Name your top three movie soundtracks

[HighlandHifinut]

An almost impossible question as there have been so many superb examples. By this I mean music especially written for the movie - so many movies with wonderful music used to enhance a scene (Woody Allen, Kubrick etc)

 

Here are my three today - tomorrow I may feel like ditching these in favour of three others - yes I'm fickle! :-)

 

American Beauty - Thomas Newman - stunning and original - the best of his stuff.

 

Local Hero - Mark Knopfler - first bought this LP when I was 14 and starting my journey into music - loved it then. So beautifully crafted and played and fits the movie perfectly.

 

Ennio Morricone The Mission - Stunning to the ear and a great ref CD for your system.

 

So many more I want to mention - The Who Quadrophenia, Peter Gabriel The Passion...

[REShaman]

Congratulations, HighlandHifiNut for starting a thread I will enjoy posting to. As you are the OP, may we post more than top three or another way to articulate, would posting from time to time with individual or group soundtracks be OT as far you intended this thread? I'll wait before my second post.

 

Love your idea!

Best,

Richard

[HighlandHifinut]

Yes of course Richard - fire away - it doesn't really need to be three - seems too hard a task! Go for it ;-) Look forward to reading your posts.

[Earthenware541]

Oh no, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone started talking soundtracks. Perhaps it's my lack of imagination but I adore soundtracks because the images are already there for you (if you've seen the film or read the book and it was better than the film but you still liked the soundtrack anyway and associate it with the book regardless). I could name many but the ones that I find myself going back to play again and again when the mood is right:

 

- Blade Runner (a lot of Vangelis)

- Good Night & Good Luck

- 2001

 

- Ok not originally made for the film I don't think, but I still have to add that Neville Marriner's/Academy of St Martin in the Fields' Mozart pieces in the Amadeus soundtrack blow me away.

 

- More lightly, almost anything that John Williams did for Spielberg, or almost anything by Jerry Goldsmith. Alan Silvestri's probably a third place-getter in my view but I am sure there are others who put him at #1.

 

Agh sorry of broken protocol and done more than 3. Perhaps we need a voting mechanism...there are so many. i know someone will post something after this and I'll be like "Oh yeah, I forgot about that one!"

-P

[HighlandHifinut]

Feel free to add more than three! I set an impossible task. Will check out Good Night and Good Luck - looks great.

[REShaman]

Yes of course Richard - fire away - it doesn't really need to be three - seems too hard a task! Go for it ;-) Look forward to reading your posts.

 

Oh boy, you've just provided me with a big enough canvas I will love to paint. It's kind of like giving cases of spray paint in assorted colors to a graffiti artist (sorry not a fan of graffiti art, using the reference as a metaphor).

 

Flooded with not only the soundtracks, but the composers who paint the music. Thomas Newman is my favorite. The grand field of composers and the sound scores is an enormous landscape. Out of the blue (in no apparent order), Tangerine Dream for Thief. The Thin Red Line Bernard Hermann's scores, i.e., Taxi Driver, The Day The Earth Stood Still. and, of course, Fahrenheit 451, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Cape Fear. So many more.

 

HighlandHifiNut what a great thread! Forgive my excess. As Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets (not a bad soundtrack), I am pumped!"

 

Going OT, I play a game with my wife that involves asking her to guess who's voice is being heard when she is away from the screen or it's a commercial and it is only a voice over and not the person visually before the camera.

 

I extended the game to playing soundtracks where we challenge each other to guess which soundtrack is being played. This way we get to listen to each other's choices, make it a game of sorts and enjoy the music.

 

I need to gauge myself as I am prepared to keep on writing ad nauseam.

 

Haven't had this much excitement at the forum for a while.

 

Best,

Richard

[HighlandHifinut]

Hey Richard - great reply. Yes love your choices - Taxi Driver OST really is one of the best written for the movie - edgy and captivating like De Niro. Love Tang Dream too, of course and your other choices. Your guess the movie soundtrack game sounds fun - trouble is my wife wouldn't have a clue unless it was Maid in Manhatten or The Wedding Singer yawn lol

[REShaman]

Hey Richard - great reply. Yes love your choices - Taxi Driver OST really is one of the best written for the movie - edgy and captivating like De Niro. Love Tang Dream too, of course and your other choices. Your guess the movie soundtrack game sounds fun - trouble is my wife wouldn't have a clue unless it was Maid in Manhatten or The Wedding Singer yawn lol

 

Understand completely. Now I am wondering if To Live and Die in LA was also Tangerine Dream, nope,Wang Chung. The idea about the game I play with my wife was to help her improve what was already there (her audio channel) but not as developed because she did not use it enough. Her parents may not have exposed her to music, whereas I needed music to breathe: An American In Paris soundtrack with Gershwin's music. Singing In The Rain. Or Anatomy of A Murder with Duke Ellington. Flim Flam Man which you can not find anywhere. John Barry. Howard Shore. James Howard Newton. Mark Isham.

 

The game challenged my wife and she enjoyed the music, the idea of the challenge and from time to time, gives me a come-uppance, which I love when it happens. She's recognized some really hard voices from voice-overs.

 

You might engage your wife and have fun doing it. Please understand my sharing is meant in the nicest way so if I sound presumptuous, I do not intend that.

Best,

Richard

[Dirgen]

There are many great movie soundtracks but let me narrow the range to material written more or less specifically for the movie (or the original play), rather than a compilation of previously released material. By decade my top choices would be:

 

South Pacific (1958)

Sound of Music (1965)

Rocky Horror Show (1975) or Grease (1978)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982) or Purple Rain (1984)

The Witch Hammer (1993)

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

[HighlandHifinut]

Yes it's a great idea and not presumptuous at all. :-) will give it a go with Her Who Shall Be Obeyed

[wgscott]

I think it is fairly rare to find first-rate music that was made for a soundtrack, rather than the other way around.

 

What comes to mind from my collection:

 

1. "Yell Fire", the CD accompanying the movie made by Michael Franti called "I know I'm not alone," which is a documentary about his travels in the Middle East.

 

2. "To Live and Die in LA". I finally found a DVD of the movie. I've had the CD since the late 1980s.

 

3. "Fiddler on the Roof."

[REShaman]

There are many great movie soundtracks but let me narrow the range to material written more or less specifically for the movie (or the original play), rather than a compilation of previously released material. By decade my top choices would be:

 

South Pacific (1958)

Sound of Music (1965)

Rocky Horror Show (1975) or Grease (1978)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982) or Purple Rain (1984)

The Witch Hammer (1993)

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

 

Amen! Can we include Guys and Dolls? Picnic? Damn Yankees. Oklahoma and all the Rogers and Hammerstein; Lerner Lowe, Godspell? Saturday Night Fever? To Kill A Mocking Bird. LOTR (all three). It's so vast. So pleasurable to review and identify. Zimmer, Horner. Chocolat Rachel Portman. I probably have at least 200 sound tracks. Pollack by Jeff Beal. Flash Dance.

Enough from me.

Richard

[REShaman]

I think it is fairly rare to find first-rate music that was made for a soundtrack, rather than the other way around.

 

What comes to mind from my collection:

 

1. "Yell Fire", the CD accompanying the movie made by Michael Franti called "I know I'm not alone," which is a documentary about his travels in the Middle East.

 

2. "To Live and Die in LA". I finally found a DVD of the movie. I've had the CD since the late 1980s.

 

3. "Fiddler on the Roof."

 

wgscott, while I respect your perspectives, I personally do not find it rare (emphasis mine) to find first-rate music made for soundtrack.Your observation about music that was composed for itself and is chosen by a discerning director like Kubrick or Ridley Scott, i.e., Alien, Howard Hanson's Symphony Number 2 is in my opinion a fine example of what you posit. Of course, one could fill a book and refer to composed music used in film to convey the essence of the scenes which in many ways can be more powerful or as powerful as the images and emotions elicited by the choices made. Great point!

 

Best,

Richard

[Paul R]

Great Idea! I'll choose three not yet chosen by anyone else.

 

(1) The Princess Bride (Mark Knofler)

 

(2) Throughly Modern Millie (Samy Cahn)

 

(3) Blue (Zbigniew Preisner)

 

Ack- that's way too difficult. I changed those three times. Just add in a few others:

 

Cat's Don't Dance (Randy Newman)

Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Andrew Lloyd Webber)

The Civil War (Ken Burns)

Camelot (Lowe)

Hairspray (Adam Shankman)

 

I love soundtracks - I think they are the best source of modern "classical" music today.

 

-Paul

[Paul R]

Hi Bill -

 

Wow, I really disagree with you on this one. Outside of the pop music soundtracks (some of which are pretty good, I admit... ) I am really convinced that soundtracks are about the only source of modern "classical" music, as well as great jazz and band music. So often overlooked, and yet, so often so darn good. The Bollywood folks have a good perspective on that count, as they write more new music for films than anywhere else in the world.

 

Even in some of the films that just throw a bunch of popular at the moment pop musicians at the soundtrack can occasionally come up with a jewel - the last two tracks on the _Practical Magic_ soundtrack for instance. Alan Silvestri's Practical Magic and Amas Veritas.

 

Yours,

-Paul

[REShaman]

Paul, well stated (better expression than "I agree") and with good examples offered in support that begin to multiply geometrically with a wider view of the landscape of soundtracks/films/and music adapted for film. Perhaps wgscott might reconsider his POV unless he (you Bill) are convinced of the truth of his (your) view. There is truly, IMO, as Paul states a grand source of modern classical, tone poems, etc. that fill the void left by The Grand Composers, and those who have passed in the last and present Century, not that todays composer are not present in numbers. In any case, enjoy that which you do.

Best,

Richard

[Melvin]

There are WAY too many!

 

Amadeus

Braveheart

Don Juan DeMarco

[ted_b]

You folks have named some great ones. I'll add, rather than pile on:

Barry Lyndon

There Will Be Blood

2001 (a duplicate, I know, but when my dad took me to see this in 1968, in Cinerama, downtown majestic old State Theater, the movie soundtrack became something I'd not realized up to then, an integral part of the experience.)

[ssgp2]

I'm just discovering Hans Zimmer work and found it remarkable.

Can't believe that it goes unnoticed while watching the movie and how it can be so powerful when you sit down and listen.

[findog3103]

Rushmore

Singles

Pulp Fiction

[Akapod]

The Wild Bunch (Jerry Goldsmith)

Diva

 

And while I don't know the soundtrack per se, Inglorious Basterds has wonderful sound. It's the the first Blu-ray disc I heard which took advantage of hi-res audio, and it does a wonderful job. Oppo owners-- go rent it.

[audiozorro]

An almost impossible question as there have been so many superb examples. By this I mean music especially written for the movie - so many movies with wonderful music used to enhance a scene

 

Here are my three today - tomorrow I may feel like ditching these in favour of three others - yes I'm fickle! :-)

 

 

This is a great thread and I agree with HighlandHifiNut. There are so many excellent soundtracks to choose from. My three favorites for audio demos are:

 

1. Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves

2. Gladiator

3. Titanic

[wgscott]

Talking Heads, True Stories in 24/96

[wgscott]

Actually, the Redbook CD True Stories is great.

 

Neo-classical movie themes I hadn't really considered, but the one from the most recent Star Trek was quite good. I really like the Lord of the Rings music.

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and pretty much anything by Morricone.

[Priaptor]

Does

 

"THE LAST WALTZ"

 

count.