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Soundtracks for Movies/TV Shows/Video Games


Corvinus85

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12 minutes ago, Risto said:

 

I grew up with James Newton Howard's score for "The Lord of the Rings" so it will always have a special place in my heart.



Not that special, apparently, since it was Howard Shore. :P



 

 

27 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

There's also some instances of temp music being left in films by mistake or because the director has a hard on for it, but my brain is dead from lack of sleep and I can;t think of them off the top of my head.



There's a few examples in that Marvel Symphonic Universe video that went around a year or two ago explaining why no-one remembers Marvel music. I think that's what enlightened me to the trend in the first place.

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I will put in that I love the Amelie soundtrack, I really like a lot of Yann Tiersen's stuff actually.

Plus, the Fountain, a hugely divisive movie, but its an audio / visual delight, so much so that I think without the soundtrack I wouldn't be able to stand the movie, but with it, it becomes one of my favourites. 

 

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3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:



Not that special, apparently, since it was Howard Shore. :P



 

 



There's a few examples in that Marvel Symphonic Universe video that went around a year or two ago explaining why no-one remembers Marvel music. I think that's what enlightened me to the trend in the first place.

Well, I'd argue I remember Silvestri's Marvel work, but that's two out of jeez, 15?

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46 minutes ago, Eggegg said:


Plus, the Fountain, a hugely divisive movie, but its an audio / visual delight, so much so that I think without the soundtrack I wouldn't be able to stand the movie, but with it, it becomes one of my favourites.


Clint Mansell is a boss in general.

 

 

45 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Well, I'd argue I remember Silvestri's Marvel work, but that's two out of jeez, 15?


Oddly, the Silvestri Marvel work I best remember is one piece that Fury Road, ahem, borrowed.

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@Lady Of The Crossbow Inn

Sorry, didn't see your SW music thread until it was too late. But in that thread you mention Bear McCreary and that he handles Vikings. Since when? I thought that was Trevor Morris + Wardruna, which I really like, but Bear is awesome. I love his scores for BSG, Outlander, and Black Sails.

He could be an interesting choice for Star Wars. I'm not sure how good he would be with big orchestra music, which is a must for SW, but those quirky instruments he loves so much could be a great choice of variety for SW. And drums, he likes drums, and so do I. :D

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12 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

My all time favorite score is from a movie no one probably remembers who didn't grow up in the 80s: Return to Oz. David Shire did such a masterful job with that, I don't even know if I have words. It also got a complete 2cd release a few years ago, which was really surprising, I think most of us film music nerds thought it had been lost.

 

Speak for yourself -_- this was probably my all time favourite movie as a child born mid nineties. The Wheelers! Mombi’s heads! Tick Tock! 

Oh now I need to go watch it again.

TV-wise, I really loved Abel Korzeniowski’s work on Penny Dreadful. The whole production on that show was great but his score really matched the tone and atmosphere of the show so well. Whether it was the creepy moors or the opulence of Dorian’s mansion, the rugged West or the grimy streets of London he had a track to match it. Sample;

 

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7 hours ago, Risto said:

With great risk of embarrassment, I adore his "Requiem for a dream" score. I hope I got that right :) 

Innit.


And speaking of people whose scores are heavily borrowed for trailers and such, John Murphy warrants a shout:
 


He doesn't seem to have done any work for a while though. Which is a shame.


Also, he's only done one film so far and it was his own, but I wanna mention Benh Zeitlin because the score for Beasts of the Southern Wild is amazing.
 

 

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Yann Tiersen's score for Amelie is one of my faves.

Michael Nyman is rather brilliant. The Piano is beautiful. Also want to mention the wonderfully bonkers score he and Damon Albarn produced, rather fittingly, for the wonderfully bonkers horror comedy Ravenous (a truly underrated gem!).

But I have to agree with most that Ennio Morricone is the greatest. John Williams is obviously also legendary. 

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Corvinus, *ouch*. My bad. I knew it was either Bear or Norris for Vikings but like Darth Richard, chronic sleep deprivation.:) I should have known, Yes,  Bear's work is a little percussion heavy at times. 

PolishGenius, thanks for explaining temping. I knew what it was,  but not that it was called that. I'd love a link to your Marvel Symphonic Universe video, it's something I've thought a lot about, and why I'm so concerned about the future of musical talent in Hollywood. The MCU is a beast strangling the town and it's only going to get worse. 

I wish I knew how to link to YouTube but here are a couple more faves of mine. Forgot the composer but the soundtrack for "Pan's Labyrinth," arguably  the greatest film from the Western Hemisphere in the 2000-2010  decade. There, I said it.:)

And there was a Christopher Reeve film from 1981, forgot the title, kind of a forgotten gem of his. Used to make  me cry like a baby. Basic plot is he goes to Chicago and embarks on a brief and doomed romance at a resort. A real weepie. Ugh. Can't remember the title but I can pull up scenes and OMG I'm getting teary-eyed again...

Deborah's Theme! How could I forget! Jennifer Connelly's screen debut. In that movie she was, what, 12? First time when we hear this when she is reading from the Torah to Noodles(?),"Why he can never  be my beloved," that scene breaks my heart. She was luminous in that scene, such poise and maturity. You could already see the woman in the child. Still amazing. 

 

As for the next SW trilogy like I said in my thread, I'm biased. Ramin all the way. He's earned  it. He's still amazingly young to be doing what he is, the GOT Concert experience has solidified his epic big orchestra chops and popular big-tent appeal. If he wins a Grammy so much the better. It's iconic. And such a range of themes. 

 

Speaking of big epic sounds, this remains my all-time favorite "album jacket" description of instrumentation in  a musical cue: "piano strings violently hammered upon by chains." I kid you not. This was for one of Howard Shore's "Two Towers" tracks, something from Mordor. I used to joke, "On his most frustrating workdays, was it Howard who was hammering them?" 

It's pretty much a description of my recent workweek:)

 

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Actually, I forgot Doctor Strange, that had a pretty good soundtrack for a Marvel film, plus, you know, i actually remember it.

Oh, as for temp music making it into the film

Alien: the scene with Dallas in the ducts uses music from Goldsmiths Freud

Aliens uses a cue from Alien when the queen gets out of the elevator

and continuing my theme

in Die Hard, the scene at the end where the guy from family matters shoots the terrost tracks an unused cue from Horners Aliens that is on the soundtrack but not in the film

The only instance I can remember of the actual score sounding like the temp track is in The X Files movie, which has a cue that sounds exactly like a track from The Relic. There's other's but my mind is blanking.

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Alright, shining some light on video came scores:

The score for Heroes of Might & Magic II (1996) remains my favourite computer game score to this day.

Paul Romero did a brilliant job reworking some classical compositions (notably Bach's Goldberg Variations for the Knight Castle) as well as adding some atmospheric originals for the different terrain themes. Discovering the game as a fairly young lad, the music really made the game come alive, and I would sit completely immersed for hours with the original campaign as well as player made maps. Those were the days.

For film scores, I'd like to give a shoutout to Paul Buckmaster's work on Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, where he adapts Astor Piazolla's Suite Punta Del Este to mesmerising effect. The music supervision for the film is also spot on, with such gems as Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill, Tom Waits' Earth Died Screaming and Louis Armstrong's unforgettable What a Wonderful World. Still my favourite time travel film.

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As far as games go, Darren Korb's work with Supergiant games has been really fresh and remarkable. Here's the Bastion soundtrack.

Ditto what @Dolorous Gabe said on Michael Nyman. His work on Gattaca and The End of the Affair really work for me. Beautiful use of strings.

Cliff Martinez's work on The Knick with Steven Soderbergh was mind-blowing for me. My jaw honest-to-goodness dropped when the music started for the first time on the show, because it was so unexpected for an exacting period piece about early 20th century medicine:

@Lady Of The Crossbow Inn

Somewhere in Time is the Reeve movie. Music by the late, great John Barry, who should also be mentioned in any decent soundtrack thread! (Besides the obvious -- the James Bond work, including the iconic theme -- I've always adored his work on Dances with Wolves)

 

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8 hours ago, Mme Erzulie said:

Alright, shining some light on video came scores:

The score for Heroes of Might & Magic II (1996) remains my favourite computer game score to this day.

Paul Romero did a brilliant job reworking some classical compositions (notably Bach's Goldberg Variations for the Knight Castle) as well as adding some atmospheric originals for the different terrain themes. Discovering the game as a fairly young lad, the music really made the game come alive, and I would sit completely immersed for hours with the original campaign as well as player made maps. Those were the days.

I never played the 2nd (or 1st) in the series, with the 3rd still being my favorite, and I recall it had a good soundtrack. 

For video games the Jeremy Soule's work with the Elder Scrolls games remains my favorite.

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