The Power of Soundtracks
Since then I have discovered soundtracks as a source for excellent music. I discovered Aimee Mann through Magnolia, The Verve through Cruel Intentions, Carly Simon through Working Girl, and Alisha’s Attic through Bridget Jones’s Diary. In each of these cases, I went and bought a CD by this artist after discovering his/her/their song on the soundtrack.
TV series can also be a great source for music, especially since you can now often look up the music that was used for a specific episode or even a specific scene on internet sites devoted to soundtracks. The music tends to be excellently well chosen, too. It’s to The O.C., for example, that I am indebted to for Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah as well as Syd Matters’ To All of You (from Someday We Foresee Obstacles).
It’s not just songs, either. I love to listen to whole soundtracks, and find them especially soothing while I’m working hard. For example, I adore the soundtracks of Much Ado About Nothing, Pirates of the Caribbean and, of course, Star Wars.
What roles do soundtracks play for you?
– Rike Horstmann[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Grey’s Anatomy is certainly known for its music — the Fray and Snow Patrol thank their lucky stars that their music was used. I think I first noticed music, however, in a short-lived series called “Now and Again”. It was about a man (played by John Goodman in the first episode) who is killed in a subway accident but whose mind is placed into a new, genetically bio-engineered body (played by Eric Close). The doctor in charge of the experiment has grand plans for him, but all he wants is to get back to his grieving wife and daughter. In that sense it’s very romantic, that his love for his wife transcends death and that, even though he’s now young and strong and handsome and could have almost any woman he wanted, the only one he wants is his wife. But getting back on topic, it’s where I first heard Holly Cole’s song “Make it Go Away or Make it Better”, which I love.
Notting Hill has a great soundtrack. BtVS the TV show had a fabulous soundtrack–it introduced me to a whole series of great indie (at the time) bands. Six Feet Under and Veronica Mars also introduced me to great bands.
I tend to appreciate soundtracks with orchestral music, usually period pieces. One of my favorite of all time is Mountains of the Moon, an oldie but so goodie. It encompassed African rhythms as well as Scottish tunes and beautiful orchestral themes, as the story was about Burton and Speke’s search for the source of the Nile back in the 1850s.