Mojo's Top 100 Soundtracks of All Time.

January 27, 2005 10:05 AM

Mojo's top 100 soundtracks -- well thought out, with some rediscovered classics, and a few obscure gems. [via largeheartedboy]
posted by btwillig (32 comments total)

Interesting that these were presented in roughly chronological order, instead of a ranking.
posted by me3dia at 10:19 AM on January 27, 2005

I wonder if "The Passion" fans, upon giving up their appeal for a Best Picture nomination, will move to getting their movie score on here.
posted by santiagogo at 10:56 AM on January 27, 2005

No The Matrix or Judgement Night or Fear of a Black Hat? For shame.
posted by shawnj at 11:02 AM on January 27, 2005

Thanks... I always dig Mojo's lists, but the magazine costs so damn much over here.
posted by ITheCosmos at 11:02 AM on January 27, 2005

cool. I was expecting this to be really inane, but they nailed it- herrmann, morricone, la planete sauvage... this is a fantastic resource, thank you.
posted by Swampjazz! at 11:04 AM on January 27, 2005

They don't have Requiem for a Dream, so how accurate can that list be?
posted by clockworkjoe at 11:07 AM on January 27, 2005

I know very well that all lists are flawed, and I'm such a sucker for even posting this, but really, where is Eraserhead? Too edgy for the Mojo crowd?
posted by nylon at 11:10 AM on January 27, 2005

Suprising omissions:

Logan's Run
Clockwork Orange
Liquid Sky
Times Square

(Where's the italics tag? It's missing today.)
posted by sourwookie at 11:13 AM on January 27, 2005

It's a good list, except that I'm assuming there's a good reason that This Is Spinal Tap didn't qualify.
posted by chicobangs at 11:14 AM on January 27, 2005

I'm was a little surprised The Royal Tenenbaums beat out Rushmore. Was glad to see Air make it with The Virgin Suicides, though.
posted by btwillig at 11:22 AM on January 27, 2005

Why no Rocky Horror Picture Show?
posted by sourwookie at 11:23 AM on January 27, 2005

Paah -- Also not included:
Zabrinski Point
Vanilla Sky
Kill Bill (either volume)
Repo Man
The Beach
Trainspotting or
The End of the World.

And I've always been partial to Something Wild.
posted by rtimmel at 11:41 AM on January 27, 2005

What, no Beverly Hills Cop?
posted by Hillman Cobs at 11:44 AM on January 27, 2005

Pi?
Velvet Goldmine?
posted by drpynchon at 12:31 PM on January 27, 2005

No Passion:Soundtrack to the Last Temptaion of Christ? Man, nothing beats that on a nice evening with a lady.

Otherwise, great list. Even found that Miles Davis album I never knew about.
posted by Dantien at 12:42 PM on January 27, 2005

I'll be a happy camper if someone makes a torrent archive of these and posts them somewhere...

From what I can see, pretty much all of these would be impossible to find.
posted by lockle at 12:45 PM on January 27, 2005

Also missing are Cool Hand Luke and Magnolia.
posted by rfs at 1:04 PM on January 27, 2005

No "The Harder They Come"?

Worthless.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:05 PM on January 27, 2005

Where the HELL is The Third Man?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:14 PM on January 27, 2005

eyeballkid, The Harder They Come is #56.

Rocky Horror was originally a stage musical, which might DQ it from this list.

Past that, it's arbitrary.
posted by chicobangs at 1:17 PM on January 27, 2005

No Top Gun?

Revvin' up your engine
Listen to her howlin' roar
Metal under tension
Beggin' you to touch and go

Highway to the Danger Zone
Right into the Danger Zone

Headin' into twilight
Spreadin' out her wings tonight
She got you jumpin' off the deck
And shovin' into overdrive

Highway to the Danger Zone
I'll take you
Right into the Danger Zone

You'll never say hello to you
Until you get it on the red line overload
You'll never know what you can do
Until you get it up as high as you can go

Out along the edges
Always where I burn to be
The further on the edge
The hotter the intensity

Highway to the Danger Zone


... and now it's in your head too!
Gonna take you
Right into the Danger Zone

Highway to the Danger Zone
posted by Quartermass at 1:40 PM on January 27, 2005

Would add:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Tan Dun)
Escape From New York (John Carpenter, Alan Howarth)
Hardware (Simon Boswell)
Batman (Danny Elfman)
Se7en (Howard Shore)
posted by Darkman at 2:04 PM on January 27, 2005

eyeballkid, The Harder They Come is #56.

I... uh... I meant "Tuff Turf!"

(or "oh! there's a whole other page!")
posted by eyeballkid at 2:12 PM on January 27, 2005

High Fidelity
posted by cholstro at 2:19 PM on January 27, 2005

What, no American Beauty? No The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly? No Gattaca? No Unbreakable? Actually, I don't see any of James Newton Howard's work on there, a major omission. No Tangerine Dream either, c'mon.

No Beavis and Butt-Head Do America? (Erm. Okay, maybe not.)
posted by kindall at 2:23 PM on January 27, 2005

Y'all are stretching now.
posted by chicobangs at 2:26 PM on January 27, 2005

If the list covers releases recent enough to include 2001's The Royal Tenenbaums, I'm actually genuinely surprised that none of the The Lord of the Rings soundtracks made it onto the list. I think they're brilliant even as standalone pieces.
posted by abiku at 3:11 PM on January 27, 2005

I have always been a fan of the soundtrack, though I prefer scores to the mix tape-type compilations.

Mojo had a disc with one of their issues a couple of summer ago which was great. Opened my eyes up to a few that I had not heard before
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 3:37 PM on January 27, 2005

Here are a few more great scores:

The Conversation - David Shire
Naked Lunch - Howard Shore
The Moderns - Mark Isham
Forbidden Planet - Louis & Bebe Barron
The Day the Earth Stood Still - Bernard Herrman
Dodes'kaden - Toru Takemitsu
Il Casanova - Nino Rota
All About My Mother - Alberto Iglesias
In The Mood For Love - Michael Galasso
posted by blakeleyh at 5:20 PM on January 27, 2005 [1 favorite]

I'd like to see a list of the best soundtracks that weren't actually used for the movie, with Eurythmic's 1984 at the top.

Some really good ones there tho, but the original Valley of the Dolls is better than the sequel (and Mylo's remix of it is out of this world)
posted by amberglow at 5:26 PM on January 27, 2005

While I'm all for free speech, I'd like to propose a moratorium on future posting of Kenny Loggins lyrics.

Kill Bill had a great soundtrack... but I think it's a bit too derivative to qualify.

The list also needs more Bacharach. (You can never have enough Bacharach.)
posted by evilcolonel at 8:27 PM on January 27, 2005

It's a somewhat nice resource, but it's odd that they call it the 100 greatest soundtracks of ALL TIME. Other than one or two scores, they've decided that film history began in the late 50s. It actually started nearly 50 years before that.

Even in the silent period, composers wrote scores. Many have been recorded, and many are brilliant. And where are the scores from the sound period pre-50s?

Great pre-50s scores chosen off the top of my head:

1925 "The Battleship Potemkin" - Dmitri Shostakovich
1931 "City Lights" - Charlie Chaplin
1933 "King Kong" - Max Steiner
1934 "The Gay Divorcee" - Cole Porter
1935 "Gone With the Wind" - Max Steiner
1940 "Theif of Bagdad" - Miklós Rózsa
1941 "Citizen Kane" - Bernard Herrmann
1944 "Double Indemnity" - Miklós Rózsa
1945 "Spellbound" - Miklós Rózsa
1945 "The Lost Weekend" - Miklós Rózsa
posted by grumblebee at 9:33 PM on January 27, 2005