The Music of the Screen Media

Since I’m unlikely to see many movies in theaters before Oscar season rolls around in September or October, I’m going to start a series all about what I consider to be great film scores and great TV theme songs. Now, when I say TV theme songs I don’t mean “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” by Gary Portnoy from Cheers, though that is an admittedly great song, nor do I refer to The Rembrandts’ catchy “I’ll Be There for You” from Friends, nor do I call attention to The Friendly Indians’ “I Know You Know,” just one great part of the always underrated Psych. No I mean the instrumental themes that catch your attention just as they capture the essence of the show or the mood of the times in which the show is broadcast. If you don’t know what I mean, I’d keep reading and then stay tuned if I were you. (I will be taking one or two days to talk about some great TV themes with lyrics just in case you were afraid I wasn’t going to.) Some TV themes I love are just plain catchy and that’s why I love them, but some are just astonishing in their brilliance. The exact same goes with the film scores. Their success, however, goes far more hand-in-hand with their ability to evoke honest emotion at just the right time or to lay a strong foundation for a truly fun or exciting scene. A film score somewhat defies the norms of filmmaking. A bad one can hurt a movie, but it can’t really ruin it in the same way poor cinematography or atrocious editing can. On the other hand, a brilliant film score can transcend a film. Listening to a brilliant film score after having viewed the film brings you back to the emotions you felt while watching. I’ll share some of my favorites and why I think they’re great. I’m going to be mixing up chronology of release and broadcast years and interweaving film and TV as well as writing up every single one differently depending on what clips musical segments I can find. Sometimes I’ll have a single article for a great, but lesser known, composer and his work. Other times I’ll have multi-part, multi-day articles on celebrated composers such as John Williams and Max Steiner and the work of his I find particularly good, as well as the work of lesser known (at least outside of the realm of hardcore screen media followers) film and TV composers who deserve may have received their fair share of acclaim, but to whom far less public attention is paid than they wholeheartedly deserve (such as Ennio Morricone and Mike Post).

I hope you enjoy because I certainly know I’ll have an absolute blast doing these write-ups. I might get something up today, but I probably won't.