Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Music from Mars


I recently commented on my Twitter and facebook that I think Life on Mars has the best soundtrack of any television show, not least of which is the show's title which is a great David Bowie song. It's amazing the power music has to really alter the mood of a visual scene. How about you? What do you say is the TV show with the best soundtrack, and we can expand the question into movie soundtracks. Also, why does music have such power?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I personally loved the soundtrack to "Six Feet Under," among TV shows. And Juno, among recent films.

Unknown said...

I feel that Scrubs has the best TV sound track. The best movie would go to Garden State.

robert c. pelfrey said...

Garden State and Juno definitely had some great tunes that are prime examples of matching music to characters and subject matter. Also, Scrubs did a masterful job of using music to get that emotional part when they'd get to the little serious sections (must be a Zach Braff thing). I'm embarrassed to say I never saw Six Feet Under, even though people were always telling me how great it was! I'm sure I'll do a DVD marathon one of these cold weekends.

I also have to confess enjoying the guilty pleasure of the way Role Models used the band Kiss recently!

Anonymous said...

For movies, I recently became enthralled with the soundtrack from "Road to Perdition" since my daughter had to watch it for school. It uses a synthetic mode, combining major and minor tonalities (flat 6 and 7 but major 3), revealing the moral ambiguity of the film.

A weird but intriguing soundtrack can be found on the Hindi movie Kal Ho Naa Ho. It's really cheesy at times, but the main love theme is unique and, I think, quite haunting given the tragic content of the film.

I also liked Juno.

robert c. pelfrey said...

As a composer, I guess I have an assignment to go re-watch, and listen to, Road to Perdition. I just don't know if I can handle it emotionally. Also, what is this school that your daughter is in, Jim? A far cry from the "Johnny Tremain" of my childhood!

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