Music and Movies: Fun Soundtracks

June 14th, 2007

Movies can be great fun to go to, even when the movie is bad. If it’s great, the discussion can go on for hours, especially if you try to figure out any of the stunts. If it’s bad, there will be discussions, usually centered on why the person who picked the movie this time won’t be picking it next time.

But we tend to remember the music from movies, and track it down. There are services to help us track down music, and we use them in order to find the music that we heard in the movies that we just saw. It can mean a trip to the local music store, visiting a website looking for the download, or going to a movie site to find out more about the music. In that vein, here are some fun soundtracks to track down!

Hackers: Besides having some great young stars that became great not-so-young stars (Johnny Lee Miller, Matthew Lilard, and Angelina Jolie), the soundtrack featured mostly electronica and techno, including some songs that became perennial favorites (such as Click!Click!BOOM!). The soundtrack is longer than movie (by almost fifteen minutes), and features almost every song in the movie. The coolest thing about this CD is that you are almost guaranteed to have some great music, and a number of the songs may find their way to your burned CDs.

Armitage III: If I really wanted to have a fun anime CD, I’d almost suggest Evangelion, which has 52 versions of “Take Me to The Moon”. However, this one is worth tracking down because it’s great for rounding out your home-made CDs. Although it’s more of the ambiance school of electronica, the songs fit with almost anything, including country or classical. There is even a torch-song (“Phantom World”), that sounds like it could have been sung in the 1930s, even allowing for its futuristic imagery. The record, like a good ambiance record, are best listened to unshuffled, as the record builds emotion like a movie, and will astound you.

Pure Country: Occasionally, you will find a great source of music that’s not rock, classic or synthesized. Pure Country is that rarity of rarity: A country soundtrack that did well on the charts. The first (“Heartland”) became the definitive country ballad that year, and “Cross My Heart” was one of the most played romantic slow songs. “Overnight Male” is a fun song, and “She Lays it on the Line” was a romantic song of another type. “Where The Sidewalk Ends” is a song that became an anthem on its own. Overall, it’s a fun CD that will get a lot of play, and give you a number of songs that will end up in the weirdest places.

Just remember to seriously debate selling any CD; a back-up is always nice, and nothing beats using the original as the back-up. For that matter, you can burn the music and create your own CDs. You can put the CD somewhere safe and use it whenever you upgrade your computer. A little care, and you can have your favorite for a long time!

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