The best film soundtracks I've heard ever

[Ellen Zhao]

Incredible A.R.Rahman! It's definitely the best modern (post 1950) orchestral work I've ever heard.

Between the Heaven and Earth

According to the editor: "Based on his original score to the film Warriors Of Heaven And Earth, this album adaptation is Rahman's first full-fledged orchestral work....Rahman has the rare ability to articulate complex emotions without lyrics, and Between Heaven And Earth is the work of this master in full bloom."

I'm thrilled after listening to the mp3 files from my friends. Am buying the original CD made by Sony Classic. I can't describe how good the music is, all tracks' samples are on amazon, it definitely worths a try. My favourite track is "Golden Era", the tenderness of Erhu and bamboo flute and the might of orchestra are so perfectly composed. A. R. Rahman is adorable.

I watched the video clip of Warriors of Heaven and Earth in Auguest, the ripping was poorly done and I could hardly heard the music. The DVD of the Warriors of Heaven and Earth is already released in US, but here the date is Dec. 13th. I'm waiting. The story of the film is okay, ends all of a sudden which I feel hasn't been well developed. The photography is very beautiful.

[Alan Wanwierd]

Sorry - but the best film soundtrack of all time is without doubt:

The Jungle Book!!!

Back in the days when Disney had great music (i.e. before they went in league with the devil and got Phil Collins! )

Just thinking about it makes me want to leap around the room doing orang utan impressions singing: "...I wanna walk like you... doo be doo be do ... talk like you... "

[Gerald Davis]

I don�t know about any musc soundtrack but schindler's list isn�t to bad and I like the music played in silence of the lambs when the villain starts dancing to that queer music then reveals himself like some sort of queen bee. If anyone knows what that song is called, I would be greatfull.

[Jim Yingst]

Ellen - thanks for the recommendation. It's hard to truly guage from Amazon's brief excerpts, but "Between Heaven and Earth" sounds intriguing. I'll have to check it out. I have another disc of A.R. Rahmahn's, "Vande Mataram", which I like well enough, but I haven't really gotten into it as much as I might have. Will try again...

Adrian- um, OK. I think Phil did some good work as a drummer for Genesis and Brand X, but things went gradually downhill after he became lead singer. (Though there's still good stuff on any of his Genesis albums, and his first solo album (plus "A Hot Night In Paris" for that matter). But back to your point...)

To my mind, most Disney soundtracks are more like musicals than like what I think of as soundtracks. But that's been a fairly wide-open field since The Graduate currupted the genre with its wildly popular collection of pop tunes loosely connected to the film. Understand, I like that movie and its soundtrack; I just lament that it led to the rise of "soundtracks" that are thinly-disguised pop collections having nothing to do with the film in question. I've always been a big fan of big symphonic soundtracks myself - some of my favorites would be:

John Williams - The Empire Strikes Back (and most anything else of his from late seventies - early eighties)
Basil Poledouris - Conan The Barbarian
John Barry - The Lion In Winter
Jerry Goldsmith - The Wind and the Lion and, well, everything else
Miklos Rozsa - Ben-Hur and El Cid
James Horner - oh, let's say Star Trek II and Willow
Ennio Morricone - The Mission
Patrick Doyle - Henry V
Howard Shore - The Return of the King
Klaus Badelt - Pirates of the Carribean

I'd throw in Holst's Mars, Bringer of War and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture except they aren't actually soundtracks.

As you may note, I tend to heavily favor the majestic or action-packed science fiction / fantasy / action / adventure stuff. "Bombastic" is not a dirty word.

Ellen - the one favorite of mine which I'd most recommend to you (from what I know of your tastes) is Morricone's The Mission. Try Gabriel's Oboe in particular. It's a wonderful soundtrack to a wonderful film.

Adrian - it occurs to me that if you didn't like Ellen's recommendation, Bombay Dreams may be more to your taste. I haven't heard it beyond the Amazon excerpts, but it sounds intriguing...

[Ray Marsh]

Go ahead and roll your eyes, but I was blown away by the sound track to Jurasic Park. In fact I have it on CD. LOTR, all three were very good also.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

I like BraveHeart sound tracks alot...

[Mark Spritzler]

In terms of adding a big part to a movie, the soundtrack to Miracle Mile is amazing, this music makes you so tense. The movie is about a guy who finds out that there are Nuclear Missles heading toward the US, and has about an hour to find this girl, get to a rendezvous point where a helicopter is waiting to take them to safety. The movie is in real time, so for an hour you are at the edge of your seat, and the music really really adds to that tension. The soundtrack was written by Tangerine Dream.

Also by them is the soundtrack to "Thief" which is great too.

Mark

[Gregg Bolinger]

The soundtrack to The Passion of the Christ is really amazing. Not the "Music inpired by..." mind you, but the musical score.

[Ray Marsh]

Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:
The soundtrack to The Passion of the Christ is really amazing. Not the "Music inpired by..." mind you, but the musical score.

I don't get your meaning. I saw the movie, but don't understand the distinction you're making.

[Jim Yingst]

He means this rather than this or this. The first is the music that was actually used in the movie; the other two are not. It's common these days to cash in on a really popular movie by releasing a collection (or two) of pop songs that weren't actually used in the movie, but were "inspired by" the movie. I'm guessg that's the case here. (Note that I haven't heard any of these albums, so I have no opinion on their quality.)

By coincidence, Gregg did inadvertently remind me of another album which I left off my previous list: Pater Gabriel's Passion, which was the soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ. Amazing stuff. Interestingly, this soundtrack does not have an accompanying "music inspired by" release - but there was a "music which inspired". (Inspired the soundtrack, that is. Passion Sources collects a variety of pieces from North Africa and elsewhere which had influenced Gabriel in composing the Passion soundtrack. This kicked off Gabriel's Real World label, which went on to release a large number of other world music collections.

[Kishore Dandu]

AR Rehman from India created some good ones aswell(he has great following in Asia)

[Jim Yingst]

Errr... he's the composer Ellen was talking about in the first place. Followed up in my response as well.

[Kishore Dandu]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Errr... he's the composer Ellen was talking about in the first place. Followed up in my response as well.

oops..

[Tony Alicea]

I think someone forgot Elmer Bernstein...

[Peter Rooke]

Remember these;
The Deer Hunter Cavatina,
Deliverance (Dueling Banjos - Eric Weissberg)

[Ellen Zhao]

Thank you for all your recommendation. I'll check them out when I have chance. Today I got the CD Between Heaven and Earth with the song Warriors in Peace in both Hindi and English. I expected there would be lyrics printed in this CD, but ... well Sony didn't put them. I can figure out most of the English sentences, but due to the plenty bass in the music, I didn't get all of the words. Searched with google, no luck either. Anyone who could catch all the English words would be appreciated.

Among the three versions of the theme song, I like the English version best. The Chinese lyrics is superb, but this song is not for the pop singer Jolin Tsai. She's a Sony singer and has millions of fans in China, but this song is way too "big" for her voice, it's not suitable for her to handle it. Just my opinion. The Hindi singer Sadhana Sargam has very beautiful treble, and her voice is very feminine, if only I can understand what she is singing The singer of the English version Sunitha Sarathy is also an Indian, but I am really amazed by her wonderful performance. The midrange of her voice is solid and thick enough for the song, yet very warm and clean. Also, she doesn't make me nervous when the very hard treble part of this song comes out. She sings it so well. The other tracks in the CD are very good too, and not monotonous at all.


On the eve of nationwide release of 'Warriors oh Heaven and Earth' in China, Singapore oli interviewed ARRahman�s Assistant/Sound Engineer Sridhar

Excerpts from the interview

Columbia/Tristar pictures approached ARR sometime last june(2002) to do the musical score for the film. Since ARR was busy with Bombay dreams (according to Sridhar, at that time Rahman had only 2-3 hrs sleep every day for 25 continuous days) he did not accept the project immediately. He asked them to wait They approached him again after 6 months when ARR agreed to visit Hongkong to meet the Director. He committed to the project immediately after watching the movie.

Before starting to write the music, ARR studied Chinese instruments and music. When he was done writing the symphony score, they decided to record it in China. Since China was plagued with SARS at that time, they did the recording in Prague (Czech). According to Sridhar, Michael from New York and Sivakumar assisted ARR during the recording. The recording was done with live instruments (90 Piece Orchestra)

Mixing was done in Madras. Since Rahman felt the movie was too violent he wanted to add a song expressing peace and unity. He recorded an English song with a new singer Sunitha and Blaaze(one of the lyricist in Boys)wrote the lyrics. Sony was so impressed with the song they wanted a Chinese version. Popular Chinese singer Jolin was brought to madras and the Chinese version was recorded. Song is played in the background during the end titles.

Final mixing was done in Australia. Since ARR was busy with re-mixing work for Boys he couldn�t go to Australia. The song files (Sridhar used the word �reel�) was sent everyday to Australia through internet. Australians took 25 days to complete the final mixing.

Rahman is in Beijing to attend the nationwide release of the movie.

Sony will soon be releasing the CD .

When asked to comment about ARR�s future projects, Sridhar mentioned there are 3 Tamil movies, 6 Hindi and talks are going on for couple of English films.
[ December 02, 2004: Message edited by: Ellen Zhao ]

[Jessica Sant]

I must say, I liked the Jurassic Park sound track when it first came out too.

As for soundtracks with lots of words:
O Brother Where Art Thou has a great soundtrack.
As does The Nightmare Before Christmas
Forrest Gump is a GREAT compliation of music too.

[Jason Menard]

While I certainly appreciate many of these types of soundtracks (I particularly enjoy The Fellowship of the Ring), to be honest, these aren't likely to find themselves in the CD player too often.

My personal favorites, and far more likely to find themselves in my cd player are Singles and The Crow. It's rare for me to find a CD that I can play all the way through without the urge to skip any tracks, and both of these come through for me. Lately I'm really getting a big laugh from the soundtrack to Team America: World Police.

Regarding the previously mentioned "inspired by" music... Songs In The Key Of X: Music From And Inspired By The X-Files is nothing short of outstanding, great for playing while driving down a lonely isolated stretch of highway late at night.
[ December 02, 2004: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]

[Mark Fletcher]

Soundtracks to movies that I like include:

Gattaca - by Michael Nyman
Good Morning Vietnam - Great to drive to, especially if you like Robin Williams brand of humour.
The Blues Brothers

(edit)
Oooh! Cant believe I forgot
The Lost Boys

Cheers,

Mark
[ December 02, 2004: Message edited by: Mark Fletcher ]

[Ellen Zhao]

oops, a friend told me I should not put any mp3 files ripped from a copyrighted CD to the web host, even if I absolutely have no commercial purpose (is that true?? )....okay now I'm removing the links.


Here I just want to know, if I send the mp3 file to my friend in emails as gift, am I breaking any law?

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Ellen Zhao:
Here I just want to know, if I send the mp3 file to my friend in emails as gift, am I breaking any law?

Generally speaking, yes. This would be in violation of most applicable copyright laws and is not considered "fair use". If you own a CD you are by law allowed to rip mp3 files from it for your own personal use only.
[ December 02, 2004: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]

[Frank Silbermann]

The soundtrack for "Clockwork Orange" was pretty good.

[Logan Owen]

Have you all forgotten "Topgun"? Highway to the danger zone, takin you right into the danger zooooonee.....

:-D

[Warren Dew]

My favorite is Sleeping Beauty. Not that I have it on CD, but sometimes I play the DVD just for the songs.

[Nick George]

Masked and Anonymous

Gotta love Big Bobby D.

[kayal cox]

I like the soundtracks of Westerns -For a Few Dollors More, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, etc..

[Ellen Zhao]

I always like the music inspired by religion. Just wondering why someone ommited that word. Hendel, J.S.Bach...most pieces of their works were just created for religion. My opinion, really great music must have some religious spirit, believes the composer in any religion or not. Okay I watched parts of the film The Passion of Christ. Since the pace was unacceptably slow for me, I watched only the first 10 minutes and the last 10, much music was thus missed. I'll check out the soundtrack later for sure.

Just watched a very funny film Rat Race. The music in it is all most familiar pieces of Grieg, Verdi...they are so creatively remixed in this film and the music alone adds the film much humour. Anyone seek fun cannot miss this film. When I came back to this thread after the film, I saw some recommendation customized for me. Tried the oboe track, though the sample is no longer than 10 seconds, I cannot laugh any more.

Oboe is always silver in my mind. I can see the crystal ice reflecting orange dawn light in winter morning; silver, lonely pines standing in an edgeless field covered with snow. It's a quiet morning, but the wind is going to howl...no the 10 second cannot give out that much, but it's the oboe I listened for almost a year when I was a teenager. Sibelius. Someone was 2000km away. Letters never knew their destination. In the nights, when other kids started to go back to dorm, I went out. There was a half-oboselet P.E. field, I walked there, round by round, Sibelius in ear phone. Nights in Shanghai didn't have stars or moonlight, even my shadow didn't want to company. The artificial loneliness had been so luxurious, there was always some haunting smell of salt, with the chill of Silbelius sprang up from nowhere and got stuck in my eyes and nose and throat. Wrote tons of meaningless drivel, then burnt them.

Didn't bring Sibelius. Now only Rat Race.

Ordered the Mission CD but not sure if I'm going to listen to.
[ December 05, 2004: Message edited by: Ellen Zhao ]

[Helen Thomas]

Bohemian Rhapsody in Wayne's World

[Sonny Gill]

Bandit Queen by Nusrat.

Incidently, Peter Gabriel's Real World label has released many Nusrat albums.

Most of Nusrat's music is heavily inspired by sufism, which can be considered the mystical tradition in Islam, often at odds with the more fanatical elements in that religion.
[ December 06, 2004: Message edited by: Sonny Gill ]