genius film soundtracks

[redcrescent]

Nino Rota
John Barry
Bernhard Herrmann (Hitchcock bizness and Taxi Driver)
Elmer Bernstein
Lalo Shifrin

also obvious, but mostly essential:
Trouble Man (Marvin Gaye)
Soul Ecstasy (The Inner Thumb)
Death Wish / The Spook Who Sat By The Door (Herbie Hancock)
Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth (24 Carat Black)
Shaft in Africa (Johnny Pate)
Shaft (Isaac Hayes)
Sweet Sweetback's Baaadasssss Song (Melvin van Peebles)
Black Caesar / The Payback (James Brown)
Blacula (Gene Page)
Dynamite Brothers (Charles Earland)
Across 110th Street (Bobby Womack)
Foxy Brown / The Mack (Willie Hutch)
Superfly (Curtis Mayfield)

Nuestra Cosa (Our Latin Thing) by the Fania All-Stars

Wildstyle / Breakin' / Beat Street

Spaghetti Western / Giallo / poliziesco / exploitation film sountracks aplenty (Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Francesco de Masi, Bruno Nicolai, Piccioni, Ortolani...)

The Harder They Come (and, to a lesser extent, Rockers)

Ghost Dog

Beatles (those count, don't they?)

Ellington Anatomy Of A Murder / Art Ensemble of Chicago Les Stances A Sophie / Miles Davis L'Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud / Modern Jazz Quartet various

 

[redcrescent]

How could I forget this? Classic filmi songs

 

[Ness Rowlah]

Second Diva. A "meta" soundtrack?
The electronic sequences are not always great, but it just works.
(where can I get one of those wave machines?)

Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas with that long speach
from Harry Dean Stanton (and other Ry Cooder works).

Lisa Gerrard's film music: Whale Rider, The Insider and possibly The Gladiator.

Morricone's works as already mentioned (?) - (reminds of this old thread on the different versions of Morricone soundtracks. I bought a CD later, but still got the LP).

The first Batman movie (1960ish) - (Neal Hefti?) the original "duh-duh-duh-duh-duh Batman!"

[ Cheesy (but works) theme: "Miami Vice Theme"/Jan Hammer ]

 

[polystyle]

Decoder

Has anyone seen the German film Decoder? Mad, early 1980s, shadow-of-Berlin Wall/ nuclear apocalypse shriekfest with noise soundtrack from likes of William Burroughs, FM Einheit, Dave Ball and Genesis P. Orridge. Oblique contender for inclusion in the 'what good stuff was happening in Germany during the 1980s' thread

Just got bk in , saw your post and yeah, i did see "Decoder" ,
very much part of the 'good stuff happening in Germany in the 1980's'.
Had to wait to actually see it (as it never got a release in US) on rental in Tokyo from a shop where they would make a dub for you if you liked (formerly Top 10 Video in Aoyama) .
Crazy ass movie , great soundtrack , wild scenes, one part where there's a panopoly of total Germanic metal banging paganism , similar to the scene from Body Hammer where the Japanese baldheads are all pumping iron listening to similar tribal industrial.
Decoder , see it , rent it , dub it by all means ...

 

[puretokyo]

Dead Man (Neil Young)
Ghost Dog (RZA)
Kill Bill vol 1 (RZA)
Fight Club (Dust Brothers)
Pi (Clint Mansell)
Requiem for a Dream (Clint Mansell)
Apocalypse Now (various)


All kinda obvious, all utterly superb.

 

[puretokyo]

oh and the actual score for Ghost Dog by RZA is pretty tasty, no? That super-cold-organ-loop-based track especially. Only available on nightmare 'Music inspired by' format as far as i've ever been able to discover...

The complete (? seems to be complete, I didn't notice any cues missing) original score was released in Japan only; you should be able to find if you're willing to pay the price. I remember Forced Exposure had it at one point. I refused to buy it because I think it is too much a part of the movie to separate the two - I want to keep them together in beautiful matrimony.

 

[iueke]

Le Temps Fou - Marion Brown
les levre rouge - De Roubaix
Grazie zia - Morricone
Yojimbo - Sato
Andromeda Strain - Melle
Le Depard - Komeda
La planète sauvage - Alain Goraguer
Cesar et Rosalie - Philipe Sarde

 

[xero]

Bernhard Herrmann (Hitchcock bizness and Taxi Driver)

Did anyone see that Howard gooodall prog on Hermann where he claimed that his electronic score for The Day the Earth Stood Still predated any such experimentation from the 'classical' world (varese, stockhausen etc.) by a good few years yet was unacknowledged in any writing on the subject - is that true?

 

[iueke]

if i remember right Hermman's score for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was written for Theremin and orchestra in 1951. "Symphonic Mystery" also for Theremin and orchestra was written in 1924 by Paschenko. Edgard Varèse wrote "Equatorial" in 1934, a piece which included parts for Theremin.

 

[Rambler]

if i remember right Hermman's score for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was written for Theremin and orchestra in 1951. "Symphonic Mystery" also for Theremin and orchestra was written in 1924 by Paschenko. Edgard Varèse wrote "Equatorial" in 1934, a piece which included parts for Theremin.

And it made its first film score appearance in 1924 too - Aelita, composed by Valentin Yakovlevich Kruchinin. Miklos Rozsa used them in two 1945 scores for The Lost Weekend and Spellbound. Goodall/Herrmann's talking arse.

 

[xero]

Possibly his argument was that parts of the soundtrack consisted entirely of electronic sounds rather than just theremin & orchestra as had been done previously, my recollection is hazy, he may well have been talking out his arse

 

[Rambler]

One thing I will grant Herrmann is that his music (see esp Vertigo and Psycho, along with Day the Earth Stood Still) found a mass popular audience for the sounds of the avant garde. On this tip the music for Planet of the Apes is amazing - put that in a concert hall and everyone would walk out.

 

[iueke]

And it made its first film score appearance in 1924 too - Aelita, composed by Valentin Yakovlevich Kruchinin. Miklos Rozsa used them in two 1945 scores for The Lost Weekend and Spellbound. Goodall/Herrmann's talking arse.

doh! - queen of mars - mais, bien sur!! great film too.

i still listen to Rozsa 'spellbound' score now then. superb.

 

[robin]

i think the use of music in twin peaks the series and particularly fire walk with me is astounding,the way the theme is varied to trigger all sorts of responses becomes more appearent as the series goes on...aside from badamatelli's score the use of sound is really impressive as well-particularly the scene where the record runs out and the the crackling sound continues,really really chilling...

 

[bun-u]

Me and some cohorts did a soundtrack theme at a recent ‘Hat on the Wall’ night, obvious stuff/done several times before I know, but it was fun doing nonetheless…I didn’t realise how much soundtrack stuff I had

One of my favourites is Jack Nitzche’s soundtrack to ‘one flew over the cookoo’s nest’

Other faves not mentioned so far include…

Once Upon a time in America
Wings of Desire
Buffalo 66
The Third Man
Powaquatzi/Koyanaquatzi

 

[baboon2004]

Second Aguirre, Thief, Suspiria etc. But for pure sound design, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is hard to beat - some of that found sounds/dark ambient stuff is on a par with what Stars of the Lid did/are doing decades later. Check the opening scene alone with the frazzled radio commentary - amazingly prescient.

 

[Ach!]

Ghost In The Shell (Kenji Kawai)

Scanners (Howard Shore)

Get Carter (Roy Budd)

Hellstrom Chronicles (Lalo Schifrin)

 

[puretokyo]

i think the use of music in twin peaks the series and particularly fire walk with me is astounding... particularly the scene where the record runs out and the the crackling sound continues,really really chilling...

agreed. but you'll never find me disagreeing with praise for twin peaks - also the sounds when we see the entrance to the black lodge, the pool in the circle of trees...

for truly brilliant and horrific sound design, i find that the 'screaming tape reels' from The Conversation is unparalleled.

 

[redcrescent]

Get Carter (Roy Budd)

Damn good call. His scores for The Black Windmill, Fear is the Key and The Stone Killer, to name just a handful, are truly awesome.

 

[nomos]

Do the Right Thing - I love the intricate blending/overlapping of Bill Lee's score and Sr. Love Daddy's radio braodcasts. Sound sources and spatial relationships are always shifting. It's almost subconscious at times, the way it subtly follows the characters' moods and conversations. As the film moves toward its climax, this organic ebb and flow is repeartedly ruptured by increasingly intense blasts of PE's "Fight the Power." It's really amazing.