Anyone big into listening to soundtracks?

[Jccarlton]

If you are looking for the real instermental background music from a movie, the score is what you look for. All too often albums labeled 'soundtrack' are old pop music which may or may not have appeared in the actual movie.
As for good listening, the early Bond movies have good albums. I have most of them in vinyl and CD. The vinyl may have different tracks on it. This is especially true of the album released for the First three Star Wars movies where, to my knowledge the original London Symphony scores were never mastered onto CD and new scores were done when the movies were redone by Lucas in the late '90's.
Good movie scores:
The Bond movies especially "You Only Live Twice" and "Thunderball"
The 1984 Batman
The Wind and the Lion
John Wayne and the Cowboys
The 1979 Superman
ET
Jaws
Gettysburg
Pirates Of The Caribbean, the Black Pearl
and a whole bunch more

 

[Wakeem]

I just found out that a company called Audio Fidelity released a Blade Runner limited clear red vinyl record (LP). I'm going to get one tomorrow. It has the same tracks as the CD. But I just have to get this for nostalgia.

 

[Wes R]

A lot of companies and artists are putting out vinyl but the problem is there is only one factory in the US left that can make records. Amazingly a lot of kids these days are realizing that mp3 is not a good format compared to vinyl. i got the ost of Star trek into darkness, it's okay but i still am not fond of what they did to the original series theme starting with trek 09.

 

[Wakeem]

A lot of companies and artists are putting out vinyl but the problem is there is only one factory in the US left that can make records. Amazingly a lot of kids these days are realizing that mp3 is not a good format compared to vinyl. i got the ost of Star trek into darkness, it's okay but i still am not fond of what they did to the original series theme starting with trek 09.

There is only one record factory left in the US that makes records? That's strange. I'm not that old but I never got into mp3s. I have some but I tend to avoid them over CDs. I'll just listen to them occasionally on the computer. They were bonus/free downloads. I've never even owned a dedicated portable mp3 player.

 

[TUBS]

Being an old fart , my first soundtrack was Star Wars on double vinyl. I played it so much I literally wore it out so then I had to buy another.Now I have my Star Wars soundtrack collection on CD.
TUBS

 

[wannab]

My top three at the moment...

Bullitt -- can't get enough of this one!

Capricorn One -- totally underrated -- awesome

The Cowboys -- puts a smile on my face



Doug

 

[Jsimon999]

My top few:

DIE HARD
HEAT
THE SAINT
ROBIN HOOD
SUPERMAN RETURNS

Great post idea!

Jon

 

[Cam McFly]

One not a lot of people have mentioned: Assault on Precinct 13

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I have many soundtracks and scores, to suit just about every mood, from Akira to Zorro. I love the scores for The Black Hole and The Empire Strikes Back, the soundtracks for The Crow and Cool World... Got me a bunch of James Horner and Vangelis and Henry Mancini... Easily 40 or 50 albums. I've, ah... been doing this for a while. *chuckle*

--Jonah

 

[GeneralFROSTY]

I myself prefer Motion Picture scores as my "go to" for music enjoyment.
I recall in my teenage years, I was mostly listening to heavy metal with all my "metal" friends - but secretly listening to and very much enjoying scores. I recall them hating on me hard core when I started accepting my love of scores and buying more scores than metal albums on CD.
I think the first score CD I ever purchased was Jurassic Park and The Rocketeer (which I had to order through a catalogue as this was back in the early days of the internet that we know and love today).
I can't imagine my life without this type of music!

 

[Father]

My first score was Empire Strikes Back... on VINYL!!!

I remember buying Total Recall, Terminator, The Fly, Hellraiser II on TAPE from the local record shop.

Right now I've been listening to Interstellar and Edge of Tomorrow.

I'm waiting for another great "listen to all the time" score to come along. I had high hopes for Guardians of the Galaxy but I think it was pretty generic. Tyler Bates can put out some decent music (loved 300 at the time, and Watchmen was good) but he's also hit or miss.

Brian Tyler is scoring Avengers 2... very disappointing. I thought Alan Sylvestri nailed it with Avengers. I don't get why they wouldn't bring him back.
I thought Tyler's Iron Man 3 score was consistent with the weirdness of the movie as a whole. It was an enjoyable movie, but it was all over the place, and so was the music. Had a good theme but felt a little over the top and almost campy.
Ramin Djawadi's theme for Iron Man was dead on and really brought depth to every scene.
John Debney's score of IM2 was forgettable at best, like the rest of his resume.

In my opinion that's the one thing Marvel can't seem to nail down is a consistent compose and theme music for each title. I feel like theyre skimping on big name composers because they blew their wads on actors.

 

[The Terminator]

In my opinion that's the one thing Marvel can't seem to nail down is a consistent compose and theme music for each title. I feel like theyre skimping on big name composers because they blew their wads on actors.

It's pretty much the same thing when it comes to all movies. Look at iconic stuff like THE superman theme, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and so on.

 

[Father]

It's pretty much the same thing when it comes to all movies. Look at iconic stuff like THE superman theme, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and so on.

Yeah... that's why I don't get the Marvel thing. They make epic movies but don't want an iconic theme to go with it that will last for ages.
The movies you listed had the same kept the same composer and theme but were still able to successfully adapt the primary themes into the sequels while creating themes unique to the individual movies. Like with Indiana Jones.. Temple of Doom had its own theme but also kept the Jones theme through the movie... and it worked.

The Marvel movies seem to have a hard time with that.

Nolan Batman was consistent because he used the same composer and the theme grew throughout the trilogy.

 

[Laspector]

I think the first Iron Man movie had a soundtrack that at least had an iconic identifiable riff that really fit the character. No, I'm not talking about the AC/DC stuff or the inevitable Black Sabbath song, I'm talking about that five note riff--dun dun dunna dun that played when he was Iron Man. I really identified that with the character. I was really upset that it didn't continue to be his theme throughout the rest of the movies.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Iron Man set a high-water mark for Marvel soundtracks, even if I wish they'd not used the Black Sabbath song, as it has nothing to do with the Marvel character, but *shrug*... I liked all the places they worked in references to the theme song from the '60s Iron Man cartoon. I, too, think the "Iron Man riff" is a great leitmotif that they'd kept, with variations on it, in the later Iron Man films and Avengers. Different tempos and instruments and complexity depending on the mood of the scene and where Tony is in his personal evolution, capping the ending of Iron Man 3 with a nice, complex integrated version of it. Kinda like comparing the Force Theme from when Luke first mentions Obi-Wan's name to him to the version at Anakin's funeral pyre.

At the same time, I think Tyler's sensibility might work for Avengers 2... A bit of surreality might be appropriate for Ultron and the events surrounding that crisis. I'll have to see (hear) the final integrated work.

One of the things I think DC has dropped the ball on is not keeping even some version of the iconic Williams and Elfman cues for the new Superman and Batman stuff. One of the things I like least about Arrow is the music (I have mixed feelings about the show in general). I had notions of something emotionally, tonally similar to the first couple acts of Iron Man for Ollie's backsory and transformation stuff... but getting more taut as he coalesced his Green Arrow persona into something... *thinks* For years I've flashed to Clannad's soundtrack for the '80s Robin of Sherwood series, used to good effect. The modern, generic action cue -- and all the sound effects -- fade away and that sort of modern Celtic music picks up as Ollie does his hero thing. A way, through music, to convey the internal shift when he goes from being Ollie to being Arrow.

And there are times both in these movies and series and when thinking about ones not yet tackled that I really wish we still had Jerry Goldsmith. I would have liked to have heard what might have done for Thor, for instance. James Horner would probably not suck at super hero movies, either. *heh*

I was blown away by what Daft Punk did with Tron: Legacy. I'd love to hear what their take on, say, Booster Gold...

--Jonah

 

[Father]

Iron Man set a high-water mark for Marvel soundtracks, even if I wish they'd not used the Black Sabbath song, as it has nothing to do with the Marvel character, but *shrug*...

One of the things I think DC has dropped the ball on is not keeping even some version of the iconic Williams and Elfman cues for the new Superman and Batman stuff.

I was blown away by what Daft Punk did with Tron: Legacy. I'd love to hear what their take on, say, Booster Gold...
--Jonah

I never felt as attached to the Elfman Batman theme as the Superman one. The Superman theme just resonates. I liked the Man of Steel soundtrack a lot, but it would have been cool to have at least a nod. Even the new trek movies have the classic theme, even if it's only for the credits.
Batman... it's great in all its variations. A similar version of it was used for the animated series and Lego games use it. But I really like the Nolan theme. I'm just glad they didn't try to rehash the 60's show version. Having said that, I like when they plug in the cartoon theme for Spider-Man.

Tron Legacy was AWESOME. One of the better soundtracks of the last 10 years in my opinion. M83 also did a great job with Oblivion. I wish they would both break into the comic hero movies.

 

[George]

In my experience,sometimes music cannot be separated from footage.Take Braveheart for example,or The Last Samurai; there,the music really carried/accompanied the scenes,and so when I would listen to the soundtrack,I would miss the footage to go with it.
Anyway,to name a few of my favorites:

-Best of the Best (good work-out music);
-Prince of Egypt;
-Blackhawk down (Hans Zimmer had a real feel for the local music to go with the scenes.Voodoo chile rocked!);
-Braveheart;
-Lord of the Rings;
-Departures (cello and piano);
-Ray (Ray Charles' jazz music);
-The Bucket List (ending credits song);
-Tears of the sun;
-The Green Mile;
-The Last Samurai;
-Still walking (guitar music);
-Spirited away (and other Anime music); I managed to learn and play one song for the piano by heart;
-Thor

In short,I prefer symphonic/orchestral music,guitar,and/or the combination of instruments,such as cello and piano.

 

[Father]

In my experience,sometimes music cannot be separated from footage.Take Braveheart for example,or The Last Samurai; there,the music really carried/accompanied the scenes,and so when I would listen to the soundtrack,I would miss the footage to go with it.
Anyway,to name a few of my favorites:

Well said. When you can put on your headphones and listen to a track and see the scene play out in your head, or even better then entire score from beginning to end and actually see the mos of the movie play out in your mind, they nailed it.

Back in my younger days... Total Recall and Robocop were good for that.

I hate when a CD lays out the tracks out of sequence from the scenes they correspond with. I think they used to do that because the same order would be on a cassette tape and the order depended on how much could be fit on each side of the tape.

On more than one occasion I've had to put them in order in a playlist to make it right.

 

[Vacformedhero]

Tron legacy
inception
guardians of the galaxy
any john Williams

 

[sworddude]

I have a channel on my Songza app. Provocative contemporary film scores. It's been my go-to music station when I'm writing or doing research for like two weeks.