folk/symphonic choral fusion score for Akira by the radical and hundreds-strong musical collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi (led by the polymath molecular biologist and composer Tsutomu Ōhashi under the pseudonym Shoji Yamashiro) definitely deserves a spot on any list, as do Princess Mononoke by Joe Hisaishi and Paprika by Susumu Hirasawa (also of the Japanese electronic band P-Model).
I'm not including it in my list, but it's an interesting trivia fact that Keith Emerson once actually did the soundtrack for an anime film called Harmageddon, a somewhat infamous collaboration between Akira director Katsuhiro Otomo and Metropolis (the anime) director Rintaro
THANK YOU FOR THESE INCREDIBLE ADDITIONS!
Yes, please. Would love to hear the Leave No Trace soundtrack and Eye Popping, if it's an option!
E-mail me your mailing address!
I have also been a fan of Adam Wiltzies soundtrack ventures, as well as Explosions in the Sky soundtrack to Big Bend and Friday Night Lights.
A few soundtrack albums I love (that I didn’t see included in your fantastic list):
The Prisoner (UK TV show), composed by Ron Grainer, Albert Elms, Wilfred Josephs, Robert Farnon, Paul Bonneau, etc;
Jaromil Jireś’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) by Lubiš Fišer;
Werner Herzog’s Heart of Glass (1977) by Popol Vuh;
Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm (1979) composed by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, with producer/recordist Paul Ratajczak.