Another 20 soundtracks to die for

Composer: Harold Faltermeyer + various performers

The catchiest theme song of all time? No arguments there.
Faltermeyer's synthesizer attack matched the environment of hot Beverly Hills and its main character to a T.
The rest of the soundtrack gathered numerous popular names together (The Pointer Sisters, Glenn Frey, Patti LaBelle, Junior etc.) and made a pretty usual pop soundtrack but you definitely can't call it dull or depressing. It's what you'd expect: lot of action and a touch of sunny West California.

Still, of all the songs on the soundtrack, I wanna mention this. A piece buried under the main theme and "Stir it up", but this one really grew on me as time went by.
Shoot Out

Also check out:
-"The Heat Is On" by Glenn Frey
-"New Attitude" by Patti LaBelle

Composer: Eric Serra

Thought it might seem like music for a commercial advertisement, Eric Serra's smooth synthesizer/saxophone love-making score and the mesmerizing sights of nature go together like bread and something that goes with bread. With a story so indifferent I'm not even bothered cause I just love the sheer beauty of what I see and hear.



Also check out:
-"Virgin Islands"
-"Deep Blue Dream"
-"La Raya" all by Eric Serra

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Only a year after Rain Man Hans Zimmer was hired to do more 'rain associated' music. Well, this time the subject was completely different: an action/crime movie taking place in Japan with Michael Douglas as a lead.
And you know what? I swear I had heard this before I even saw the damn film. The result is pretty much what you'd expect: the stereotypical perception of what WE think Asian music is. That's why I think it was so familiar. It's almost offending but on the other hand so easy to like.
Gregg Allman made heavier version of the instrumental theme but the melody's there and Gregg has a fabulously raspy voice.

Composer: James Horner
Oscar-nomination for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score

I don't care much for Gibson's overlong hair epic but James Horner's music is the reason why I can think of it with some degree of warmth. It really gives the majestic highlands of Scotland much needed dignity and puts emotion to this barbaric tale of reaching one's freedom.
Horner tried to duplicate his own work in Titanic and Avatar but never bettered.

Composer: various

Stallone couldn't get nearly as famous stars as Jerry Bruckheimer for his 'Beverly Hills Cop' but the soundtrack is just as full of 80s vomit. The music by Robert Tepper, Gary Wright, John Cafferty and such fits like a foot in your ass for a masculine fest of violence that's trying hard to be cool rather than actually being that.
But when I play "Feel The Heat" by Jean Beauvoir I can make living in Lapland feel like rolling down the street in the city night of L.A.

"Skyline" was never in the movie which is weird cause it's a hell of an instrumental by Sylvester Levay.



Also check out:
-"Hold on to Your Vision" by Gary Wright
-"Suave" by Miami Sound Machine
-"Voice of America's Sons" by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band
-"Angels of the City" by Robert Tepper

Composer: Jerry Goldsmith

You don't hear music like this in an action movie too often. I could hear "Coming Home" in a pure drama film. Really melancholy and low-spirited wind instruments are perfect for the autumnal environment surrounding our war torn Vietnam veteran.
However, it's funny how this theme song that was first a slow and peaceful piece of music became a full-blooded blow-shit-up theme for the rest of the series. Only by strenghtening it up a bit and making it a little faster.

This next song is like a pop version of the theme. Makes a great ending for the movie.


Also check out "Peace in our Life" from Rambo: First Blood, Part II by Sly's brother, Frank. More 80s and cheesy.

Composer: Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone was getting closer and closer to his tour de force, "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly", with "For a Few Dollars More" but on a smaller scale if you ask me. The soundtrack is quintessential spaghetti western with all the pipes, the whistles, the choir, the guitar wires and such. Copied (and parodied) thousands of times.
But let me ask you a legitimate question: What the hell is that cartoon-rabbit-jumping sound in the intro!? As if it wasn't enough, that silly sound effect keeps on popping up every once in a while in the film too.



Also check out:
-"Vice of Killing" and
-"60 Seconds to What"

Composer: Bill Conti
Oscar-nomination for Best Music, Original Song

The Craig generation of Bond fans will be so amazed when they learn that 007 soundtrack can be so damn FUNKY. I mean, Jesus Christ, Bill Conti's off the f*ckin chain in this one!
To be honest, though, every Bond film has some good music, especially my favorite Bonds from Roger Moore era. John Barry being perhaps the most famous composer. But I'm going for my personal favorite Bond flick and the underrated maestro Conti. It really distincts from the other Bond scores and you realize it already from the gunbarrel intro in the beginning. Conti delivers dark tones to this revenge story but also more fun eventful pieces for the action scenes; slow romantic melodies and this incredible early 80s chase music that's awesome as hell. Just like one commentator says in the comment section in the Youtube video below:

"It's so dated and so awesome".

Couldn't have said it better. Bond skiis down the slope in Italy with motorcycle killers after him. One of my absolute favorite scenes from any Bond film. It's a shame Conti never did anymore Bond music.


Runaway

Also check out:
-"Take Me Home"
-"A Drive in the Country"
-"Gonzales Takes a Dive"
-"Melina's Revenge" all by Bill Conti and, of course,
-"For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton

Composer: John Carpenter

Who does John Carpenter trust? Himself. If this music was to depict the mind of Michael, you know there's nothing going on but killing. Stone cold and extremely disturbing this is the theme song of a real psychopath.
As he whacked the high-pitched keys of his keyboard Carpenter also composed slower but all the more threatening music as well. It never f'cking ended, that's what I thought. But that's why it was simply masterful work. And I was nearly having a heartattack.



Also check out:
-"The Myers House"

Composer: Elliot Goldenthal + various

Supposedly, Elliot Goldenthal is the composer for this movie but most of us remember all the other pop rock or even ambient performers who visited the studio to help Michael Mann bring Los Angeles to life. All the songs are fresh, hip and cool but not in a way that it would sound pretentious or that it's trying to be cool just to be cool. The songs often blend in the background very smoothly only to compliment the city lights in the night.
One of the few 90s soundtracks that doesn't feel dated at all.

"Last Nite" by Terje Rypdal & Chase

Also check out:
-"New Dawn Fades" and "God Moving over the Faces of Water" by Moby

Composer: Queen + Michael Kamen

Sword-fights. Immortality. Christopher Lambert. Queen. How can you possibly go wrong with that.
Michael Kamen composed most of the music for the fight scenes and the Scotland part while Queen was responsible for the bleak New York parts.

I have never cared that much for Freddie Mercury's version of "A Kind of Magic" even though it isn't much different from the original, written by Roger Taylor. But this version just has something. Maybe it's the slower tempo at the beginning or the fact that it closes the movie but...

It's a Kind of Magic (original)

Check out the entire soundtrack.

Composer: John Williams

John Williams may have not captured the essence of dinosaurs with his music as he did with Jaws and sharks but the way I see it the took a different approach. Triumphant and huge, the theme of Jurassic Park represents both the joy of a scientific breakthrough and a fantasy most of us can only imagine. It sends chills down my spine.
This is the music you should hear when you score a chick.
Of all the 40-something Oscar-nominated works Williams has done, this wasn't one of them. Now that's horse shit.

Composer: Lowell Lo and James Horner

Aside from being an unbelievably talented action director John Woo was also a clever bastard when it came to contrasts between the mood and the action. Sometimes there could be these very slow dramatic pieces of keyboard music with "vocals" by Chow Yun-Fat's guns. One minute Sally Yeh is singing her tender love song; the next minute it shuts down and the banging guns take over.
An action classic with melodrama I'm sure most of us remember.

Sally Yeh - The Main Theme

Also check out James Horner's "Russians Streets" that's actually from Red Heat. Works about hundred times better here.

Composers: Trevor Jones & Randy Edelman

Music from The Last of the Mohicans is ridiculously popular among rappers but none of them can do justice to the rugged and colossal original score by Trevor Jones & Randy Edelman.
Their music pretty much conquers the movie and sometimes it's the main driving power. I can understand someone calling the music overdramatic and used way too much but I like it fine.
This is possibly the only time there isn't pop or rock music in a Michael Mann film but, naturally, Moby isn't the answer to every situation.



Oh yeah, did you know that Randy Edelman was also responsible for a song even more kick-ass than The Last of the Mohicans? MACGYVER. Think about that.

Composer: Elmer Bernstein
Oscar-nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Too bad John Sturges's remake of Seven Samurai was never as immense as its' theme song. But now it's considered an American classic. I can understand. If Morricone made spaghetti westerns, then this is the ultimate American Western song. Bernstein's work is that old-fashioned, joyful hero music we here whenever straight-backed men like Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner come save us. The contrast between something like 'The Dollar Trilogy' and this is prominent. It's shamelessly compelling.

Composer: Alan Silvestri

This is one no non-sense piece of composition. It combines both military tones and over-manliness and if it could talk, it would say "Let's get it on, motherfucker."
There isn't too much dramatic or funny stuff for that matter but it sounds very much "alive" and it keeps constantly following whatever happens in the movie. If that makes any sense. Not the kind of soundtrack of which you remember every single track, but the kind that blends in the film, as it should. The spirit of jungle and isolation is within every moment.

Main Title

Composer: John Williams
Oscar-nomination for Best Music, Original Score

Do I even need to say something? You must live your life in a cellar in order to not recognize this composition. Like the movie itself the main theme too was inspired by the old adventure movies of the first half of the 20th Century but all came together as one unique whole. Mysterious, filled with adventure spirit, ready to hunt down the hidden treasure, this song was destined to play in everyone's head immediately after hearing it. This really takes you out of your ordinary world into the jungles of South America, the deserts of Egypt and the cordillera of Nepal. It works in every way.

So this here is the obvious choice but I wanted the six minute version on the basis that you can hear the mellow interlude. This one too is the type of soundtrack I was able to fully appreciate after repeated viewings.

Main Theme

Composer: Basil Poledouris

RoboCop theme is so heroic that it's almost something I could hear in a Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker parody. But it's great music when RoboCop's beating the shit out of bad guys.
The song is also constructed cleverly: starting quietly and creating the suspense, then getting ready for the actual theme before finally bursting into pure fire.



A little trivia: Poledouris used both orchestra and synthesizer. Synth to represent the robotic and organic instruments to symbolize the human side of RoboCop.

Composer: Brad Fiedel + various other groups

A few good disco pop songs played by fairly unknown groups like Tahnee Cain & Tryanglz.
But I think James Cameron did well with what he had. James Horner wasn't always the better choice even though he made the more "grand" soundtracks for Cameron. And I think we all recognize the fateful and metallic sounding theme song that's tailor-made for a shit-your-pants scary killer cyborg. The theme even gives you the idea what kind of heartbeat the unstoppable destroyer has.

Main Theme

Also check out:
-"Tunnel Chase" by Brad Fiedel
-"Burning in the 3rd Degree" by Tahnee Cain & Tryanglz
-"Photoplay" by Tahnee Cain & Tryanglz
-"Pictures of You" by 16mm