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threemonkeysI loaned my copy of the Repo Man soundtrack to a friend the other day. Before giving it to him I listened to it for the first time in years and was reminded just how brilliant an album it is. This got me thinking about movie soundtrack albums in general. In particular I wondered why so many are rather disappointing even though they contain some top music. I found that I have not owned many soundtrack albums which I have played over and over they way you do with something you really like. I think this is a consistency thing. The albums may contain great songs but they often contain stuff I don't like either - you have to go through the poorer material to get to the good stuff. Of course these days it is easier to cherry pick and put together a collection of just the songs that you like but then you aren't listening to the album, you are just listening to a few songs.
The reason for this is obvious now that I think about it a bit. The music selected for a film is not selected for the purposes of making a stand-alone album. It is selected for the purposes of complementing the action in the part of the movie it is played with. As the film progresses, the action changes and so the music changes. This is how it should be - the film is not about the music. The music is there to make the film better. As such it is unlikely that the music will fit together when separated from the action is is meant to complement. I don't mean incidental music, I mean songs played during the film, but I should note that incidental music never ever works for me in a soundtrack album. It only woks in conjunction with the on-screen action, so why include it in an album except to full space.
So if it is obvious why soundtrack albums shouldn't really work as a whole, then why are there a few soundtrack albums in existence that I really like as an entire whole. The answer for me is that not all films leave the music in the background. Sometimes the music becomes an important foreground character. This is the case in Repo Man and my personal all-time favourite movie soundtrack Dogs in Space as well as well known works like American Graffiti and The Big Chill. It is also the case for musicals, but I so very rarely like the music in musicals that it isn't relevant.
The above only applies to feature films. Things are a bit different with TV series where you have so much more screen time to pick the best work from. Even so, you cannot just throw a bunch of songs together. The first Buffy TV album shows what somebody can come up with when they put the effort in to construct a whole album rather than a collection of songs.
The reason for this is obvious now that I think about it a bit. The music selected for a film is not selected for the purposes of making a stand-alone album. It is selected for the purposes of complementing the action in the part of the movie it is played with. As the film progresses, the action changes and so the music changes. This is how it should be - the film is not about the music. The music is there to make the film better. As such it is unlikely that the music will fit together when separated from the action is is meant to complement. I don't mean incidental music, I mean songs played during the film, but I should note that incidental music never ever works for me in a soundtrack album. It only woks in conjunction with the on-screen action, so why include it in an album except to full space.
So if it is obvious why soundtrack albums shouldn't really work as a whole, then why are there a few soundtrack albums in existence that I really like as an entire whole. The answer for me is that not all films leave the music in the background. Sometimes the music becomes an important foreground character. This is the case in Repo Man and my personal all-time favourite movie soundtrack Dogs in Space as well as well known works like American Graffiti and The Big Chill. It is also the case for musicals, but I so very rarely like the music in musicals that it isn't relevant.
The above only applies to feature films. Things are a bit different with TV series where you have so much more screen time to pick the best work from. Even so, you cannot just throw a bunch of songs together. The first Buffy TV album shows what somebody can come up with when they put the effort in to construct a whole album rather than a collection of songs.
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Soundtracks
Date: 2006-09-11 07:19 am (UTC)As an avid collector of film soundtracks, your entry naturally caught my eye. I tend to agree with you wholeheartedly about soundtracks featuring music which is hand-picked from different artists, genres and types and collectively put together to add flavour to the film. In those instances, yes, it seems the only purpose of the soundtrack is to provide backdrop to he visuals.
But, to be honest, I tend not to actually classify those types of soundtracks as true soundtracks. That may not be fair, but it's how my mind works. For instance, "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds being used in the Breakfast Club: Well, it was not created for the film. Rather, it was selected after that fact by the filmmakers and dropped into place, along with a bunch of other music. Mind you, I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with that, but it just means I tend not to think of the song as being part of the film but more it's own thing, separate. This type of song cherry-picking is not limited to pop/rock music, of course--the film Excalibur features many classical music selections from different composers most of which were made long before the film was even conceived.
Then there is music that is specifically created for films. Most often, this will be classical score type stuff, but not always. These I tend to classify as true film soundtracks, and many of them are powerful enough to stand toe-to-toe with their film sidekicks in terms of significance. From the SF arena, there are some really remarkable scores that deserve note: The Dark Crystal, Alien, Dragonslayer, Legend (Jerry Goldsmith's score, not the Vangelis one, but Vangelis deserves mention for Blade Runner). Recently I picked up the soundtrack for the film Tron, and was surprised how creative it was. Not the sort of thing I would want to listen to for hours on end, but it really had capture the essence of the film all on it's own.
Anyhow, sorry for the ramble, just love talking soundtracks. I promise if we meet up at one of the Phoenix get-togethers, I won't talk your ear off about it.
-William
Re: Soundtracks
Date: 2006-09-11 07:54 am (UTC)Just a different focus I guess. Altough I note that the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack I was listening to as I wrote this contains songs that were recorded and (mostly) written specifically for the film and it is great - much better than the film itself.