Guest Post By: Brendan
Thomas Newman is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Sam Mendes – I noticed his American Beauty
The tragic character of “Severine” provides a brief respite in a score which otherwise pummells you into submission. It is a glorious, 78-second string arrangement, conjuring memories of my favorite Bond music – John Barry’s instrumental “We Have All The Time In The World
Skyfall is otherwise a surprisingly forgettable score, though I did enjoy the “Shanghai Drive” theme, its reprisal in the album’s concluding track, “Adrenaline,” and the percussive energy of “Silhouette.” Monty Norman’s original theme is incorporated particularly well in “Breadcrumbs.”
Adele’s “Skyfall”
has more nostalgic value than timeless artistic merit as the band’s heavy use of synths keeps the music firmly dated in the early 1980s. Yet despite all the electro-80s flourishes, 1984 is still a mostly solid rock album. And pop-rock hits “Jump,” “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher” are just as catchy and enjoyable now as when I first heard them. Now for one of my all-time favorite soundtracks…
. 
. However, I have greatly enjoyed listening to the movie’s soundtrack. The original score by composer James Newton Howard is a lovely collection of instrumentals both serene and dramatic. The rest of the album features Depression-era jazz and blues, the centerpiece of which is Bessie Smith’s guttural rendering of “I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl.”
as one of my all-time favorite instrumentals. Brendan’s thoughts on Barry’s work follow…
. His score for the film was sublime, and the track “Did You Call Me?” made it onto my 1999 mixtape, pretentiously titled Life: A Soundtrack.
enhanced the emotional resonance of that underrated movie – the track “Remembering Chet” being a standout.
of the same name, featuring a piano version of the movie theme, is also highly recommended.
soundtrack, his wonderful score for 
, and just this weekend, we watched 
for the first time.
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, one of my earliest soundtrack purchases. On cassette! Remember cassettes? My admiration for that particular score was dampened when I heard the remarkably similar music from an earlier film, Badlands. But Zimmer has done some wonderful work in the past two decades, including 
, 
, 
, and 
. One of my favorite compliations in recent years has been 
– a concert performance from 2000 featuring Zimmer’s music as performed by the VRO Flemish Radio Orchestra. Highlights from that album include excerpts from The Thin Red Line and 
