Do you like musical instruments with lots of keyboards? And lots and lots of dials? Then you may like 36 15 MOOG: Stuff with Moog and/or 60's and 70's vintage synths in it. (related Ask MeFi) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Dec 24, 2009 - 14 comments

Jerry Fielding (1922-1980) was one of cinema's most distinctive voices in the 1960s and especially '70s, the perfect musical complement to the films of Sam Peckinpah*, Michael Winner, Clint Eastwood and others. His scores are marked by modernism and intricate orchestrations but also a poetic beauty and intensity—an appropriate accompaniment to the decade's strange and often sad (but never sentimental) criminals and antiheroes, be they in westerns (The Wild Bunch) or crime films. He was, however, capable of numerous styles (he was a former Vegas bandleader), and wrote a great number of scores (from sticoms to dramas to sci-fi) for television. - Film Score Monthly [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Nov 13, 2009 - 2 comments

The Cloud Photographers : "an artificial Wes Anderson soundtrack" by Nicholas Gurewitch, of Perry Bible Fellowship fame (previously). Also has an interview with Gurewitch about the soundtrack and the story of The Cloud Photgraphers. More recently, Gurewitch is featured in Marvel Strange Tales. Two scans (scans about as NSFW as the median PBF comic) on the Truth and Beauty Bombs comics forum (via Dinosaur Comics).
posted by skynxnex on Sep 21, 2009 - 18 comments

One Hundred Years, One Hundred Scores. The Hollywood Reporter and a jury of film music experts select the 100 greatest film scores of all time. One of the jury is Dan Goldwasser, editor of Soundtrack.net, which publishers interviews with composers, reviews of soundtracks and keeps a valuable list of trailer music - for when a new trailer uses old film music and you can't quite remember where it's from. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on Apr 30, 2009 - 60 comments

Spy music! Whether it's Lalo Schifrin's theme for Mission Impossible, or Jerry Goldsmith's theme for Man from U.N.C.L.E., or the greatest of them all, John Barry's iconic James Bond theme, you know it when you hear it. Now, for my money, the best spy music in recent years wasn't from a spy movie at all, but an animated superhero film: the action-packed theme and soundtrack for The Incredibles, in which the very talented Michael Giacchino was clearly (and brilliantly) channeling John Barry. And of course, you'll all want to head over here and see what your fellow MeFiers have lately been doing with the genre. [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Aug 1, 2008 - 54 comments

Bebe Barron, 82, Pioneer of Electronic Scores, Is Dead. Best known for the soundtrack to the 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet -- the first full-length feature to use only electronic music -- she and her husband Louis Barron recorded the film's pre-synthesizer "electronic tonalities" with electronic circuits of their own invention. She never scored another feature film, but remained active in the avant-garde music scene.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on May 8, 2008 - 17 comments

First, and foremost, here is La Caíta - El Pájaro Negro. Could there be singing anymore heartfelt than this ? I wonder. And here she is, in an ancillary role, with the Amaya family. Also, from Spain, here is Tchavolo Schmitt, Dorado Schmitt & Hono Winterstein - Kali Sara & Tchavolo swing. From Romania, here are Taraf de Haïdouks and, from them, here is Taraf de Haïdouks and of them, here is Balada Conducatorolui - Nicolae Neacsu. From the Thar of Rajasthan, here is the very charismatic Talab Khan Barna, and here, from Egypt, is Bambi Saidi. And let the etymological connection between Egypt and gypsy be noted here and now, by the way.

All of these are. of course, excerpts from Latcho Drom. [more inside]
posted by y2karl on Mar 20, 2008 - 7 comments

Moving an 100 year old church - via the power of rock (YouTube page) Watching a show about buildings being moved by truck, my attention drifted towards the captivating music, from composer Daniel Pemberton. One of the gems on his MySpace page is this clip in which a 40-strong choir leads an 100-year old church as it is moved down a road, to a soundtrack akin to the Beatles or Polyphonic Spree. It's bizarre and certainly not your normal documentary fare.
posted by skylar on Jan 30, 2007 - 14 comments

Video Games Live, a game-music-with-orchestra concert tour, has gotten lots of press; videogame music's gettting new attention.
posted by Tlogmer on Aug 14, 2005 - 10 comments

John Debney fought with Satan to score "The Passion of the Christ." Literally: "I had all these computers and synthesizers in my studio and the hard drives would go down and the digital picture that lives on the computer with the music would just freeze on his [Satan's] face... and I was verbalizing and saying to Satan, 'Manifest yourself right now...'"
posted by squirrel on Mar 5, 2004 - 54 comments

'Mais Non, Mais Non?'... Well, there goes the neighbourhood. You go for nigh on a quarter of a century crediting The Muppets with an all time classic, when you find out that it was someone elses - Italian soundtrack composer Piero Umiliani. Not only that, but used as part of the score for an oh-so-dodgy a Swedish porn film!?!?. But no, that's not the end of it, as it transpires (see bottom of page) that 'Mahna Mahna' was originally performed by a Frenchman, Henri Salvador, and was called 'Mais Non Mais Non'. Still, in any of these forms, it's one of the few songs that still makes me smile every time I hear it, especially so when accompanied by the visuals.
posted by boneybaloney on Oct 7, 2002 - 19 comments

Let's Rock Get a real live musician to write a theme song for your blog. Of course you have to somehow return the favor. "I'm calling it the rockin' blogroll," notes Philip Clark, the multiple band guy that is willingly offering up his own service against silence.
posted by boost ventilator on Jul 9, 2002 - 3 comments

Pink Floyd and the Wizard of Oz? "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." While no one involved with Pink Floyd has ever admitted to any link between the band's seminal 1973 album "Dark Side of the Moon" and the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz," urban legend purports that the album was conceived as an alternate soundtrack to the film.
posted by 120degrees on Jun 22, 2000 - 7 comments