5 Soundtracks that are Better than their Movies
Ever since the revival of soundtracks in the mid 90’s, the debate has become a tired one, always boiling down to the same few choices. It’s either a soundtrack that accumulates the latest and coolest tracks of the day, such as Trainspotting, or else one of Tarantino’s collections of disparate tunes that somehow manage to gain a new, hip meaning when he assembles them together. Scores rarely get a look in.
But that’s not to deny the importance of the soundtrack. Indeed, what would Scorsese’s film be without the barrage of rock n’ roll tracks. Or films like Gattaca, The End of the Affair, and The Piano would arguably be half as powerful if Michael Nyman’s compositions were removed. Yet there are strange occurrences in which the film’s makers, disappointing in their delivery, still manage to throw together the right songs and help slightly elevate the film’s lagging quality.
Below are five of the best examples I can find of film’s whose soundtracks suggest something far greater than the sub-par flicks themselves.
While it’s hard to hate Oliver Stone’s violent Vietnam flick, it’s a rather predictable film that stands in the shadow of Apocalypse Now and most other films. Further proof is the soundtrack, entitled Platoon- and Songs from the Era, which again attempts to mimic its predecessor’s incorporation of 50 and 60’s rock n’ roll, but to a much inferior effect. The hazy The End perfectly sets the tone of Coppolla’s masterpiece. Stone, on the other hand, counters with a famous death scene playing over Adagio for Strings (Stone obviously lifted it after it being used much more appropriately in The Elephant Man), and in typical Stone fashion, the moment is instantly overblown by the director’s allergy to subtlety. The soundtrack contains classics by artists such as Smokey Robinson, Jefferson Airplane, and surprise, surprise, The Doors (though admittedly this was probably not Stone’s idea).
This may seem like a strange choice. Control is a biopic of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, so can a soundtrack full of Joy Division songs, and others that inspired the band, be out of place? Joy Division, in their brief existence, created two of the most influential and atmospheric records of all time. Their music is dark, distinct, and generates visions of concrete cages and isolated individuals attempting to break free. Oh, and it rocks. Control, while magnificently shot, is just another boring biopic, attempting to glorify a trivial tale of a lead singer’s rise and demise. Not that the singer’s life isn’t tragic, but Control’s kitchen-sink imagination wraps the film in a shroud of banality.
This little British film barely made a splash, despite fine performances from Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, and Peter Mullan, a glum adaptation of an existentialist novel. The real surprise is that the film’s makers managed to bag Talking Head frontman David Byrne as its composer. Talking Heads have long been finished as their music became increasingly frivolous, and Bryne became obsessed with South American music. However, the Young Adam soundtrack shows another side of him, a dreamy, moody, Lynch-esque soundtrack based on violins and double-bass that suggests a different, better film when heard separately. The soundtrack culminates in one of Byrne’s most haunting songs ever, Great Western Road, a song that’s both tragic and deliciously theatrical.
LOST IN TRANSLATION/ MARIE ANTOINETTE
Lost in Translation is one of these bafflingly successful indie films. Sure, it has decent lead performances, but it’s always concerning that the general public will confuse a film with nothing to say with a film full of abstract profoundness (check out In the Mood for Love instead). While trying to lighten the mood with casual racism (I’ve been to Tokyo, and the showers are not that short), the film attempts to heighten its pretension through a dreamy soundtrack of My Bloody Valentine-inspired shoegazing classics. Marie Antoinette, her follow-up film, is another baffling attempt at showcasing Sofia Coppolla’s iPod tracklist. Despite being a period film about the French royal, it includes tracks from post-punk geniuses Gang of Four, Goth rockers The Cure, punk revivalists The Strokes, and a few tracks by electronic visionary Aphex Twin. Coppolla’s soundtrack is an attempt to claim that Marie Antoinette was the first “modern” teen, which is a typical example of Generation X’s inability to engage with history and customs outside their navel-gazing bubble of cynicism.
Cameron Crowe’s schmaltzy flicks may have been an amusing diversion at some, with Jerry Maguire’s phrase invention and Almost Famous’s glossy nostalgia, but that all ended in 2002. Crowe has been associated with music, starting his career as a music journalist, and the previously mentioned flicks had a romance/ 70’s rock feel to them. But when Crowe attempted to handle something different, something more substantial, everything fell around him. Vanilla Sky was an atrocious wreck of a film. Not only was the plot silly, it didn’t help that the performances, led by Xenu’s best bud Tom Cruise, were completely over the top either. But it was the direction that ruined the film, a messy assembly of scenes having little or no coherence, acting like a series of music videos.
Crowe also is desperate to show us his music knowledge. In one scene Cruise’s character tries to impress a girl by choosing a Jeff Buckley song- a moment that has no function except to show off. Later, the plot makes some reference to Cruise setting his ideal life in his favourite album covers- again another idea for the director to display his vast “knowledge”. In accordance with his dissonant direction, the film is laden with disparate and inappropriate music, most of it good alone, but irritating as a compilation. We get Radiohead’s Everything in its Right Place setting the mood, yet more sentimental songs dominating the middle, and then in some amateur effort to display confusion by confusing us, blasts Good Vibrations during a tense scene. It’s irony gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Most annoying of all is the film ending with the use of Icelandic atmospheric post-rockers Sigur Ros, whose Nothing Song is one of their best, riding a fine line between melancholy and ecstasy. The film uses it as an attempt to elevate the conclusion to a preposterous plot, and needless to say the band subsequently regretted its use.
Agree? Disagree? Have some suggestions of your own? Feel free to add your two cents in the comment box.
By Eoin O’Faolain
When did Platoon become a bad movie? Besides that, you are absolutely spot-on about Sophia Coppola’s “directing”(have the actors talk really quiet but blast the pretentiously “hip” soundtrack).
The shower wasn’t made that low in Lost in Translation. The hight was adjustable. It was just stuck and Bill Murray couldn’t raise it any higher.
Garden State, The Last Kiss, and Juno…great soundtracks, mediocre at best movies
hey thanks for all these comments everyone, Eoin is a specialist at these types of big entries he does for screenhead.
Eoin O’Faolain is awesome
Jerry Goldsmiths score for The 13th Warrior is another good example of a mediocre movie with a great score by a great composer.
Also Da vinci code, even if I like the movie, many doesnt. But Zimmers score is very nice.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The movie itself just “meh” but it had the most thunderously mind-blowing music ever put on film. Especially that “blaster beam” instrument – you’ll know it when you hear it.
The scores for sci-fi flicks Futureworld, Jurassic Park and Outland are IMO better than the films themselves. Also, the music for Raise the Titanic is nice and haunting, much more memorable than the movie. I would also nominate the 1978 version of the Thirty Nine Steps which is not bad, but the catchy theme music by Ed Welch is even better.
Cutthroat Island
I’m surprised that hasn’t even been mentioned. I would have to say it was a highly classic film score attached to one of the biggest flop of the ’90s. It’s easly the best contemporary orchestral pirate film score, trumping the Pirates of the Caribbean scores with ease. I challenge you to find a more epic, swashbuckling album released within the last twenty years.
Godzilla. What a bad, bad film. But that soundtrack – way better than bad!
The Chronicles of Narnia. I was watching it, liked it, didn’t know why, then realized it was the score.
Heaven’s Prisoners- unwatchable movie-good but short blues soundtrack.
I love the STIGMATA soundtrack but I could live with out ever seeing that movie again!
Great job on this list!
I should say Greg Araki’s SPLENDOR comes to mind as well. (I kinda like that movie though)
You Said. “While it’s hard to hate Oliver Stone’s violent Vietnam flick, it’s a rather predictable film that stands in the shadow of Apocalypse Now and most other films”
Huh? Predictable? Platoon won best Pic and it’s one of the most tense and disturbing films ever made. It doesn’t stand in the shadow of many films at all. And though I loved Apocalypse Now, I loved Platoon even more.
HACKERS? I think there was like 3 soundtracks for that movie that not that many people saw or liked.
PLATOON is a MASTERPIECE of american cinema. The music only enhances the pain and power of its subject. Watch it again before you make stupid comments. VANILLA SKY however, is a piece of fresh horse dung.
This unedited, confused piece irritated me. Oliver Stone and Sofia Coppola have consistently shown that they have a broad knowledge and understanding of music as used in their movies.
I believe Lost in Translation to be one of the best movies of its time and appropriately popular with critics and audiences alike. Marie Antoinette was unfairly trashed largely because of its use of anachronistic dialogue and music – as if other period pieces have production teams which manage to go back in time and figure out exactly how things were back then.
Comparing Platoon with Apocalypse Now in such a way makes it glaringly obvious how little the writer understands what he is talking about.
I will say that I have found Cameron Crowe’s use of rock songs overbearing and inappropriate, but possibly least of all in Vanilla Sky – a film which received a good deal of flak from people who didn’t like the original in the first place. I enjoyed it.
There must be dozens of Hollywood blockbuster clunkers with scores by luminary composers such as Howard Shore, Mark Kamen, Max Steiner, Dmitri Tomkin or Ernest Korngold which could have easily made for a more substantial, but possibly less interesting, list.
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Blues Brothers 2000 – great soundtrack – wretched movie. The soundtrack features the Stax Rhythm section, Paul Shaffer, Blue Lou Marini, Alan Rubin, Matt Guitar Murphy, Anton Fig, Tom Hall, Eric Clapton, BB King, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Junior Wells, Lonnie Brooks, Steve Winwood, Isaac Hayes, Koko Taylor, Jonny Lang, Blues Traveller, Lou Rawls, Clarence Clemons, Bo Diddley, Dr John, and on and on…
Haha oh dear. To the writer: stop where you are. Before you hurt yourself.
Can’t agree with you that Control, Lost In Translation, and Marie Antoinette should be on your list, Eoin. All three are very good in my opinion, and pair well with the music. Like Trainspotting, I think of those movies when I hear the music now, and it gives me the urge to watch them.
You are dead on about Vanilla Sky and Platoon. I’ve never seen Young Adam though, so you slide this time.
how about “The Bodyguard” with Whitney Houston & Kevin Costner. The movie was absolutely horrible, but the soundtrack, with tracks mostly sung by Houston who is, or at least, was great a great singer at the time.
Above The Rim was an awful movie. But the Soundtrack to that movie was fantastic. That’s when Death Row Records was good cause they had Dre producing the tracks.
You’re a fucking idiot.
This post got me looking through my cds to see what soundtracks I bothered to pick up. Other than the ones that are great on both the movie and soundtrack front (American Graffiti, Swingers, Resevoir Dogs, etc.), I was trying to think where the Farrely Brothers movies would rank up there – Dumb and Dumber is an outstanding alt rock soundtrack, the movie is superb for what it shoots for, but would never be considered a “great” film. Have the same reaction for Clueless. Also would throw out Go, Eddie and the Cruisers and Reality Bites for so-so movies with solid soundtracks. Honorable mention to Million Dollar Hotel, because I love the mood of the album but never saw the movie…
I think that Streets of Fire, from 80´s decade has a great soundtrack and great songs….
I think that idea of the article was to illustrate how a good soundtrack doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with a good film, as many people seem to think nowadays. Indeed, I have lost count of how many times I have heard people say stuff like “Hey, check out this new film! It’s got music by !” – and I always find it weird that people judge a movie by just one of its components, most times without even having heard the soundtrack in question – the “strength” of the band/artist/composer’s name seems to be enough.
Music and its proper use can truly make or break a film. In some cases, it is difficult to imagine a film without its music, eg. I can’t think of “Terminator” without immediately imagining the metallic percussion and haunting music of Brad Fiedel’s theme and “Amelie” owes much of her charm to Yann Tiersen’s inspired score. It all comes down to personal preference, of course, but I think everyone has similar examples from film/music combinations they like.
However, like the article suggests, some filmmakers are trying to create such associations preemptively, by splicing together a “cool” soundtrack in the hopes that it will draw attention to their otherwise mediocre film. I wholeheartedly agree with Eoin O’Faolain’s take on the Sofia Coppola films and their soundtracks – while I like and respect the artists and the individual songs, their use in the films, as well as the films themselves, can be summed up in one word – “pretentious”.
If I had to point a finger at the original culprit who started this trend, my money would be on the Bond films. Back in the 80′s and 90′s, it seemed that the most important things regarding the iconic spy’s movies were a) who will be his female co-star (read “Bond girl”), and b) who sings the opening credits song. I remember how each and every Bond theme song became an instant hit right before the corresponding film’s release, then faded into (justified, most of the time) obscurity immediately after. This is not absolute, of course – some Bond theme songs are classics, but others are totally forgettable (eg. “Die Another Day” by Madonna). Thankfully, things have taken a turn for the better with the Bond “reset” in Casino Royale.
Last but not least, I’d like to mention Darren Aronofsky’s “?” (Pi) as an example of a film soundtrack that is not only fab on its own, but it is also used to great effect in the movie. The soundtrack featured some of the best electronic music artists of the previous decade (Aphex Twin, Orbital, Massive Attack to name but a few) as well as original compositions by Clint Mansell (previously of Pop Will Eat Itself) and when played on its own, it’s a fantastic collection of contemporary electronic music. In the film, it accentuates the timelessness of the images (contemporary setting shot in black & white) and the confusion of the flawed genius that is the main character.
What’s your source on the statement on Sigur Rós regretting their inclusion on the soundtrack? Just curious.
Heh, should learn to google before I post, found under articles on their website:
“i wasn’t too happy with our presence in the movie,” states georg holm, the band’s bass player, hours before sigur ros mesmerised dublin audiences some weeks back. “i didn’t like the movie, either. i thought the track itself and how it was utilised worked really well, but the other songs on the soundtrack were a bit weird. i think it was cameron crowe doing his 10 favourite tracks and putting them into a film.
“that said, it raised our profile in america, i don’t regret that, but there are two sides to the story. i wouldn’t do it again, i don’t think. we’d synchronise music to film, but it would have to be a movie i was particularly interested in.”
Cheers for finding that info, Luke. Although it’s kind of ironic, as their music turned up in the Life Aquatic two years later!
I am in love with you for this line:
“Coppolla’s soundtrack is an attempt to claim that Marie Antoinette was the first “modern” teen, which is a typical example of Generation X’s inability to engage with history and customs outside their navel-gazing bubble of cynicism.”
Pay attention, fans of the film. Fine if you like it, but understand this is a major reason why people don’t. It’s not the anachronistic use of music per se, it’s what she’s saying with it. Whether or not you feel the music aesthetically suits the film is going to be pretty subjective (I personally found it clumsy, though I too love most of the music individually), but when someone offers up a fantastic, succinct analysis like the above, it should at least provoke thought and prompt debate at a similarly insightful level. If it doesn’t, I’m afraid YOU’RE the ones missing out on something, not someone who is not swayed by any supposed charms this film holds.
You are being critical of all the movies and their soundtracks, but I suggest 'you' watch the movies carefully before you write. To quote what you have written about Vanilla Sky, "In one scene Cruise’s character tries to impress a girl by choosing a Jeff Buckley song- a moment that has no function except to show off"
Actually in the movie Tom Cruise, when asked if he wants to listen to Jeff Buckley or Vicki Carr, he says " Both Simultaneously"..
So go ahead, rent that movie one more time and come up with a better article next time!!