Entertainment For Lively Minds
The decline of the original soundtrack LP
I was meaning to start a thread on this and was reminded by the Tarantino thread. These used to be pretty ubiquitous and probably reached their peak in the 80s, where many a pop video featured an artist intercut with scenes from the film. In its purest form, the artist or band would compose the entire soundtrack. Batman by Prince, Flash Gordon by Queen and Local Hero by Mark Knopfler off the top of my head. And very good many of them were too.
But this seems to be a dying art. The only recent-ish examples I can think of have been About A Boy by Badly Drawn Boy and Jonny Greenwood's soundtrack to There Will Be Blood. Post Pulp Fiction, many soundtracks are essentially compilation tapes; fantastic if done well, but – more often than not – pretty humdrum affairs.
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And whither the big power ballad
that until relatively recently accompanied any big film? They used to be ubiquitous, have all but died out.
Yeah …
I suspect that no one was able to out-do Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, without perforating someone's eardrum.
The Social Network
had a great score. Does that count?
AC/DC
Did the Iron Man II soundtrack, and I think there may have been videos of the kind you describe. Otherwise, Mogwai's soundtrack to the Zidane film springs to mind. Trent Reznor (he did The Social Network) and Nick Cave both keep their hand in too.
Some fairly recent ones
Persepolis: Not to everyone's taste but interesting nonetheless and an integral part of getting the comic book onto the screen.
City of God: Just flipping perfect in that it takes you right beack into the thick of the film when you listen to it.
The Crimson Wing - Mystery of the Flamingos (Cinematic Orchestra with the Philarmonic, I think): Haven't seen the film but the OS is rather lovely.
Wait a minute. All these films are really odd ones aren't they, thus proving the point?
Clint Mansell
has quietly emerged as a soundtrack maker of note. Yes ex Pop Will Eat Itself.
Meanwhile in the old fashioned film score area John Williams still produces lovely soundtracks (a long standing love of mine since seeing Star Wars in the cinema back in 78), and I've a soft spot for the works of Danny Elfman as well.
It's not all compilation tape for a friend underneath your favourite movie scenes....
Paris Texas
Ry Cooder's soundtrack was excellent
there can be only one...
Nyman
That said
I bought the 127 Hours soundtrack, so I guess they are still alive.
Long time causes....
....of the demise of the Original Soundtrack.
'Easy Rider'.
Great film.
Memorable soundtrack.
Opened the floodgates for soundtracks to be little more than a collection of easily licensed pop songs.
In 1969, not such a bad thing.
Beyond 1969.....yikes.
May I refer m'learned friends to the Hans Zimmer
page on iTunes. Gadzooks - where does he find the time and inspiration to do so much high quality work?
He has an army
of assistants, techs etc like all the big guys
Phil Collins
The music for the Disney films Tarzan and Brother Bear. He did them in several languages too.
Phil Collins - En Mi Corazon Vivirás
Aimee Mann - Magnolia
I saw her live after this where she was accompanied by her husband Michael Penn and the comedian Patton Oswalt who told jokes and saved Aimee from the chore of interacting with her audience.
Before she performed Save Me, Patton Oswalt ridiculed her for being beaten to the Oscar by Phil Collins and his "monkey love song".
Kes - original soundtrack by John Cameron
Here's a soundtrack that I'd like to bring the Massive's attention to:
Everyone knows Ken Loach's landmark film "Kes", made in 1969. However, John Cameron's wonderful soundtrack to the film was only released recently, on the maverick Trunk Records imprint. Sleeve notes by South Yorkshire's very own Jarvis Cocker.
Worth noting:
1. the main instrument on the soundtrack is the flute, played by the top Jamaican/British visionary jazz hero Harold McNair. Sublime.
2. The 'album' is only 19 minutes long. But I'd rather have 19 minutes of unmitigated brilliance than 73 minutes of poo.
Recommended unreservedly.
There were a few recent films which had two soundtrack albums
One was the proper 'original soundtrack', often orchestral and using music written for the film.
The other was music 'inspired by' the film and seemed to be a random selection of songs, often not even in the film.
A couple of years back one of the Simpettes bought a soundtrack to a film (One of the Twilight franchise?) because she liked 'that song from the film' only to find that she'd bought a John Williams-esque orchestral album.
EDIT: She bought 'Twilight: The Score' rather than 'Twilight: The Soundtrack' - they even look similar.
Daftpunk...
wrote the soundtrack for Tron: Legacy.
The Chemical Brothers
Have done the soundtrack to Joe 'Atonement' Wright's new film Hanna and Basement Jax have penned the soundtrack to 'Attack the Block' by Joe from Adam and Joe.
Cool - didn't know that
about Joe Cornish's film. It's made me want to see it even more. And you've also reminded me what a great score Atonement had. Good shouts.
The Submarine OST by Alex
The Submarine OST by Alex Turner is lovely.
Big fan of Thomas Newman's doom-laden, apocalyptic strings too, myself. Dead Already off American Beauty has had a few airings recently too.
Sunshine
I love the soundtrack for this Danny Boyle film by John Murphy (ex The Lotus Eaters and now a composer for many films) and Underworld.
Seemed to crop up on Prof Cox's latest (or the trailers at least).
Jonny Greenwood also composed the music for Norweigan Wood
Which I haven´t seen yet, but I enjoyed the book by Haruki Murakami.
I would also like to see Bowie´s planned soundtrack for The Man Who Fell To Earth released. It´s supposed to sound like the b-side of Low, which I really like. Parts of the soundtrack are supposed to have been incorporated to some of those instrumentals.
Tindersticks, Nick Cave & Massive Attack
Tindersticks have done four soundtrack albums, all for the French director Clare Denis:
- Nénette et Boni
- Trouble Every Day
- 35 Rhums / 35 Shots of Rum
- White Material
They're touring later this year performing a show based on these soundtracks.
Nick Cave has done a load of soundtracks with various members of the Bad Seeds:
- Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (with Mick Harvey & Blixa Bargeld)
- To Have and to Hold (Harvey & Bargeld)
- The Proposition (with Warren Ellis)
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (with Ellis)
- The English Surgeon (with Ellis)
- The Death of Bunny Munro (with Ellis)
- The Road (with Ellis)
Massive Attack did an album for the Luc Besson film Danny the Dog (aka Unleashed).
10cc's OST
Still waiting for the actual film
Sonic Youth
Have recently released a soundtrack album for the French film 'Simon Werner A Disparu' (not seen it)
28 Days Later
Danny Boyle wanted Godspeed You Black Emperor!
GYBE! HQ/squat wanted nothing to do with such a commercial project.
John Murphy's 'homage' to GYBE! was pretty, pretty good.
Everybody wins.
On one of the commentaries for Fight Club, Fincher, Pitt and Norton lament the fact that their first choice for the soundtrack - Radiohead - turned them down.
Dust Brothers plus Pixies did just fine.