How a soundtrack makes a movie better or worse?
 

i think that in some movies a good soundtrack is necessary,

Sweeney Todd for example, the over use of musical art was cleary a good choice for this movie. The song choice and vocals were perfect.

But for some movies, a soundtrack of different, unique songs is so not needed.

Discuss.

and.
if you've seen a movie (doesn't have to be recent) that you suppose should have a good soundtrack or shouldn't, post it.

i loved the Sweeny Todd sound track, really good songs, and i think it definatly made a good movie all that much better, which i think is the point. Theres nothing worse than a bad soundtrack

what i also forgot to add if its a bad movie. and they make it into a musical like a real life musical and theres good music in it.
it doesn't really make it THAT much better.
a bad movie with good music. is still a bad movie.

get my point? kind of? sort of? not really?

The soundtrack for V for Vendetta was amazing, though I don't think it really made the movie better. I think the movie would have been much better if they kept the Anarchist themes from the graphic novel. They really just turned it into an anti-conservative movie, which ended up making the movie weaker. Though I still think the movie is a great movie.

What would Almost Famous be without the Tiny Dancer sing-along?

my favorite is when penny and william are pulling up the the hyatt house and rod stewarts 'every picture tells a story' cues up,......
and when they are all sittin around singing 'something in the air'

i just saw Once and loved that movie. i immediatly went and got the soundtrack after seeing it and that is great too.

hairspray = best movie soundtrack ever.

im in love with it.

GOOD MORNING BALTIMORE!!! Great memories with that song

TBH though, I don't like the Hairspray soundtrack past that one song. There are much better play sountracks out there. You should listen to Spring Awakening, not very uppity, but the lyrics are strong.

I thought the movie Rent failed with its songs, mainly by weak actors, the play is stronger by tenfold.

Rent is an amazing musical. i wont agree with you. i love the music.

as far as TV goes, I think the music of Six Feet Under and The Sopranos really made scenes stand out

Network television doesn't seem to get the use of music down as much as cable tv does

Stealth was a awful movie, but the soundtrack had some awsome stuff on it by incubus, insistute, and others movie sucked ass though.

"Once Upon a Time in the West" & "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" are great Leone films, but Morricone's score make the films brilliant. The soundtrack stitches the film together as the dialogue is sparse.

As good as the soundtracks are, I think the silence works better. In no other medium can silence work better.

you know those black and white films.
most of them dont have music.

im wondering...do you think it'd be better with it?

and i love the "Once Upon a Time in the Wild West" Soundtrack. but i agree with JH, not good as it is silent.

I think most soundtracks that have different unique songs work well with the movie they are relating to because it helps with a mood for a scene they were going for. Most of the time whoever does the choosing of the soundtrack whether it's the sound editor or w/e they usually do a good job. I think to like soundtracks that are more on the heavy side.....if you go through my cd collection you'll see an awful lot of soundtracks. The soundtracks I enjoy the most come from horror movies. I also like instruemental only soundtracks also ie. LOTR and Star Wars.

28 Days Later has the best soundtrack for a film I've seen. I know that I'm gonna be bias in saying that, considering how much I want to mentally hump both Danny Boyle & Alex Garland, but still.. Pretty unconventional choice in music that manages to get you stirred up in the right way even stronger than what's... conventional. Wow I worded that badly... You get what I mean. ¬.¬


Also, at djchameleon, Star Wars gets a vote from me too. Funniest soundtrack ever. I love it.

I never said the music wasn't good, it's just much better in the original cast play version, like much.

alright. i agree with you now because i saw the original after i saw the newest version and im gonna say i liked it much more.

I just saw the new indiana jones movie i thought that the sound track was the best thing about it.

I think a movie's soundtrack, when it's good, helps set the right mood for a movie, and is actually listenable.

I'm sure we can all think of one certain Disney movie that has probably the worst soundtrack anybody (with some sense) this generation has ever seen.

You probably loved No Country for Old Men.

The first and last soundtrack I ever bought was the Juno soundtrack because it had some awesome folky songs. I then found out that they were all from the same artist (Kimya Dawson, or something like that), which was a huge letdown because, if I had known better, I would have bought one of her albums instead.

I really love the Juno soundtrack, but to be honest didn't think the movie was all that it was cracked up to be. The soundtrack was probably one of the only things I enjoyed about the film. So I guess in this respect the soundtrack made the movie better!

And yeah there were heaps of Kimya Dawson tracks on it. But there was a range of other artists, too, which were also good.

Amelie would be absolutely nothing without the soundtrack, it ties it together. And I just recently saw two movies that wouldn't be good without the soundtracks: Coraline and Repo! The Genetic Opera (Coraline was better than Repo, but I always sing songs from Repo :p ) And I can't stand Hairspray anymore, I LOVED that movie and all the songs....but then I sawthe it at the theater (Live, with people, haha) and it just blew me away (and there was this really really hot guy that I had my eyes glued on, but that's besides the point). I still love Queen Latifah's song, though, it's so powerful.

I think a good soundtrack to a movie doesn't distract from the movie itself (as in you are drawn away form the action to the movie because the song distracts you enough for you to think about it). A good soundtrack amplifies the emotion or action being experienced and subtly helps take you into the world the movie has attempted to create.

A lot of contemporary movies seem to take the easy way out with a pop soundtrack, or attaching the appropriate whispery indie fluff to a poignant scene. Juno was annoying, Jerry Goldsmith should kick Kimya Dawson's smelly dreadlocked arse from beyond the grave.

I'm having trouble thinking of the oldest film that is dominated by a pick n' mix soundtrack, Tarantino obviously popularized it further

Equally overwrought Hollywood scores can be terrible, nobody needs that hassle. Sometimes you stop and listen to the score of a movie you are watching and you feel like you're being manipulated and realise how depressingly escapist movies really are just as you were getting into it

Well I'd say it goes at least as far back as Easy Rider.

yeah... but that had a point didn't it, the characters were part of a movement that was inexorably linked with it's music. I'm just venting hot air tbh, but it just seems like a cop out and it puts me off a movie instantly. Throwing Lady Gaga or some fly-by-night song into a scene to let stupid people know they should be excited.
How many sh*tty films have you watched with a scene in which a dog escapes and 'who let the dogs out' comes on? There are so many repulsive examples but my brain is starting to leak out of my ear just thinking about it

LOL. I know what you mean, but I also feel that way about Easy Rider. The songs on that soundtrack feel very much like they were put there for no other than to make the movie seem hip to young people at the time.

Mean Streets from '73 is probably one of the earliest and best uses of a contemporary soundtrack.

Soundtracks are just another way to get the energy in the movie where you want it to be.
Just another tool, like lighting, coloring, tone of voice, and volume.

Soundtracks harbor suspense, and increase a mood to it's fullest extent.
When done right, Soundtracks can practically save a movie(or rather, bad acting or scenery) on their own.