An element which can truly make or break a picture is the soundtrack. The music can set the mood by escalating a romantic moment, adding speed and power to a car chase or adding tension before a big scare. I am personally very big on soundtracks, even as a kid I had made a tape with the Beverly Hills Cop theme on one side, Fletch on the other and would drive around town as it were the soundtrack to the movie of me -OK I may have issues-. As I got older I grew to appreciate grander sounds and became more aware of the greatness of some movie scores. I often get chills during moments where oorchestrated excellence is choreographed perfectly within a scene. Composers like John Williams (Superman Returns Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , Revenge of the Sith) and Iva Davies (Master and Commander) have helped take films which were visually pleasing and made them auditorially stimulating as well. If you are like me, then I recommend checking out Beethoven Radio. It’s an online radio station that only plays classical music, but dedicates time of the day for featuring famous movie scores. At 11:00am EST you can listen to Film at Eleven and again at 2:00pm EST the Two O’Clock Matinee airs. Each one is about 30 to 45 minutes long and you can hear some great favorites. You can also send in requests, which I do all the time. So if you want to hear Jaws, The Lord of the Rings or Waltz 2 from Jazz Suite by Shostakovich -tell tail of a Stanley Kubrick film- you can do just that.
What are some of your favorite soundtracks or scores and which do you prefer in movies?
Update: Also check out Streaming Sound Tracks (dot)com thanks dRob.
I found this blog on Google and thought I’d share my feelings about movie soundtracks. I too find classical soundtracks one of the few types of musical genres whose sounds easily penetrate the heart and stir the emotions, especially when the music accompanies a scene and adds to it. This, of course, encouraged me to start my own little internet station called Permanent Waves, which you can find over at Live365 or directly visit through the link: http://www.cin3ma.tv/permanent_waves
Soon, we’ll be talking about video game soundtracks, with them getting more realistic and mature every day, and with more well-known composers getting onboard the digital gaming bandwagon. Very cool.
Yup, that’s a good excuse. :) Apparently Ottman is going to make some use – albeit minor – of Williams’ classic Superman theme. Should be a good score. Even if I wasn’t that impressed with Ottman’s X-Men 2 score, I still think he is a very talented composer, with some really excellent scores on his resum√ɬ©.
(Hej, Joel! :) )
My soundtrack collection:
Star Wars I, II, III, IV, V, VI
The Godfather trilogy
Grease 1 & 2
Funny Girl
The Mirror Has Two Faces
The Way We Were
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
Yentl
A Star is Born
Casablanca
High Fidelity
Empire Records
Reality Bites
Jerry Maguire
Singles
LotR trilogy
The Phantom of the Opera
You’ve Got Mail
Sleepless in Seattle
Footloose
Chicago
Beaches
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Bridget Jones Diary
Brad, thanks for the link to Streaming Soundtracks!
Fistful of soundtracks is a live 365 station that will take you from Shaft to Cowboy Bebop to Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.
As for my favourites I think you’re right on the money with the Master & Commander pick; I bought the CD immediately after I saw the movie in theatre. I also adore the one for Vertigo (which I don’t have a CD for but it’s striking and memorable) and for anime the Cowboy Bebop series.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but there’s an actual website called Streaming Soundtracks (http://www.streamingsoundtracks.com/) that takes requests for film scores and streams them out 24/7. Given the title, I thought this was what you were posting about, and had to double back after reading thinking I missed something.
There’s a couple of stations over at live365.com that focus on soundtracks as well.
Sorry about that, I like T-Jax’s excuse for me. Thanks for the heads up though Andreas.
Concerning Superman Returns, it will use the original John Williams themes. So I guess you can connect him to this movie – which is basically what Brad did. He didn’t say John Williams was scoring it.
Some of my favourite scores/soundtracks:
Movies:
Nightmare before Christmas (Danny Elfman)
Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman)
Finding Neverland (Jan A.P. Kaczmarek)
Gladiator (Hans Zimmer)
Twin Peaks (Angelo Badalamenti)
Buffy seasons 1-4 (Christophe Beck)
Lord of the rings (Howard Shore)
Titanic (James Horner)
Fantaghirò (Amedeo Minghi)
Oldboy (Yeong-wook Jo)
All about Lily Chou-Chou (Takeshi Kobayashi/Salyu)
Anime:
most of Yoko Kanno’s work
Madlax (Yuki Kajiura)
Noir (Yuki Kajiura)
Shingetsutan Tsukihime (Toshiyuki Omori)
Elfen Lied (Konishi Kayo & Kondoo Yukio)
KURAU Phantom Memory (Yukari Katsuki)
Ha Ha! Hej Andreas! Kul å se att du också är en regular här på TMB! :D
/Joel
http://pojkrummet.com
Actually, John Ottman, and not John Williams, is scoring Superman Returns.
/Andreas
http://www.scorereviews.com