I love... Soundtracks

I don't remember when or why I bought my first soundtrack, but of all the kinds of music I have, that's by far the most greatly represented genre in my CD collection. Just picked up two more today, so I thought it would be a good excuse for a blog.

At the moment, I have 27 soundtracks/scores - mostly from movies, but two or three from TV shows - out of a total of about 175 CDs. I know...not a big collection, and I'm not a downloader either. I'm not a "collector." I only buy music I really like.

The thing I like about soundtracks is that they bring together, on one disk, several different artists and even different genres, but they all work well together. It's also great to be introduced to artists and genres you might not know about or think of listening to otherwise. For instance, I'd never have been inclined to go out and look for CDs with "Dem Bones" or "Iko Iko" on them, but since they're both on the Rainman soundtrack, I've got them, and sing along gustily whenever they're playing. Coincidentally, Iko Iko is also on the Big Easy soundtrack. Nor would I ever have gone out and bought a CD full of heavy metal, but the soundtracks to both Triple X (XXX) and Gone in 60 Seconds have some really hard stuff on them that I love.

I also discovered that I love the dreamy, chant-like music from movies like Gladiator and The Insider...both of which include several performances by Lisa Gerrard. And that led me to other artists like Mother Tongue, whose style is similar.

The right music can make a good scene so much better. The best example of that that I can think of was in the final scene of the most recent season finale of House. House has to choose two interns from the handful remaining after the season-long elimination round. He really wants three -- after all, he had three before. But Cuddy says he can only have two. So he hires two men. Upon discovering this, Cuddy comes storming in to see him and says "you can't have two men...we'll get in trouble for discrimination. At that moment "Spirit in the Sky" starts playing...those uber-cool riffy opening chords playing loud as a devious and triumphant smile begins to spread across House's face, and Cuddy's face shows that she's just realized she's been had. House gets all three of the interns he wanted. Game, set, match. And it just wouldn't have been nearly as good without just that right music.

So...herewith is the current list of my soundtrack collection, in no particular order...

• Gladiator includes some really powerful orchestral stuff. One track in particular - The Battle - never fails to send shivers up my spine and always has me playing "air-conductor"...really, really rousing stuff.)
• Passion (the Jesus movie, featuring music by Peter Gabriel
• The Insider (Russell Crowe, Al Pacino true story about a guy who exposed the cigarette industry
• Deadwood (from David Milch's brilliant but too-short three-season opus magnum about a western mining town finding its way to civilization)
• Desperado (Antonio Banderas flick)
• American Beauty (Kevin Spacey flick)
• The Wizard of Oz (my favourite movie of all time)
• The Commitments (of course...this is a staple in most people's collections)
• Gone in 60 Seconds (rousing, hard-hitting rock)
• xXx (Vin Diesel flick...more rousing stuff)
• Rainman (One of the modern classics. Some great, funky, quirky tunes on this)
• Immortal Beloved (Gary Oldman's biopic about Beethoven)
• Thelma & Louise (One of my favourits, both the movie and the soundtrack)
• Matrix (just cuz I really liked that hard-driving theme music)
• Pulp Fiction (see below)
• Reservoir Dogs (as above, a Quentin Terantino movie. Both soundtracks feature delightful - and profane - snippets of dialogue from the movies between tracks. Brilliant collections)
• The English Patient (another of my favourites. Ralph Fiennes stars. Music is an odd - and oddly workable - mix of old jazz, classical, blues and score music, and even has a hauntingly beautiful Czech song called Szerelem, Szerelem [Love, Love] which never fails send shivers up my spine.
• Fried Green Tomatoes (Not one of my faves)
• City of Angels (and awesome, awesome collection of really great music. I can listen to this one over and over and over)
• Forest Gump (includes 32 "American Classics - so says the liner)
• X-Files (meh...wasn't a good choice, in spite of the fact that it includes the classic series theme music)
• Wonder Boys (Really good collection, featuring four Bob Dylan tunes)
• Practical Magic (great collection featuring two Stevie Nicks tunes, and my favourite Joni Mitchell song, "A Case of You"
• Cold Mountain (Nicole Kidman flick. I liked the hillbilly sound of the movie music, but the soundtrack didn't seem to capture the goodness that was in the film)
• The Big Easy (One of my top three soundtracks - great zydeco music that you can't sit still to)
• House (one of my new aquisitions. Not too impressive. It concentrates mostly on familiar tunes, when I was hoping for some of the really quirky stuff they often have on the show. And no, I couldn't tell that from reading the liner before buying it...I suck at remember song titles and artists)
• Black Snake Moan (on the player as I write this. Pretty good stuff. I love that old-style black blues with the electric slide guitar. Sexy stuff)