Movie sound tracks .... what are your favorites?

[Dr. Tweedbucket]

There are so many good ones, but one interesting and unique soundtrack from an 80s movie out of print called 'The Wild Life' was cool. EVH did the tracks and it was different.

Any others?

 

[-CM-]

Sneakers

 

[1941WillysMB]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid

The commitments

Rocky III

 

[Mule]

Into the Wild. Soundtrack by Eddie Vedder......Except for The Kids are Alright by the Who it's the only sound track I ever bought......

 

[stevel]

Well, Star Wars made a huge impact on me as a kid.

I remember "The Wild Life" - was pretty cool hearing EVH's work in that context.

Basically, any Bernard Hermman score is top notch, especially the Hitchcock ones, but Psycho and Vertigo certainly stand out.

The score for "Forbidden Planet" needs to be heard and understood in its context for anyone.

I find a lot of what Michael Gioccino does to be kind of "we need you to sound like this" so he does, but the work he's done that's "anti-Hollywood" is his better work IMHO - the score for "Speed Racer" was a cool blend of a lot of elements, and "The Incredibles" did that homage to spy soundtracks really well.

I could just go on and on, but the original Planet of the Apes was a stand out.

Little known indie movie with Rosanna Arquette and Jean Reno in it called "The Big Blue" (IIRC) which had a beautiful synth soundtrack (Fairlight stuff IIRC).

Although not "movies", I find a lot of great soundtracks in TV shows. I just finished watching "Stranger Things" on Netflix and what they did with a quasi-nostalgic nod to 80s synth soundtracks (think Vangelis) was pretty cool. Sometimes that "modern electronica" sound gets a little over the top ("Arrow") and I feel like it will be pretty dated.

Most of the James Bond movies have top notch scores - George Martin did "Live and Let Die" IIRC, while McCartney did the theme song.

That reminds me of Morricone and the westerns he did - and those that sounded like he did but were someone else - those are amazingly awesome scores.

I was disappointed in the "Rogue One" soundtrack. Where it referenced older themes was cool, but the main theme was certainly a bit too "I want it to sound like The Avengers/Marvel soundtracks".

I liked most of Danny Elfman's stuff but that got a bit dated too - or at least, really has his own personal signature sound that's hard to get away from. But Edward Scissorhands had a really good score IIRC.

Elmer Bernstein, Jarre, Steiner, Korngold, Mancini, Goldsmith, all the biggies wrote great music.

I have to say, I find the composers like Shore, or Zimmer, or some of those to be a little "sell-outy" and they're often writing big overblown romantic symphonic music - often played on synths - with more "mood" music or "typical" music and what I feel is a little "run of the mill".

The same is true of a lot of video game soundtracks I hear (not that I hear many) which also tend to be very much "typical" and sticking to a formula...

sort of the inevitable impact of the original Star Wars I suppose...

 

[A-Bone]

Shouldn't we separate soundtracks from scores for purposes of this thread?

 

[Lance]

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

 

[vegarman]

2001 a space oddity

 

[townsend]

Conan the Barbarian
The Thin Red Line

 

[BluesForDan]

2001 a space oddity

The Mad magazine satire or the actual "2001 A Space Odyssey"?

It took quite a while but I found a CD of the actual soundtrack. It was surprising how many covers/remakes of this there are out there.

Dang, I want to listen to it now and I don't know where it is.

 

[Dave2512]

Repo Man.

 

[Hefalump]

Jimi Hendrix: Soundtrack to the Motion Picture

The Lost Boys.

Forrest Gump.

Almost Famous.

Pulp Fiction.

Suicide Squad.

Guardians of the Galaxy.

Apocolypse Now.

 

[27sauce]

La Bamba
Hope Floats
Swingers
Less than Zero

 

[misterturtlehead]

Truck Turner, Shaft, Three Tough Guys, Across 110th Street, Together Brothers, Short Eyes, Let's Do It Again, Youngblood, Hell Up In Harlem, Coffy, The Mack, The Payback, Cleopatra Jones, Superfly, Wattstax.

I also dig the soundtrack to this.

 

[monwobobbo]

THIS IS SPINAL TAP

 

[RoryGfan]

Goodfellas
The Color of Money
Mean Streets
Once Upon a Time in the West (Ennio Morricone)

...and many more.

 

[scelerat]

The Star Wars score really opened my ears as a kid. Of course, I was already a fanatic because I was the right age when those movies came out, but the liner notes on the double LP were written by John Williams himself and explained everything he was trying to achieve in every track, how he created themes for the major characters, how he would use them throughout the score in different ways to tell the story. It really made me think not just about music and music theory, but how to use music to tell a story.

I picked up a CD of the original score a few years ago and was disappointed that it didn't include the liner notes which were included with the 1977 LP.

Other standouts for me:

American Graffiti
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
2001 A Space Odyssey
Dazed and Confused
Singles
um... lots of others, i could go on.

 

[NorCal_Val]

Repo Man
Until The End of the World
Pump Up the Volume

 

[s2y]

I'm in an age bracket that LOVED the Top Gun soundtrack, although most won't ever admit it.

 

[A-Bone]

I'm in an age bracket that LOVED the Top Gun soundtrack, although most won't ever admit it.

How do you feel about it now? That soundtrack is double-Logginsed.