Top 10 Movie soundtracks

Well, I recently purchased the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby from Amazon, and this got be thinking about which movies also had great soundtracks, whether score or song based.

• The Great Gatsby : Well this one is intriguing. The soundtrack was produced by Jay Z, and thus it is not surprising that Beyoncé appears on the album. The soundtrack is a fun blend of jazz and hip hop, which works surprisingly well, with some ballads thrown in for good measure. The soundtrack matches the high production value of the film, and many of the tracks are highly produced and slick. The soundtrack is epitomized by an Emeli Sandé cover of Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love in typical 1920’s speakeasy fashion. Highlights include ‘Bang Bang’, a rap song which blends sequences elements of ‘Charleston’ and which is devilishly catchy. Young and Beautiful, a beautiful ballad by Lana Del Rey and A Little Party Never Killed Nobody, a song combining elements of techno, EDM and house music, and which it is strangely easy to dance the Charleston to! Unfortunately the album also contains a cover of Back to Black by André 3000 and Beyoncé, which is badly sung and unfortunately completely unnecessary, despite being surprisingly well produced.

   

• Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit: One of the greatest film scores of all time, composed by Howard Shore, this piece combines orchestral and choral music, creating a musical tapestry. Each place in the film has a different theme, with Concerning Hobbits being The Shires theme, and a particularly celebrated piece of music, featuring a jaunty flute solo. The film also features separate themes for Mordor and Isengard, as well as Rohan and the city of Minas Tirith. The musical score is jaunty and light, and surprisingly catchy during the scenes which take place in the world of the hobbits and the kingdom of men. It is darker, and more folk inspired, and to the layman could be described as ‘rural’ and ‘farmy’, and features more violin solos. The parts of the story that take place in Mordor and Isengard  are very different, featuring thundering chords, and much more chorus than in the other segments. The Hobbit features much music in common with The Lord of the Rings, the score essentially takes the best elements of the trilogy, and adds in some seriously good compositions, which help to show the dwarfs inclusion in the story, with the new music featuring thundering percussion and chorus, which works perfectly with the more rugged aspects of the story, given the increased involvement of the dwarves in this story. Each film uses one original song during the credits, and Into the West, by Annie Lennox, and May It Be by Enya standing out as particular highlights from the third and first movies respectively. Combined these elements help make this one of the greatest scores of all time.

• Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit: One of the greatest film scores of all time, composed by Howard Shore, this piece combines orchestral and choral music, creating a musical tapestry. Each place in the film has a different theme, with Concerning Hobbits being The Shires theme, and a particularly celebrated piece of music, featuring a jaunty flute solo. The film also features separate themes for Mordor and Isengard, as well as Rohan and the city of Minas Tirith. The musical score is jaunty and light, and surprisingly catchy during the scenes which take place in the world of the hobbits and the kingdom of men. It is darker, and more folk inspired, and to the layman could be described as ‘rural’ and ‘farmy’, and features more violin solos. The parts of the story that take place in Mordor and Isengard  are very different, featuring thundering chords, and much more chorus than in the other segments. The Hobbit features much music in common with The Lord of the Rings, the score essentially takes the best elements of the trilogy, and adds in some seriously good compositions, which help to show the dwarfs inclusion in the story, with the new music featuring thundering percussion and chorus, which works perfectly with the more rugged aspects of the story, given the increased involvement of the dwarves in this story. Each film uses one original song during the credits, and Into the West, by Annie Lennox, and May It Be by Enya standing out as particular highlights from the third and first movies respectively. Combined these elements help make this one of the greatest scores of all time.

 

• Sex and the City: This might seem like an odd choice, however I think that the use of music in this film was superb, the films soundtrack managed to perfectly blend the light, jazz inspired lounge soundtrack of the original tv series, with a new selection of songs, which were perfectly injected into the film. The use of music in this film is superb, and highlights include a stunning rendition of Auld Lang’s Eyne, used in the film as carrie is running through New York on new year’s eve to Miranda’s apartment in the snow, and a new recording of the original HBO theme, rerecorded by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, in a typical symphonic fashion.

• Dreamgirls: Despite being an adaptation of the celebrated Broadway musical, this film features much new material, and received three nominations for best original song at the 2006 Academy Awards. The original material is significantly updated for this film, with the orchestral backing losing the disco inspired, 1970’s feel of the original recordings, and replacing it with a punchier, more big band and jazz inspired sound, focusing more on brass and percussion. Surprisingly as this is often not the case, the films soundtrack is actually better sung that the original soundtrack, and the film’s producers made the smart decision of using performers who were primarily singers in the film, whereas most films do the opposite. Jennifer Hudsons vocal performance in this movie is one of the greatest ever seen on film, with her performance of And I Am Telling You is simply stunning, with the audience being able to feel the pain and desperation in her voice, despite the soundtrack being a prerecord, showing that live singing on film is not always the way to go. (up yours Les Miserables) Other highlights include Listen, featuring a stunning performance by Beyoncé, and Dreamgirls, the film’s title song which shows a smooth, lounge inspired sound, highly appropriate given that The Dreams are very much inspired by The Supremes. 

• Cloud Atlas: Featuring over two hours of original music, this film contains the most music of any film since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Composed by one of the film’s director Tom Twyker, the score manages to be totally timeless. Music is one of the ways this film attempts to link together the various segments of this film is through music, and rather than each segment having its own music, Twyker has composed a timeless classic score. The score works equally well with each segment, and although different motifs are used for each different part, the overall ‘sound’ remains the same. This is a score which transcends time, space and ethnicity, it works equally well on a sailing boat in the pacific in the 19^th century as it does in a post-apocalyptic future or in Edinburgh in the 1930’s. The soundtrack is haunting and beautiful, and never stoops to the stereotypical techno music which too often features in modern sci-fi movies. The score is almost entirely orchestral, only occasionally using a chorus, which is often used as an instrument would be, not using words at all. The score features a piece which is described in the film and original novel, called the Cloud Atlas Sextet, the piece is used as a metaphor for the piece as a whole, with the sextet being described as a symphony with six movements, featuring six separate soloists, weaving in between one another, connected but still apart. One wonders if, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cloud Atlas will ever feature in live orchestral performances, showings of 2001 with a live orchestra have become quite popular, almost like a highbrow version of midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

• Moulin Rouge: One of the greatest soundtracks of all time, here the music of the film, essentially shows us the nature of the film itself. Moulin Rouge! Is a jukebox musical, which is set in Paris at the turn of the century, in the famed nightclub and brothel. The movie despite being a period film uses modern camera angles, fast cuts and quick pans, and Luhrmann described how he wanted to recreate the excitement of the Moulin Rouge at the turn of the century for a modern audience, and used many techniques more often seen in music videos. The soundtrack is unique in that it uses modern songs, reproduced and rerecorded in a period style, though not necessarily in a museum way, meaning that the music is evocative of the era whilst perhaps not being entirely true to the music hall style of the period. Music was so important to Baz Luhrmann that he spent a full year simply getting the rights to all the music. The movie features only one original song; Come What May, a song which was in fact written for Romeo + Juliet, and which was thus disqualified from the Best Original Song Category at the Oscars. Highlights of the soundtrack include the Elephant Love Medley, a piece which includes selections from over twenty songs, and which actually manages to combine them into something which resembles a song, and Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, vaguely modernized for the film featuring a new bridge section which uses the chorus of Madonna’s Material Girl. Other highlights include a tango version of Police’s Roxanne, featuring a throbbing, haunting violin solo. Period versions of Grace Jones’ Warm Leatherette and Pull Up to the Bumper, featuring can-can girls in S&M bondage gear, establishing the gothic tower as a brothel was planned but never filmed. Seeing as I am a huge Grace Jones fan I would have loved to see this on film, but it does seem superfluous to the story.  Other than this omission, I really have no other complaints about this soundtrack, and it remains the greatest song driven jukebox soundtrack of all time.

• Melancholia: Oddly enough this is a jukebox soundtrack featuring classical and baroque music. The film is bookended by the Prelude from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, which is deliciously atmospheric. Although the music of this film is perhaps not as memorable and certainly not as catchy as some of the other examples shown here, it is beautifully atmospheric and adds to the already slightly mysterious element of the film. The sheer beauty of the music also mirrors the absolutely beautiful esthetic of the picture, and the beautiful colors used. The music is particularly atmospheric at the very end of the film, as Melancholia is bearing down on earth, and Wagner’s Prelude is roaring over the sound of the planet tearing through earth’s atmosphere.

• Juno: Light and quirky, this soundtrack matches the tone of the film itself perfectly. The film relies heavily on music by Kimya Dawson, and a cover of Anyone Else But You by Michael Cera and Ellen Page is a highlight. The film is a small, independent movie, and as such the films soundtrack features a lot of small, niche indie music. The films soundtrack is well put together, and successfully matches the tone of the film, while the album actually feels like someone’s music collection, appropriate given that much of the music is diegetic, and the characters are aware if its presence.

 

• Pirates of the Caribbean: A simply amazing score, the film dispenses with the traditional swashbuckling soundtrack found on most pirate films, and it is instead replaced by a     sumptuous score, which highlights the action adventure elements of the story. The more seafaring elements of the story are highlighted by a more folk sound, featuring violin solos and a jaunty melody. The films theme is simply stunning, and is melodic, symphonic and catchy, making this Hans Zimmer composed score, one of the most fun, and exciting scores, if not as deep or complex as some of the other score based soundtracks featured here.

• Amadeus: This adaptation of the celebrated jukebox play/musical features much more music than the original, and in excess of five operas are shown in the movie. Whilst none of the main characters of the film actually sing, the use of music in the film is superb, with Mozart’s requiem used for the films epilogue, a cute example perhaps of life imitating art.