What A Good Score!

Friday is fun with music - and a playlist. Today it's about film scores (um, again...sorry/not sorry!)

Well, we are nearly – but not quite – into the best month of the year. And to celebrate, last night me and my boy watched the original Halloween movie (again!) And within a few minutes of its incredible opening sequence, Oscar said, “Dad, I love everything about this movie and especially its score!”

And it was like he’d read the line just as I wrote it. So proud.

Of course I was thinking the same thing anyway. One of the reasons I can endlessly rewatch the first couple of Halloween films – more so than anything else in the franchise – is because of John Carpenter’s original score, and Alan Howarth’s contributions to Halloween II.

One day I’ll write about the Halloween scores – and maybe all of the soundtracks to all of the films in the series (since both the scores and films are now good again). Or I’ll just write about the movies.

But you lot know already that I’ve gone bonkers for soundtracks. Head over heels for film scores. I’ve been that way a while, but I went all in this year. I started buying up CDs again to get hold of soundtracks I used to own, or never got around to purchasing. My record collection is now about 60% film scores. Yep. Bonkers. And I love it. I’m listening to podcasts about film scores, watching documentaries, reading books and of course watching a lot of films – noticing the music always. And listening to films scores every day, sometimes all day. It’s very calming when I’m working. It puts me in a good mood at the start of a day. It helps me unwind at night. It’s not even ever a single genre, because it encompasses almost any style of music you can think of, but if we have to stick to labels then it’s absolutely become my favourite genre.

Soon – when we reach October-proper – I’ll possibly dedicate a piece to the best scary movie scores, or some such.

But today I wanted to run you through a series I created over at my Off The Tracks site late last year.

I started a new series of occasional posts called What a Good Score! It’s basically a little love letter each time to a favourite movie soundtrack, maybe it’s an old favourite that’s always been there, or perhaps it’s something that I’ve just really warmed to recently.

Anyway, I wanted to share them with you today. I’ll link to each one for any of you that want to read the full piece. But I’ll supply a wee bit of a blurb about each.

And I’d love any recommendations from you for particular scores to cover in the future. So please drop your favourites down in the comments below.

Right, here are the entries so far for What A Good Score:

1. Local Hero by Mark Knopfler – one of the first film scores I ever bought, and one of the first times I was happy to own a soundtrack without even seeing the film. I bought it because I was a Mark Knopfler fan, and a Dire Straits fan, and I was just into the idea of him also making the music for movies. I love all of his soundtrack work. But this is the nostalgic favourite because I heard it first.

2. The Piano by Michael Nyman – the film made me a fan of Jane Campion, the music made me a fan of Michael Nyman. I’ve stuck it out with both of them, collecting their new works whenever released. This score was probably the bane of piano tutors’ lives for a while there across the mid/late 90s I should imagine. But every time I hear it I feel that it still sweeps me away in some sense.

3. Battlestar Galactica Season 3 by Bear McCreary – someone told me I had to hear this, and I didn’t quite believe them, but obviously humoured them and went in. I’m glad they made the suggestion. I have never seen the show and probably never will and I have yet to hear any of the other music from other seasons, but this blew me away. And it gave me the name Bear McCreary to cling to, and I’ve heard several fine film scores from him since. He has made some fine horror themes and works across many film genres. But the music for this is just brilliant, riffing on All Along The Watchtower in some way, which is how it was first recommended to me. It’s fun to try new things eh.

4. Donnie Darko by Michael Andrews – yeah, yeah, it was all Duran Duran this and Tears for Fears that on the soundtrack, wasn’t it. And everyone went a bit ga-ga for that cover of Mad World. But also I really loved the score – which is the instrumental music and I remember working in a store when this came out, and people were grumpy that it didn’t have the songs on it. It reminded me of how in the 80s, with things like the A Nightmare on Elm Street films you could get a separate soundtrack (all the hit songs) and then the score (the creepy instrumental cues).

5. The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – look, I come and go with Nick Cave. He bugs me. Then he does something that I really love. But I’m always interested in him as a writer – and so The Proposition features a script by Cave (I LOVE the film!) and a soundtrack by him. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but this really is the start of the wee side-hustle that he and Warren Ellis have got going on now as brilliant co-composers and performers of soundtrack music for a range of great films.

6. Glengarry Glen Ross by James Newtown Howard, Wayne Shorter and Various – there’s some cool songs on here, jazz songs, Dr. John, Jimmy Scott, but there’s a lot of score too. And that’s in a jazz vein for the most part. Wayne Shorter as lead soloist – which was what got me into it; that and just the fact that film was a big deal for me when I first saw it.

7. The Man with the Golden Arm by Elmer Bernstein – one of the great jazz scores of all time. Bought on a whim, really. Cheap vinyl going at the time – had to have it. Glad I scooped it when I did. A masterpiece.

8. Saturday Night Fever by Various Artists – okay, this is not a score, this is a soundtrack. And I think it’s still the greatest selling soundtrack album of all time. It’s also, essentially, a Bee Gees Goes Disco Greatest Hits. But it has some bangers on the side by a bunch of other players. It also does what any great soundtrack must do – if you plan on listening to it as separate from the movie – it really does tell its own story through the music while you’re playing it.

9. The Killing Fields by Mike Oldfield – I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Mike Oldfield. And these days that almost means that I love this soundtrack and hate everything else he did. Well, not quite. Ommadawn and Amarok are brilliant. And whilst I don’t really need to hear Tubular Bells ever again, I probably will…but this, this is a strange, beguiling record. From a controversial film that I loved very much, made a huge impact.

10. Taxi Driver by Bernard Herrmann – as this series I continues I should imagine I’ll write more entries that feature further works by Bernard Herrmann, one of the absolute greats. But his Taxi Driver score, arriving late in the piece, is really the one for me. Because that film was so huge for me. And still is. I regret selling my vinyl copy of this score – and will get it again just as soon as I can.

11. The Young and The Restless by Various Artists – there is a nostalgia tied to hearing this theme tune when it was school holidays or I was off sick and my mum might have the telly on. And there’s a huge sense of pride too, in finding this for 10 cents on vinyl and playing it more than I’ve played records that I paid $50-80 for. I sincerely love this music, every syrupy drop.

12. Eyes Wide Shut by Jocelyn Pook and Various Artist – it’s a separate story for another day that the world of film composing, like the world of many things and the world in general, is a bit of a giant sausage fest. There are some brilliant female film composer but they don’t tend to get announced when you roll-call the greats. A shame. Jocelyn Pook is one of my favourites and her score for Eyes Wide Shut was one of the things that had me defending the film as soon as I saw it. That and Kubrick’s use of source music (brilliant later-career Chris Isaak selection for example). I had this soundtrack on CD, played it often. Sold it when I though I didn’t need it. Bought it back a few months ago and have played it a bunch. So good.

13. Under the Moon (aka “Parade”) by Prince – I don’t know if this is underrated, but it doesn’t get talked about like the other big, obvious Prince albums of the era. And I guess that’s because the film was a turkey. But I liked that this music and its decision, to be bound as a soundtrack, made me seek out the film. Fandom will have you do that. I think it’s one of Prince’s very best albums.

14. Bird by Charlie Parker and Lennie Niehaus – honest, jazz purists make me sick. And I think I like this album just to spite them. It is air-brushed Charlie Parker tunes for a biopic. I loved the film and it really got me into a lot of jazz, and I like the soundtrack as a memory of that. And it was some pretty clever tech for the time too. If over half my record collection is soundtracks and score, most of the other half is jazz. And that’s because of this movie and this music.

15. Baraka by Michael Stearns – there are a bunch of documentary soundtracks where the music does the talking and this is one of my favourites from that world. A hugely important film and score for me.

16. The Shawshank Redemption by Thomas Newman – I do like the film. It’s a bit of an obvious choice, but I still can’t hate it. Because I love the book too. But the music is just sublime. I know I could listen to this without knowing anything about the movie. I was pleased to hear it ranked recently as the top Stephen King adaptation film score from a bunch of podcast nerds that geek out on Stephen King way more than I do. They were correct in their assessment. And just knowing they’re around doing what they do makes me feel a bit more normal too eh.

17. Dead Man Walking by Various Artists – only ever saw the film once (loved it, thought about it for days) and haven’t yet read the book (though it’s on my shelf, so maybe one day) but the music was just amazing to me. And I went straight and bought the soundtrack. I foolishly parted with it, and thinking about how I had to have this again was one of the triggers for setting me off on a whirlwind of CD buying over the last 10 months or so.

18. Rush by Eric Clapton – I might be the only person in the world who has an Eric Clapton collection that consists solely of his soundtrack contributions. Because that’s all I’m interested in with him now. His politics and opinions are awful and his playing has been boring for a lot longer than it was ever anything. But he had a thing for scores – only a small handful – and this one in particular always does something for me.

19. Hannah and Her Sisters by Various Artists – I love a good Woody Allen film soundtrack. And you probably can’t admit that these days, but I still think many of his films are wonderful, or at least they reached me at the right time. Woody uses source music as score and it works so well, but more often it’s totally non-diegetic – these imaginary worlds he cooks have this lovely wafting cinema-jazz and nostalgia and whimsy to coddle them. Okay, I’ll stop talking about Woody Allen now.

20. Lantana by Paul Kelly – seriously, until just recently, this felt like a holy grail, and stupidly I once owned it. So seeking it out again felt like any failure was warranted. But I found a copy on TradeMe for a fiver and life has felt a bit better let me tell you. This movie and its music was very powerful when I first encountered it around 20 years ago. And it stays with me. I rushed out and bought a copy of the film on DVD shortly after getting the score once again. Because I’m that sort of nerd after all, it turns out.

21. Bloodsport by Paul Hertzog – well, you might remember I wrote about this for the newsletter in fact. What a score. What a film. Amazing.

22. The Fabulous Baker Boys by Dave Grusin – a lot of jazz in this list. Different sorts of jazz. Jazz usually sits well on a soundtrack. I loved this film. And seeing Michelle Pfeiffer sing jazz standards was some sort of alarm that puberty was not a drill. It was really happening.

23. Planet of the Apes by Jerry Goldsmith – so many great Goldsmith scores, and it sorta starts here really with one of the most pioneering, influential movie scores of all time. Blew my mind when I first experienced the film and it’s still blowing my mind when I sit and listen to it. Most weeks I have a morning cuppa with the Planet of the Apes score. Genius.

Right, so as you can see I’m only just beginning on this journey of documenting great scores; ones that are special to me. There’s so many to go through – but I’m trying to pick very special ones in my life and there’ll be more that I’ll write up eventually. But there’s the series to date.

I’m also still writing some reviews of brand new movie scores – when I am getting around to writing album reviews – so this is my way of reconnecting with older scores really.

Any thoughts from you all?
And any suggestions for ones to cover?

Now, if film scores aren’t your thing at all I have a playlist for you that starts with just one short piece of film score music (as my playlists often do) and then it goes off in many directions (as my playlists often do).

Happy weekend and I hope you enjoy A Little Something For The Weekend…Sounds Good Vol. 84