Does it seem like everyone's taking inventory lately? Ten Books, Ten Movies, Ten What-Have-You everywhere you look. I'd been planning something like this for awhile and it was not meant to reflect this trend. But as for taking inventory: guilty as charged. I like taking inventory.
Another thing I like? (Segue!) Film music. In fact I love it and have as long as I can remember. Lately - it started earlier this year when I was collecting the Bond soundtracks - I've been absorbing them more than usual. Here's ten favorites, just for the hell of it.
Some caveats: (Always with the caveats!)
- I'm not including any soundtrack that I might love (say, Purple Rain, or - for entirely different reasons - Rocky IV or Trainspotting) or that may even be perfectly integrated into the film the way film-score music would be (all the aforementioned, Mean Streets, Stand By Me, etc.) I don't consider them inferior to the strictly orchestral soundtrack, it's just what I've gravitated to lately.
- No Bond, since I did that 007 mix tape post, and no John Carpenter and I limited myself to one John Williams. The truth is: if I entered these composers in competition and truly set out to map out which was best or even which were favorites, I'd probably have a top 10 of nothing but these 3 Johns. Which might be truthfully represent my favorite soundtracks, but it seemed more fun to talk about some of the others below.
  |
| No disrespect Favorites are probably Moonraker (or The Black Hole) and Halloween, respectively. (You can't go wrong with any Carpenter - especially the two he put out to films that do not exist.) Favorite Williams, see below. |
- Similarly, no Star Trek.Which one is the best? I have no idea. Maybe I'll do a Trek soundtrack post sometime. (Most underrated? Insurrection or The Search for Spock. Probable best: The Motion Picture. Or Wrath of Khan. Or The Voyage Home.)
- And finally, I'm not including any hybrids of score and songs, like Back to the Future (which remains one of my favorite soundtrack collections of both) or Risky Business (which was painful, as the Tangerine Dream music in there is awesome. While we're here, there is a lack of Tangerine Dream on the list below, too, which is unfair. I'm a huge fan and they did some fantastic film scores over the years. Sorcerer, Legend, Thief, you name it - many more. But the one I want is The Keep. It's available only at ridiculous prices, so as a slightly ridiculous protest about not being able to crank it from my stereo (YouTube just isn't the same) I left them off the below.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Truly there could a hundred here, but I'm going with:
Korngold is a composer I've been studying a little bit. I don't know his work very well, but this Sea Hawk and Other Scores disc goes a good broad-strokes-ing his cinematic approach. I've got his opera Die Tote Stadt (which is pretty good - took me a few listens but now I kind of love it) and his Midsummer suite on the way. You haven't heard the last from Korngold in these pages.
I'm delighted to have added Young Sherlock Holmes to my collection after all these years of singing "Rame Tep" (cued up to the part here that was unbelievably cool when cranked from the stereo instead of heard via mp3 on my computer) to myself. Bruce Broughton, I discovered from the liner notes, lifted some parts of his score for the TV mini-series The First Olympics - which I watched a gazillion times on VHS - for parts of YSH. I'm not sure which yet, but I'm on the case.
  |
| Korngold (l) Broughton (r) |
10.
Totally underrated soundtrack. Glover Gill and the Tosca Tango Orchestra provide not just the perfect soundtrack for the abstractions of the film but a standalone masterpiece. I can think of many words to describe the music - turbulent, elegantly structured, wonderful, deeply stirring, disorienting - but just have a listen to the reintroduced main theme at the end of the film. It's better than any of them. (Words, that is.)
9.
Danny Elfman's Beetlejuice soundtrack might lack the maturity of some of his masterworks to come, but it's my personal favorite of all of them. The main theme gets a justifiable slice of attention, but most of the other tracks are equally wonderful. Like "Travel Music." Or "The Incantation." I love this album.
8.
Broughton again, here conducting the Sinfonia of London in a faithful reproduction of Bernard Hermann's original score. Holy crap do I love this music: the perfectly precise use of the orchestra in "Hydra's Teeth/ Skeletons Attack", the echoes of Hermann scores to come in "Medea's Ship", or this haunting accompaniment to Hercules and Hylas finding the Titans treasure. You could use the same music for an opera based and it'd make a hundred million, easy. Well, adjusted for inflation, and in 1880, or something. Still: beautiful music. And kudos and deep thanks to Broughton and company for doing these recreation soundtracks.
7.
I remember a friend once saying something like "Koyaanisqatsi is great and all, but when's the last time you actually watched it?" And I thought, "I watch Koyaanisqatsi all the time, dude." And at the time it was true. These days, not so much, but I still listen to the soundtrack often enough. A classic. Throw it on and trance out and think about really deep things.
I've been listening to some of Philip Glass' operas. Like Korngold, he shall return another day.
6.
The composer/conductor of this one, William Stromberg, is another to whom we should give thanks for recreating film scores of the past. Here he gets to blanket this atomic bomb documentary with his own nuclear array of sound (please forgive me). But holy moley - listen/ watch this. Or this. This isn't a movie or a soundtrack; it's a declassified opera about atomic bomb tests narrated by William goddamn Shatner with some of the heaviest orchestral gloom ever committed to celluloid or digital print.
5.
One of the most influential scores of all time. I was driving through the edge of what I later discovered was a tornado a few months back and this happened to be playing at inadvisable volume. Couldn't see a damn thing and was afraid to move my hands from where they were locked on the wheel to turn down the volume. Top Five Most Intense Driving Moments of My Life. (If they ever make a movie of it, please call it Visibility Zero.)
Prokofiev had a troubled life. I keep bringing up operas and don't mean to, but I've got one of his on tap as well (The Love for Three Oranges.) Nevsky, though, is more or less the musical model for every movie made in the West set in or about Russia that came after.
4.
What makes this one so special is how unnecessary it was. This movie would've been fine with just a traditional score, but Basil went ahead and composed this. Very much in the tradition of Nevsky and Soviet military traditionals but with its own blockbuster ethos. Guaranteed to make your day more epic. This is kind of my stand-in for all Poledouris. If push came to shove, I think I'd go with Red October, but Robocop and Conan would be right up there to the last round.
From what I understand, the choir's Russian isn't very clear, so native speakers have to read along with everyone else to understand the words. I've never even looked up the words, and I've listened to this a gazillion times. What am I waiting for? (I don't know if this is accurate or not, but there's this.)
3.
  |
| Special edition 2008 |
Like any reasonable person I've always loved the movie, but it took until the release of the Indiana Jones Soundtrack Collection in 2008 for me to properly appreciate everything John Williams does in this score. As with Poledouris above, this is kind of my stand-in for John Williams, which is ridiculous, but I just mean: between Indy and Star Wars, this is my pick. Limited to those two franchises. Still ridiculous but less so - Williams has done so much he's genre of one. (Click here for the first of a multi-part wonderful overview of said genre.) I didn't go with Star Wars here not because the Raiders score is any better, really - just "The Raiders March" and "The Map Room" are my all-round, enduring, desert-island favorites.
What more can you say? It is film score perfection.
2.
I'd forgive you for thinking I'm crazy for putting this above Raiders or any of the others you can think of. But what can I say? I love every track on this album, and I listen to it at least once every couple of months, and years back I listened to it damn near everyday. From the opening ("Voluntary Hospital Escape") through the middle ("Snowflake Music/ Mr. Henry's Chop Shop") and on to the end ("Futureman's Theme," which sums it all up) this is music to reprogram your life to. Which is exactly what the movie is about, so film score mission accomplished. And then some.
Of the album's non-score songs - and technically yes this is a cheat since I made a point of excluding such albums but a) there was no way I was leaving Bottle Rocket off, and b) there's only a couple of them - the one that hits my head in that same frontal-love heaven way is "Zorro's Back". The YouTube links appear to be only the 4-minute version from the Alain Delon film from the 70s or this fan-made stuff at the soundtrack length.
And finally:
1.
Both the movie and the soundtrack are enduring favorites, but Queen's score for Flash Gordon has come to represent some radical (and radically awesome) alternate path for America. Somewhere out there in multispace, the earth spun off into the history we all know, while in some other timeline, Flash Gordon not only made a gazillion dollars, the world remade itself, Bill and Ted's style, in its mix of steampunk Queen-arena-rock awesomeness.
Beyond this alternate timeline business, it's amazing how seriously Queen its role in scoring the film. It's very much done in the classical score style, with themes for characters and leitmotifs; I'd say between this and Star Wars/ John Williams, there was really no way in retrospect I wasn't going to gravitate towards scores that followed certain rules rather than free-for-alls. But also very much in the exuberant spirit of its era and refashioning the familiar into new, again-totally-awesome directions.
"Totally awesome" is the only true description of this soundtrack. Beethoven, Duke Ellington, Genghis Khan, and Yngwie Malmsteen all wish they wrote this album. I do, too, for that matter. I'll settle for cranking it every other week. How fortunate to be alive in an era such as this, even if we're in the crap timeline.
But hey! Maybe not.
~
(1) I think if I were going to do a list like this, I'd do it in very similar fashion to yours. No songs soundtracks (that's a different beast altogether), and I'd probably segregate John Williams from everyone else out of sheer necessity. I *might* allow Barry and Carpenter to remain in contention, if only because I feel like they might both fail to place anything within my top ten. And that's despite how much I love them both as composers (i.e., QUITE A FUCKING LOT).
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, the mere thought of having to actually pick ten is making me sweaty with nervousness.
(2) Boy, that excerpt from "Young Sherlock Holmes" is something. That's got such a deep and full sound to it that I think a body'd be forgiven for hearing it and assuming it was an excerpt from some highly renowned opera. In some ways, the eighties seem to have been something of a last gasp for symphonic scoring -- but what a gasp!
(3) Oooh! I don't know "Waking Life." I saw the movie once, but remember nothing about it; the animation style was offputting. I love Linklater more often than not, though, so I should give that one another look.
(4) "Beetlejuice" is the sound of a guy who is somewhere in the middle of being at the peak of his powers. Damn near every bit of that score is marvelous. And I agree: there was even better stuff to come.
(5) I love Herrmann in general, but somehow, I don't think I've ever actually heard his "Jason and the Argonauts" score. Conducted by Broughton seems like a good way to go.
(6) I only saw "Koyaanisqatsi" once, but there are bits of it -- the space-shuttle scene, for example -- that have stayed with me ever since. And the score is next-level great. I can't claim it as a personal favorite, necessarily, but it receives an A+ from me nonetheless. Glass got roasted on "South Park" that one time, but the fact in my mind is this: you produce a "Koyaanisqatsi," you're above roasting, forever and always.
(7) Holy shit...! I've never even HEARD of this! My loss, I feel certain.
(8) I've got a different recording of "Alexander Nevsky" (https://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Nevsky-Yuri-Temirkanov/dp/B000003G5Y). Got that on a whim back in the days when I was scarfing up every score I could get my hands on, and boy, did I end up buying some mediocre stuff. This was not on that list. "Alexander Nevsky" is drop-dead awesome. I've got a three-note phrase from one of big battle cues moaning in my head right this very second!
DeleteReading on, I discover that it's the bit you've got the video cued up to. Of course it is! That's right up with the most awesome bits in film-music history. I once -- long before I even had a blog -- toyed around with the notion of creating a hypothetical temp-score of music for the "Dark Tower" novels, and this is what I had earmarked for the attack of the Wolves in Book V.
The bit from 5:28 to 6:13 or so might get my vote for THE best thirty(ish) seconds in all of film music.
(9) Is there a film composer more underrated than Basil Poledouris? "Red October" is an incredible piece of work, and it's not his only one. but for whatever reason, his name is rarely mentioned among the heavyweights. And he's gone now, of course, so I guess he'll forever be an also-ran. Not for me, though.
Jesus Christ, now I want to listen to "The Hunt For Red October"!
You make a great point, by the way: this is a great score for a movie that would have been just fine with a good one, or even an indifferent one. Which, in the year 2018, is exactly what it would have received. Most movies do, I am sad to say.
(10) "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a damn-near-perfect score to a damn-near-perfect movie. And it MIGHT not even crack my personal top ten among Williams scores. That's how great that guy is. As for "The Map Room," it is transcendent.
(11) "Bottle Rocket" is a damn fine score. Wouldn't get on my top 100, much less 10, but that's no criticism. Mothersbaugh did some terrific work for Wes Anderson before Anderson dumped him for Alexandre Desplat (who has also done terrific work for him). Out of nowhere, earlier this week, I had one of his cues from "The Life Aquatic" stuck in my head. Lasted the better part of a day, and I had no complaints.
(12) It's been entirely too long since I (A) watched "Flash Gordon" or (B) listened to the score. But the score is indeed great, both as a score and as a piece of rock and roll.
There is a lot to be said for your argument that some better version of our world might have resulted from this moment in time. Ah, the what-ifs! What if there'd been six or seven more "Flash Gordon" movies just this fun? What if the space opera boom hadn't been restricted to "Star Wars"?
And, of course, what if a rock-score subgenre had truly been kicked off by Queen's music here? There are other examples: Toto's "Dune" score is surprisingly good, too. But in some other reality, as you suggest, this was merely the beginning, rather than the beginning, middle, and end all in one fell swoop.
What if? Well, I wish I knew.
(13) If this post had been another 100,000 words, I'd've been happy to read 'em!
By the way, I've got *most* of these, and I'm in short order going to be putting them all on a thumb drive and putting 'em in my car as driving-around music. Gonna be some good driving.
Delete(1) I am glad my methodology meets with your approval. Like you say, with such an abundance of excellence to choose from, it's best to paint the dividing lanes as clearly as possible up front. Otherwise you'll drive all over town/ up over the curb/ on the wrong side of the street.
Delete(2) I have been cranking that "Rame Tep" theme all week. Best 44th birthday present of them all!
(3) I like both the movie and the soundtrack, but I can understand how the movie might not be everyone's cup of tea. The music, though, is brilliant.
(5) Words fail me with this movie/ score. Just such a fave. I mean, I could/can/do say that about all these, but yeah: those two I excerpted plus Medea's Ship/ Dance / all the Harpies-attack stuff: just burned onto my memory as deeply and wonderfully as something like "KHAAAAAAAAAAN"
(6) I forgot about that! Well, SOUTH PARK roasts everyone, so I imagine it's an honor. His operas are pretty interesting, by the way.
(7) It's kind of off the radar, but man. I woke up with that theme in my head and have been singing it all morning and feeling totally epic. The movie, by the way, is definitely worth seeing; even the sequel (THE RAINBOW BOMBS/ NUKES IN SPACE) is interesting. But this first one was such a surprise: epic material, Shatner, and this score that is just marvelous. I wish it was more readily available, but at least that clip has been active on YouTube forever. (And what a clip! Crikey that is awesome.)
(8) I'm glad to read all that, because seriously sometimes this soundtrack hits me so hard I have no idea how to express it. It's just incredible. So, I'm happy to hear you know what I'm talking about. That clip is so freaking awesome. I love how the two Russian warriors - when the dialogue cuts in - almost sound like they're talking over walkie-talkies or flight-to-flight radio. Just so ominous. And that quick embrace before getting ready for battle - this is just such effective cinema. And Prokofiev's music - I mean, good lord.
Delete(11) I love both the film and the music for BOTTLE ROCKET so much; they really hit me. The soundtrack is one of the few things that can turn any mood - and circumstance - into a better one. I'd hate to test that against some insurmountable tragedies or violence, but without going to extremes, I mean.
I'm glad to hear you'll be driving around with some of this awesomeness cranking!
(2) Very cool you were able to find a copy of that score. You can't always count on that in the soundtrack-collecting game; it can be an infuriating pursuit.
Delete(3) I would love, in theory, to go on a deep Linklater binge at some point. I've seen a lot of his movies, but I've also missed a lot of them. I'd hold both "Dazed and Confused" and "Before Sunrise" (plus its sequels) up as being perfect films. Or close to it, at least.
(5) Herrmann in that mode is pretty damn great, so I look forward to hearing this. (I've got it in my Herrmann folder, but it's one of the ones I've never actually heard.)
(6) I believe it. I've never heard anything of his that I didn't like. I've only heard a bit from him, though, to be honest; always have wanted to do a deep-dive. His main theme for "Candyman" is one that just pops into my head every so often, and I never mind.
(8) Ever seen the movie? I assume it's great.
(11) I'm a bigger fan of the next two or three movies he made, but yeah, for sure -- "Bottle Rocket" is superb. It feels like that's kind of gotten lost in the shuffle among Wes Anderson movies, and that's a fate that movie does NOT deserve.
8) Da, tovarisch! Had to watch that and "Battleship Potemkin" in a Soviet Fiction class. (A different class I saw a lot of other 20s/30s Soviet stuff.) But yeah, NEVSKY is very, very watchable.
Delete11) My Wes Anderson list is pretty much 1) Bottle Rocket 2) Rushmore, 3) Life Aquatic, 4) everything else. I really only need those 3.
(8) I've seen "Potemkin." I liked it quite a bit.
Delete(11) I consider myself a fan, I guess. I have loved most of his movies -- I was only so-so on "Darjeeling Limited," and kind of hated "Moonrise Kingdom." Haven't seen "Isle of Dogs" yet.
I can't resist taking a stab at my own top ten. If I jump off a building at some point during the selection process, don't be too surprised.
ReplyDeleteA handful of honorable mentions: "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (television, and really more of a jazz album than a soundtrack -- but deeply wonderful), "Interstellar" (a movie and score that deeply affected me), "Out of Africa" (plus every Bond score Barry ever wrote), "Batman," "Psycho," "The Searchers," "The Wizard of Oz" (even without the songs), "The Magnificent Seven," "Back to the Future," Patrick Doyle's scores for Branagh's "Henry V" and "Hamlet," "Krull" (goddammit!), and so forth.
(10) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Ennio Morricone): I'm a little surprised to find myself putting this one on the list. I mean, it's great; unquestionably. I'd have just expected for other things to shoulder their way in ahead of it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkM71JPHfjk)
(9) Dances With Wolves (John Barry): I guess a lot of people find this movie to be boring or offensive or whatever, but the hell with that, I love it. And I think it's the peak of John Barry's craft. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ808U8L41k) (I'll be back once I can see again.)
(8) Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman): Look up "haunting" in the dictionary, it just plays this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VlFMtlZAs4)
(7) Halloween (John Carpenter): I thought initially there'd be no Carpenter here, but it's impossible for me to leave this off the list. It is literally a perfect score.
(6) The Village (James Newton Howard): I'm not sure there's a bigger divide between my opinion of a movie and the public's than this one, which I love almost more than I can say. But EVERYONE agrees the score is awesome. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHo9o-qmz8I)
(5) Blade Runner (Vangelis): I mean, come on. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ornnAaYF9k)
(4) Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann): I may well leave it in my will that this -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_naJH44Lk3I -- is to be played at my funeral. Except then my funeral'd be nothing but people sitting around listening to film music for about two hours, because there's any number of other pieces I'd also want played.
(3) The Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore): It's three scores, but I think an argument could be made that it's a single piece of work. And it is awesome. By the way, as much as I love John Williams, nothing he wrote would unseat anything in my top three. THAT'S how much I love these. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ9NOV3KNpY) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESnMzQZubKg -- the final minute of which reduces me to a salty mess)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afY_Srf4xjk)
(2) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith): What can be said? I'd need a whole post for that. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOs_0rj5Ik4)
(1) Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris): The older I get, the more it seems like this is the one to beat. The influence of "Alexander Nevsky" is all over it (you can hear it in Shore's LOTR score, too), but in a way that builds upon it rather than rips it off. (Ditto for Shore.) I saw this in a theatre a few years ago with the sound cranked, and I thought I was going to vibrate into a different state of being like I was goddamn The Flash or something; that's how hard it hit me.
It's the hard-hitting sections that tend to get all the love, but this -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMVmW0k9jZI -- is so good I almost can't even believe it, especially from 1:18-2:00 or so. I also flip out for this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1on_N1R9vc) and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ot0oCZHn4, which would fit in pretty well with Poledouris's "Lonesome Dove" score).
Pretty much the entire score is impeccable, though.
I absolutely love the orchestral stuff from "Back to the Future." Definitely some of my favorite 80s film scoring, that.
Delete"Charlie brown Christmas" - absolutely! Perfection.
All of these are awesome. I think I'll be cranking the "Conan" soundtrack this morning...
A few recommendations, most of which I'm sure is familiar to you already:
ReplyDeletePhilip Glass, "Reting's Eyes" (from Kundun): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5OV6x9iPz0
Basil Poledouris, "Klendathu Drop" (from Starship Troopers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIGHCoVzqtk
Danny Elfman, "Main Titles" (from Mars Attacks!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6rYhQDQ4to
Bernard Herrmann, "Overture" (from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7USGQmcJlY
Mark Mothersbaugh, "Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op" (from The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAbvRyKVHUo
Toto, "Big Battle" (from Dune): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN52mJHpUAw&list=PLA41FBE817859ACC3&index=15&t=0s
Those are so awesome, all of them - thank you!
DeleteI have DUNE by Toto and for awhile was listening to it every few months. I'll throw that on this morning.
"MARS ATTACKS" is such a great flick - Peak Burton, that - and that theme is wonderful. As you wrote somewhere over on your blog, it's just easy to forget/ overlook how effortlessly brilliant so many of Elfman's themes are.
All of these links are A+++s, thank you. My buddy was ripping on LIFE AQUATIC the other day and I get it, but a) I don't hate the movie, sorry: in fact, I like it more than TENENBAUMS and really, the only Anderson I need are his first two plus LIFE AQUATIC, and b) there are so many moments worth preserving/ admiring in that one, and this music is all of them.
I laughed so hard during that scene of "The Life Aquatic" I was afraid I would be thrown out of the theatre.
DeleteI always forget how great the "Kundun" score is until I hear a bit of it. Same goes for "Mars Attacks!," but in a very different way.
And now, because why not, a valiant attempt at making a personal Top 10 Williams list. Honorable mentions: lol.
ReplyDelete(10) The Fury -- which shocks me
(9) A.I.
(8) Jaws
(7) E.T.
(6) Schindler's List
(5) Raiders of the Lost Ark -- what was I thinking, "it might not be in my top 10"?!?
(4) Superman
(3) The Empire Strikes Back
(2) Star Wars
(1) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
If somebody told me I had to try to integrate this with my non-Williams top 10, I'd probably just go hang myself.
Ha - well, I won't say anything, then. (I was going to write something like "Now do it without John Williams!")
Deleteif I included John Williams and John Carpenter and John Barry my top 10 might look like:
10) Trinity: Atomic Bomb Movie (because that theme won't leave me along this morning...)
9) Return of the Jedi (although I DO want to put it way higher, but it's probably the least of the original 3, even with the awesome Ewoks theme and "Yub Nub" and the Jabba's Palace band tune.)
8) Empire Strikes Back
7) Diamonds are Forever
6) Moonraker
5) Halloween
4) Close Encounters
3) Superman (which I listened to start to finish the other day; Lauren is a big fan of the main theme. Who isn't, obviously!)
2) Star Wars
1) Raiders
That is an awfully high recommendation for "Trinity." Gonna have to check that out sooner, rather than later.
DeleteThis is an intimidatingly strong top-ten list. My integrated one would be 1-3 on my non-Williams, followed by 1-7 on my Williams. With some despair over not having OHMSS on there anywhere thrown in for good measure. Or Wrath of Khan. Or ANY Disney scores. Or Bear McCreary's BSG music; not a film score, but still. Or Creepshow.
This is brutal.
Oh, man. This hasn't happened in a while. I wrote my own top 10 (excluding Williams scores), and it all vanished! All those genius comments, lost, like tears in rain! Ugh.
ReplyDeleteLet me see if I can replicate it:
(10) The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Ennio Morricone): An incredible score, and unlike most of the other scores on this list, the movie isn't especially dear to me. I've only seen it once and remember little. That score, though... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkM71JPHfjk)
(9) Dances With Wolves (John Barry): As much as I love Barry's Bond scores, I think of this as his finest single score. I think the movie has fallen out of fashion. Too bad. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ808U8L41k)
(8) Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman): You look up "haunting" in a dictionary, it plays you this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VlFMtlZAs4)
(7) Halloween (John Carpenter): I hadn't anticipated including any Carpenter, but then I remembered this score, and made a pfft noise at my earlier thought. This score is perfect. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0rSZfDJxpI)
(6) The Village (James Newton Howard): It's a movie I love deeply. I love it so much I've purposely not watched it in about a decade, lest it somehow not hold up. But I know better. I think it may have the biggest gap between my opinion and the public's opinion of it. But nobody, so far as I know, dislikes the score, which is incredible. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHo9o-qmz8I)
(5) Blade Runner (Vangelis): Still sounds like the future to me. (https://youtu.be/2ornnAaYF9k)
(4) Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann): This entire score hits me like a hammer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_naJH44Lk3I)
(3) The Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore): It's three scores, but I'd argue it's a single work. By the way, I like this more than I like any single John Williams score. THAT'S how much I love what Shore did for this trilogy. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ9NOV3KNpY)
(2) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith): So much of this score astonishes me that I barely even know where to begin. So I won't. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOs_0rj5Ik4)
(1) Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris): The hard-hitting tracks get all the love with this score. And they are indeed awesome. (You can hear the "Alexander Nevsky" influence clear as day, but not in a way that smells at all like ripoff to me. I'd say the same of Shore's Rings music.)
But I'd like to point at a few other standout tracks:
"Atlantean Sword" -- ethereal, unknowable (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1on_N1R9vc)
"Theology/Civilization" -- I wish I had words to express how this one makes me feel. I don't. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzscyVeJy6M)
"The Leaving/The Search" -- "Conan," I think, is a very misunderstood movie. I've got several of those on my list, and in all three cases, I think the score tells the real story. And the story of "Conan the Barbarian" is one of deep emotions being felt by someone who does not understand what emotions are, or how to feel them, or how to express them except in the hacking to death of one's enemies. Oh, but that emotion is there. It sure is. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ot0oCZHn4)
"Orphans of Doom/The Awakening" -- Impossibly sad. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4SXng8EtF0)
Your original comment went to my spam folder for some reason. Who can figure out Blogger? Not me.
DeleteYour description of "Conan" being a misunderstood movie and the score telling the real story resonates with me. Very true. This was a big thing with Wagner, too, by the way: as his characters lie to themselves and others on stage, the score expresses the truth and the audience feels it. A very sound (ahem) approach to scoring, that.
Very much so. And there aren't a huge number of movies that take that approach. I'd argue that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" is another of them.
DeleteHmm.
ReplyDeleteBlogger seems to have eaten a comment wherein I listed my non-Williams top 10 -- so I redid it and it got eaten again!
Blogger must be trying to tell me something.
Except now all the supposedly-eaten comments are showing up!
DeleteWeird.
Ah! I see above what happened -- I got spam-foldered. This, Bryant, is what happens when you get too enthusiastic writing about film scores on somebody's blog. The algorithms assume you must be up to no damn good.
DeleteWhich, given the fact that I'm still awake at a quarter to eight, is kind of true.
You know who never got mentioned here? Elmer Freaking Bernstein.
ReplyDeleteA ridiculous oversight. I mean, I took great pains to make clear that these are just ten favorites and not a top 10 of all-time/round favorites. Just ten faves. Still!
So I got the Elmer Bernstein box set for the ridiculously low price of $10. Holy moley - 9 of his scores including Magnificent Seven, Ten Commandments, Man with Golden Arm, and To Kill a Mockingbird, and Sweet Smell of Success. (And more!) All such classics, all such perfect use of orchestra-for-cinema. Like Korngold or Hermann, you hear this stuff and it's like, yep, that's what everyone was trying to sound like in the mid-20th-century for movies. And even before/ after.
Great, great stuff. I've got The Ten Commandments score going now - I love this.
It's funny because I don't think any of it would work as a symphony or chamber music. Such different rules for that stuff. But as the accompaniment to an amazing opera? Abso-friggin-lutely. You can totally hear/see the completion of the transition for writing this sort of music for opera to writing it for the screen. Both need to not just accompany, not just complement, but co-author the story being shown. Like you mentioned up there for the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack: it's a vital part of the process.
Just great. All the chapeaus to Elmer Bernstein. Sounds like he should be Dennis the Menace's beanie-wearing friend or something, but sheesh: what a maestro.
Bernstein is one of the greats, no doubt. I have this:
Deletehttps://www.discogs.com/Elmer-Bernstein-With-RPO-Pops-Elmer-Bernstein-By-Elmer-Bernstein/release/4997947
for many years and love it (though it's been a while since I actually listened to it).
I've never actually explored most of his work beyond that, apart from "Ghostbusters" and "The Age of Innocence" (which ought to have both been sequelized as "Ghostbusters and the Age of Innocence").
And "The Magnificent Seven" and "To Kill a Mockingbird." Fun fact about that latter one: that's John Williams playing piano on the original film recordings!
I don't know how you lucked into that box set for $10, but that's a freaking achievement, that is. Well done!
"Fun fact about that latter one: that's John Williams playing piano on the original film recordings!"
DeleteAnd looks like R2D2 himself plays trumpet on trks 3 and 5 of that RPO disc you have - the Force is strong with this one!
(I know, I know, different Kenny Baker.)
That's a pretty awesome set of selections on that RPO Pops disc.
I like your idea of that sequel. Would've been better than Ghostbusters II for sure. And maybe even Age of Innocence altogether. (Although I like that one fine enough so it's nto a dis.)
I want to get the Neal Hefti set I see on Amazon - everytime I check, it's down another dollar or so. Patience! Or: I'll wait too long and then it'll shoot up to ridiculous levels.
DeleteI'm really curious to know about Kevin Hart's heart. I mean, where else could I get info like that except at that link? As well as more info on the relationship between Ten Soundtrack Favorites and the career of this outstanding performer and hilarious comedian (who while we're here, has on at least two high profile occasions Quisling'd or otherwise aided and abetted the Online Mob, so thanks for your leadership and example, there, Kevin!).
ReplyDeleteI thank you for this, and may you have long days and pleasant nights.
("Hart to Hart" wasn't, I'm afraid, much of a good show, though.)
* Kevin's Hart height. Damn it.
ReplyDelete