Last Updated on 05/12/2020
It’s hard to imagine film without music; music was first introduced to the motion picture in 1927 with Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer, and since then we haven’t looked back. The visual and the sonic go hand in hand, enhancing or deliberately juxtaposing one another to create a cinematic language.
Curating a perfect soundtrack is a deceptively difficult task, and in honour of this feat, we’ll be looking at our Top 5 Film Soundtracks. This ‘mixtape’ approach to film scoring is focused on sampling, so check back in with us in a few weeks’ time, when we’ll be rating original scores too.
5. Mid 90s – Jonah Hill, 2018
“Hip hop was the emotional backbone of my growing up” claims Jonah Hill, writer and director of Mid 90s, and this truth absolutely permeates the film’s perfectly curated soundtrack.
Mid 90s was one of my favourite films of the last decade. At once a coming of age journey into the future and a nostalgic dive into the past, it’s a subtle, brutal, beautiful work. From the 16mm film and 4:3 aspect ratio to the Menace and Girl shirts and Vans Half Cabs, everything about it exudes ‘90s LA skate culture – but it’s the music more than anything that transports you.
Music was an inextricable part of the movie’s fabric; ‘the film was written and shot to these specific tracks’, Hill explains, ‘many of which were so important to my own life growing up.’ Indeed, this personal connection proved to be instrumental in securing the iconic roster of artists that the film features. Lacking a big music budget, Hill personally wrote to the individual artists (starting with Morrissey – a brave move), persuading them individually to waive their rights and get involved in the project.
The end result is perfection – GZA, Morrissey, Souls of Mischief, Tribe, Nirvana, the Pharycde, Del The Funky Homosapien, the Pixies, Wu-Tang, Omega – are just some of the iconic artists who form the sonic foundations of the film. These musical choices bend to its oscillating emotional landscape; from boombox skate classics to visceral orchestral bangers to tender, stripped back rock, the music doesn’t compliment the film – it drives it.
4. Whiplash – Damien Chazelle, 2014
This one’s a bit of a cheat, as technically the spec for this top 5 is film soundtracks, not scores, but Whiplash has a combination of the two, so we’ll allow it.
One of the most captivating, disturbing, visceral portraits of life as a jazz musician to have come out of American cinema, Whiplash is a truly multisensory experience (and not always in a good way).
It kind of goes without saying that a film about jazz should have a great soundtrack, but Justin Hurwitz (who incidentally went on to score La La Land – big money moves) truly outdoes himself here. The film’s increasingly claustrophobic score is perfectly intertwined with the titular ‘Whiplash’, the iconic composition of ‘70s big band titan Hank Levy, and cushioned by classic standards from Duke Ellington, Juan Tizol Martínez and Count Basie.
3. Pulp Fiction – Quentin Tarantino, 1994
How do you even begin to describe the Pulp Fiction soundtrack? Ethereal? Groovy? Poignant? It’s a compilation that’s both nostalgic for the past and determined to reinvent it on the director’s own terms.
Tarantino is notoriously music-driven, envisioning scenes that would fit certain songs, not the other way round. Dusty Springfield oozes over the iconic coke snorting intercom scene, which had been in Tarantino’s mind ‘for six or seven years’ – and ‘was always scored to ‘Son of a Preacher Man’.
Every single choice is exquisite. Dick Dale’s Miserlou is arguably the best musical opener in the history of Western Cinema (bold claim, but one I stand by). Uma Thurman dancing to Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon goes from sensual to sombre in an instant; a deeply ironic and macabre song choice to accompany her untimely death, this is quintessential of Tarantino’s dark humour. The ‘Let’s Stay Together’ scene is a masterpiece, and the music makes it. For minutes the camera holds on Bruce Willis, unmoving, the only emotion coming from Al Green’s tender vocals. This stark juxtaposition highlights the brutality of Willis and the world he occupies, without him having to utter a word.
As Zach Schonfeld so perfectly articulates it, ‘the musical universe of Pulp Fiction is as freewheeling and culturally omnivorous as its screenplay: Here is a quintessential ’90s film in which a ’70s disco icon dances the twist in a ’50s-themed burger joint.’
Bring out the gimp x
2. Do The Right Thing – Spike Lee, 1989
Who else could commission a Public Enemy track besides Spike Lee? The iconic ‘Fight The Power’ was written specifically for Lee’s fourth feature film, and it plays from Radio Raheem’s boombox a whole 15 times over the course of the film. Besides from being an absolute banger and a formative jazzrap track, it obviously perfectly encapsulates the message of ‘Do The Right Thing’, at once an aesthetic masterpiece and a deeply political exploration of systemic racial discrimination and police brutality in America.
I only discovered recently that the film’s jazz score was composed by Lee’s father, and it blends perfectly with the accompanying soundtrack; Teddy Riley and Guy’s My Fantasy is a perfect injection of r&b; British reggae group Steel Pulse’s ‘Can’t Stand It’ narrates the heatwave in dulcet tones. I’ve watched this film about a hundred times – but I’ve listened to the soundtrack even more. It never gets old.
1. Trainspotting – Danny Boyle, 1996
The music of Trainspotting soars through your veins; the characters shoot heroin – for us the substance is Iggy Pop. I don’t even know how to write about this soundtrack in a way that does it justice. Lou Reed’s Perfect Day is gut wrenchingly poignant; Underworld’s Born Slippy is at once completely elating and unnerving, while their relentless ‘Dark and Long’ is the perfect nightmarish track to accompany the infamously disturbing baby scene. Georges Bizet’s orchestral ‘Carmen Suite No. 2” and Brian Eno’s instrumental ‘Deep Blue Day’ prove that we don’t always need lyrics to experience a visceral response to what we’re hearing. The mix of britpop icons, off kilter electronic sounds and beautiful alt rock make this a soundtrack that almost (almost) equals the genius of the film itself.
