Movie/TV soundtracks - anyone else listen to these?

[Stravo]

In a bit of a pensive mood and have my nBSG soundtrack playing quietly in my office that best reflects my mood - in particular season 2's "A Promise to Return" and "Allegro" and it sparked my question. Am I the only guy who listens to movie and tv soundtracks? I couldn't tell you what songs are on the current pop Top Ten (They all sound the same, some guys singing with electonic reverb about wanting his bitch and by the way I love you too....ugh. Music died with the popularity of this shitty music now.) but I sure as hell can tell you the nBSG stuff is on a constant loop on my iPod to work or the always gorgeous Lord of the Rings score.

Anyone else partake of this musical choice? If so let us know what some of your favorites are and if there are any tracks in particular you enjoy listening to.

[Force Lord]

I pretty much hear Star Wars music on my spare time. Heck, it's almost the only music I hear, despite my lack of iPod.

EDITED

[Crazedwraith]

I've got Gladiator, PotC: Dead Man's Chest and Revenge Of The Sith on my MP3 player. Plus the original Battle Star Galactica Theme from the main site.

Nothing is more uplifting than the original Galactica theme.

[Nephtys]

The 'Moon' Soundtrack is a kind of odd haunting that I enjoy as background music.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

For fun you should load your iPod or player of choice (iPhone for me) with the soundtrack to The Bourne Identity, then go shopping at your local mall or main street. Instead of being a boring, crowded experience you'll find yourself looking like someone on a mission, glancing side to side all the time and moving with a purpose. You start watching everyone about you looking for the agents amongst them. I get my shopping done so much quicker than just ambling about, and with the added air of expectation that anyone could leap out at any minute and start a crazy fight!

[Temujin]

Anyone else partake of this musical choice? If so let us know what some of your favorites are and if there are any tracks in particular you enjoy listening to.

Do I? Its one of my favorite types of music, depending on the movie/show/composer of course.

Aside from miscellaneous MP3s, my CD soundtrack collection currently consists of the following:

• Conan The Barbarian - Basil Poledouris
  Blade Runner - Vangelis
  The Essential James Bond - Various
  Braveheart and More Music From Braveheart - James Horner and others
  Gladiator - Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrrard
  Independence Day - David Arnold
  The Last of the Mohicans
  Legend - Tangerine Dream
  Lord of the Dance - Ronan Hardiman
  Pulp Fiction - Various (Not exactly in the same vain as the others)
  The Star Wars Trilogy: ANH, ESB, and ROTJ - John Williams
  Superman the Movie - John Williams
  Titanic and Back to Titanic - James Horner (Don't laugh I really like James Horner )
  The War of the Worlds - Jeff Wayne
  Symphonic Suite Yamato - Not sure, its in Japanese

I used to have others on tape that have since been lost to the sands of time, including Toho Kaiju themes and both Terminator I & II soundtracks.

When I lived in Northeast Ohio, where I grew up, I used to regularly listen to Music of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I've continued listening to it online, but unfortunately haven't caught it as much lately. It was that program that introduced me to Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds. I definately reccomend checking it out. Mark is the station engineer and has been running that show since he was a student, since the late eighties I believe.

I also often go onto Youtube to listen to music, both soundtrack and otherwise, that I don't currently own.

[Rye]

Steve Jablonsky's Transformers OST is fantastic. It turns any car journey into an epic quest. And yeah, Howard Shore's work on the LotR films is good too. There's lots of orchestral metal bands that make music close to that sort of thing. The Sunshine soundtrack and in fact, most of John Murphy's work (like on the 28 Days Later soundtrack) is thoroughly diggable. Sunshine is more orchestral though, whereas 28DL is more rocky/ambient.

Games frequently have good soundtracks nowadays, WoW, Command and Conquer and the Silent Hill series have stuff you can find on youtube and presumably itunes or elsewhere.

[Temujin]

Steve Jablonsky's Transformers OST is fantastic. It turns any car journey into an epic quest.

Agreed. Since I didn't see the movies in theaters, I first heard the soundtrack on the WCSB program I referenced earlier. It blows me away all the time.

And yeah, Howard Shore's work on the LotR films is good too.

I'll second Howard Shore's work as well.

There's lots of orchestral metal bands that make music close to that sort of thing.

As I'm also a metal head, I'll second this as well. Its amazing how many bands have been influenced classical works. And there are some strong similarities between the two genres, which is why I love both.

Games frequently have good soundtracks nowadays, WoW, Command and Conquer and the Silent Hill series have stuff you can find on youtube and presumably itunes or elsewhere.

I have a few MP3s from games as well, its definitely an under appreciated source.

[Zor]

Transformers (2007 Bay film) has a rather nice soundtrack.

Zor

[Old Plympto]

Even as a teen I was buying OST cassettes beginning with Skywalker Symphony Orchestra's Star Wars Trilogy, Willow, Aliens, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Nowadays, my mp3 rotation includes all nBSG OST, all Star Wars, all LOTR, new Star Trek movie... hell, even Up. My kid is happy when I play Ramin Djawadi's Iron Man score when we travel in the car.

The first Transformers score album is absolutely fantastic, varied themes and melodies. The second movie sounded like Steve Jablonsky was going through the motions though compared to the first.

[Darth Paxis]

Most definately:

Full Albums:
Batman '89
Best of Godzilla:1984-1995
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
Revenge of the Sith
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek 2009
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
The Empire Strikes Back
The Wrath of Khan

Partials:
A-Team Theme
Raiders March (from kingdom of the Crystal Skull)
Theme from Jurassic Park
Overture & Music of the Night (from Phantom of the Opera)

[phred]

You are not alone. Soundtracks, hmmmm...

The Crow
Hunt for Red October
The Fifth Element
Wanted
Twilight (Don't laugh, it's actually pretty good )
Star Trek VI
and random anime soundtracks
Also random bits other soundtracks from people like John Williams, Danny Elfman, Randy Newman, etc.

I couldn't tell you what songs are on the current pop Top Ten (They all sound the same, some guys singing with electonic reverb about wanting his bitch and by the way I love you too....ugh. Music died with the popularity of this shitty music now.)

Oh, you're one of those people.

[Sinewmire]

Star Wars ( The Empire Strikes back and Revenge of the Sith are favourites)
Lord of the Rings - I splashed out on the super duper ultra mega total best good deluxe versions. Worth every penny.
Silent Hill - the games OSTs. Simple but very evocative stuff.
Aliens
Devil May Cry
Quake II
300 (I know, I know)
Serenity - disappointing soundtrack, no extended "concert" versions.

I also hunt for Lyrics a lot, especially LOTR.

[Zor]

Also, how to train your dragon has some nice music if you like stuff with a bit of a celtic flair.

Zor

[JLTucker]

I also hunt for Lyrics a lot, especially LOTR.

A Magpie's Nest is my place for LOTR lyrics.

I listen to LOTR, Harry Potter, the Silent Hill scores, Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica, The Bourne trilogy, all of nBSG's music (McCreary is a fucking genius), Sherlock Holmes, Trick 'r Treat, The Dark Knight, Firefly, Where the Wild Things Are, and Transformers. I also need to pick up the new Nightmare on Elm Street score; Jablonsky did a great job with the film's main title.

Now, with nBSG's scores, I love season two's "Something Dark is Coming"; season three's "A Distant Sadness," "Battlestar Sonatica," "Kat's Sacrifice," "Dirty Hands," and "Heeding the Call"; and season four's "The Cult of Baltar," "Elegy," "Kara Remembers," "Dreilide Thrace Sonata No. 1," "Kara's Coordinates," "So Much Life," and "An Easterly View."

[Old Plympto]

Oh, and the Independence Day soundtrack is outstanding as a leitmotif-laden, Star Wars-esque score - although you can hear the part in the end I think where they'd rewritten Randy Quaid's final bit. The music doesn't match the visuals at all.

Also, the Macross Frontier scores by Yoko Kanno are amazing, and I believe she was deliberately channelling David Arnold from Independence Day.

[Jusu]

Hmm, looking back, a good deal of the music I listen to tend to be 'trance' versions of Anime music. But I have the entire score of My Fair Lady...an oddity, and it annoys my sister when 'With a Little Bit o' Luck' comes on. Anime tend to produce some good music, and not all of it is pop-songs. TANK! from Cowboy Bebop is a definite mainstay of my car's playlist. As is anything from Initial D.

And I agree with the Macross Frontier music being beautiful. Then there is Macross 7. The Acoustic Fire! album is very relaxing after a stressful day. Well, Macross tends to produce good music. It's the main premise of how to defeat the big bad. XD

[ray245]

I love the soundtrack of Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.

[Stravo]

For me I am currently in a love affair with Bear McReary's nBSG soundtracks (except The Plan and Razor - especially the Plan, the music was as crappy as the movie) and can listen to almost any track over and over.

Among my favorites are:

A Promise to Return - exquistely beautiful with a haunted sort of longing reflected in those gorgeous strings as he perfectly conveys the sort of doomed love between Starbuck and Anders.

Something Dark is coming - long but you don't notice it as the music takes you to a very forboding place.

Violence and Variations - I LOVE the slow build up here, first dark and slow but then the notes build and build until we come to a very high arcing climax. I have always thought one of the key components of what made nBSG so great was the music and here is another fine example.

Under the Wing - only about a minute long but nothing spells out for us the desperate love and longing of Apollo for Starbuck

Storming New Caprica - in my opinion the best of many of nBSG's action cues. I know he intended Assault on the Colony to be his action cue magnum opus for the series but frankly nothing beats the desperate drumbeats and frenetic pace of this music and I have written many an action scene with this cue playing in the background.

An Easterly View - we could not have asked for a more gorgeous piece of music to end the series with. Every damn time I listen to it I almost cry. The sheer sadness emanating from every note and the logical evolution of the Adama Roslin love theme. Simply beautiful.

The one thing I lust after most music related are tickets to the Battlestar Galactica Live concerts that occasionally go on but they're all on the West Coast. Only a few Youtube clips exist right now to hint at how awesome it would be to listen to this played live. I eagerly wait for him to come out here to the NY area.

On to other cool soundtracks I find that the ROTS soundtrack is easily the best of the prequel soundtracks and like the Anakin's Dark Deeds, Battle of Heroes and the Order 66 sequence tracks. I especially enjoy the opening title music that plays the Skywalker theme with a very militant beat we have not heard in any of the movies before (prequel or OT) but truly wish they had included the opening deep drum beats that start the movie as we see the stardestroyer coming into view. Very cool touch. Unfortunately its not on the soundtrack.

In general it doesn't get any better than the OT soundtracks especially ESB.

There's also STII TWOK and Aliens soundtracks which is probably Horner at his best. If you can find it get the special edition Aliens soundtrack as it has a lot of cues that were not in the original movie including a great alternate Dropship cue.

In terms of game soundtracks the Final Fantasy VII stuff was beautiful especially tracks like Cloud's Theme and I also picked up the HALO soundtracks even though I never played the games and enjoyed them as well.

Does anyone know if there are soundtracks out for the Dawn of War game series?

[Force Lord]

I especially enjoy the opening title music that plays the Skywalker theme with a very militant beat we have not heard in any of the movies before (prequel or OT) but truly wish they had included the opening deep drum beats that start the movie as we see the stardestroyer coming into view. Very cool touch. Unfortunately its not on the soundtrack.

You can find that version on YouTube if you dig deep enough. Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS9lb-XI ... aiSa9mxaDg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMpd39-J ... awl1n6W8fs

Added two just in case.

[Darth Paxis]

I especially enjoy the opening title music that plays the Skywalker theme with a very militant beat we have not heard in any of the movies before (prequel or OT) but truly wish they had included the opening deep drum beats that start the movie as we see the stardestroyer coming into view. Very cool touch. Unfortunately its not on the soundtrack.

It also would have been nice if Anakin vs. Obi-Wan transitioned into Duel of the Fates at the end instead of fading into nothingness.

[BLACKSUN2000]

I Literally have an Entire wall of CD's that are nothing BUT Sountracks, from movies,shows,video games and animes.

Xenogear OST
Xenosaga OST
Chronotrigger OST
Chronocross OST (I Yoshinori Mitsuda)
Various Final Fantsy OST and "arranged versions"
Literally hundreds of videogame/anime soundtracks(too many to list)

Movie soundtracks

Blackhawk Down
Conan the Barbarian
Transformers 1&2
Armageddon(this one was a gift from my brother)
Titanic(gift from then girlfriend)
Deep impact
Alexander
300(another gift from my brother)
Amadeus
SW episode I-VI soundtracks
Shadows of The Empire
The Fith Element
All of the newer ST soundtracks First Contact- XI
Bravehert
LOTR
Terminator2
Independece day
The Godfather I&II
The Hunt for Red October
Gladiator
(I have way too many to list some of you have mentioned some, but I am to lazy to type them all. )

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I probably listen to more film music than any other kind. The sheer volume of Bear McCreary's Battlestar Galactica tracks on Youtube makes it quite accessible. Battlestar Sonatica is probably my default background track. I also like some of Richard Gibb's music from the miniseries, notably "Are You Alive?" and "The Storm and the Dead," along with most of the Six themed tracks.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more mention of Jerry Goldsmith. I love his scores from Alien, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Total Recall, and The Omen.

Also a big fan of Clint Mansell, especially the soundtrack to The Fountain.

[DrMckay]

Hell yes!

I love Battlestar for the skill and sheer variety of the compositions from violin classical to gaelic-themed pipes to the Sitar version of "All along the Watchtower."
(Am I the only one who searched for like five versions of that song after the S3 finale?)

I have all the Adama themes (Good lighter, Wander My Friends, Reuniting the fleet, Admiral and Commander, and Grand Old Lady all cued up one after the other when I need a pick-me-up)

Passacaglia, Allegro and violence and Variations also work very well when played successively, with one transitioning unnoticeably into another as they are all based on the same theme.

Last of the Mohicans Soundtrack was good, As was Gladiator (Hans Zimmer rules)

one of my favorite soundtracks however is the one from Children of Dune by Brian Tyler, which has the most stunningly beautiful song I have ever heard (Your mileage may vary;)

Inama Nushif:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H85b5xcRkIg

[Whiplash]

My list includes:

POTC:Dead Man's Chest
HP:Half Blood Prince
Star Trek XI
Hulk
The Dark Knight
The World Ends With You (if we're including video games)
300