Unless it was a musicals like ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘Grease’, ‘Thank God it’s Friday’, ‘Flashdance’, ‘Fame’, Pretty Woman’, ‘The Wedding Singer’, ‘Tommy’ or ‘Saturday Night Fever’, you rarely would’ve expected an English movie to contain too many songs. At best there would a title tune, which would play while the credits role. But those days are gone.

It was truly the eighties that changed the rules of the game. Today, one finds many movies with an incredible line – up of songs, many of which are used in the background score to accentuate a sequence in the film. Country western, sci – fi movies that have great background scores can never be compared to the music that other movies bring out. So is the case with films that depend sorely on the background score of the film to get labeled as a box office hits. But it must be mentioned that the Bollywood angle of running around trees, or mountains isn’t followed in western movies.

Whatever the film or scene, you can’t escape the music that helped create the atmosphere. Music has been an integral part in the film making process; so much so that images projected on screen has an accompanying music that either reaches a crescendo or diminuendos as the scene unfolds. Charlie Chaplin’s silent films is probably the perfect example of the beginning of it all, with sound effects directly related to the comic events that unfolded. With technology undergoing a sea change, the idea is still the same, basically using music to enhance the emotional response to provide a heightened ambience. In the end its an added advantage – a new marketing tool to promote the film that brings in great money for film producers.

Thus what you have today is movie compilations from various artistes that are sometimes interspersed with the movie script, or inspired by the film, bringing in extra moolah for the makers.

The title tracks for 007 James Bond movies are well known. Who can forget Shirley Bassey’s two superhit title songs Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever to Duran Duran’s A View to a Kill or even Sheryl Crow’s brilliant Tomorrow never dies. The Queen of Pop, Madonna, cannot go unnoticed for her contribution to Beautiful Stranger, that was a rage taken from ‘Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me’ the soundtrack that also had complete music scores. In ‘Evita’ she was one of the principal vocalists singing the famous song Don’t Cry for me Argentina.

With the growth of music and the numerous genres it has, filmmakers now have a wider choice of bands and new solo artists to choose from. Sometimes it’s an unknown artist making it big with just a movie soundtrack to their credit. Bobby McFerrin was an unknown name until his super song Don’t Worry Be Happy from the soundtrack of ‘Cocktail’ rocketed the charts and made him an overnight sensation. Likewise you had the Bee Gees who today are a household name and were once small fries in the 70s until their big break for the soundtrack ‘Saturday Night Fever’ catapulted them to super stardom. What about Chris De Burgh who despite being popular for his own albums, had a trump in his career with the sassy ballad Lady In Red from the soundtrack ‘Woman in Red’. There’s no doubt that the crowd pullers Survivor hit the jackpot with their rocky edged anthem Eye of the Tiger from ‘Rocky’.

The soundtrack for Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ for instance brings together sounds ranging from the 60s rock and roll to 70s funk, Dusty Springfield to Chuck Berry. You also have Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ grabbing your attention in his version of William Shakespeare’s classic that has a soundtrack of different genres from bands like Garbage, Des’ree to The Cardigans. ‘Runaway Bride’ couldn’t have had better music for the playlist includes the likes of Eric Clapton who dazzles on Blue Eyes Blue to Shawn Colvin beautiful Never saw blue like that. There’s also stuff by U2, Daryl Hall, Dixie Chicks, Kenny Loggins and even Miles Davis too.

Hip – hop has made its way to movie soundtracks and so you have the music from and inspired by the motion picture ‘8 Mile’ that has artists like 50 Cent, Eminem, Obie Trice, Macy Gray and Rakim among many others. Nostalgic memories unfold in the hilarious ‘The Full Monty’ that has a playlist reading the likes of Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff, Sister Sledge We are Family to the groovy Hot Chocolate You Sexy Thing and the brilliant Irene Cara classic (first used in ‘Flashdance’) What a Feeling.

Talk about heavy rock and its omnipotent in ‘Detroit Rock City’ an absolute hard rock treat with Van Halen, Pantera, Black Sabbath and Kiss that would be a must for any headbanger. Futuristic western ‘Wild Wild West’ has Will Smith hogging the limelight with the title tracks while Richie Sambora and Dr. Dre give it the wild sound it needs.

Over the years not much has changed except that dialogues are now being added to the soundtrack. ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, Blaze of Glory inspired by the film ‘Young Guns II’ has rocker Bon Jon Jovi who brings a few dialogues to his set which is a expert marketing too. Once you’ve heard the lines, there’s no way you are not going to watch the movie. And once you’ve watched the movie there is no way you aren’t going to buy the soundtrack. Hans Zimmer’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest’ is not an exception either. Besides DJ Tiesto filling for major part of the soundtrack, you have an array of dialogues that bring you to certain sequences in the movie. Sony Pictures ‘The Passion of Christ’ though alarming in its visual form, brings moments of the last days of Christ in its music format with sound sequences and dialogues from the film.

The story of movie compilations goes on with lots more. Besides just major offerings in soundtracks by artists filling the playlist, there’s also the music composed and background scores without vocals. This can go back to the late 60s and 70s to even certain soundtracks of the late nineties and 2000. James Horner’s compositions for ‘The Titanic’ didn’t strike a note with many, but it was Celine Dion’s masterpiece love theme My Heart Will go on that got many to pick up the album just for this one song. Through music, Horner managed to bring to life the feelings of people 95 years ago. ‘The Lion King’ soundtrack one of the many animated movies around, was an instant hit on its release and featured songs by Elton John like Can you Feel the Love Tonight, Hakuna Matata and Circle of Life. It also had Academy Award winning lyricist Tim Rice and musical score by Hans Zimmer, who gave a stunning score based on the coming of age saga of love between the proud lion ruler Mufasa and his son Simba, a naive and curious cub who “just can’t wait to be king”. In the same lines you had the uplifting genius of John Williams’ score for ‘Star Wars’, George Lucas’ epic series of films that tells the story of a galaxy far away. There are also the melodious Celtic compositions of ‘The Last of the Mohicans’, or even the classic genius compiled in the soundtrack of ‘Shine’. Though this segment of soundtrack would find many takers, it’s more due to the fact that this section houses more of the classical composers like Henry Mancini, Vangelis and many others all of whom have their own standards.

Last but not least the latest entrant to promote the movie is inevitably the music video. These videos shown on the idiot box feature the music artists and snapshots from the film, sort of a mini trailer, with the 3 or 5 minute song capturing normally the big scenes that would make a theatre buff either want to see the movie or not to. Music videos serve two purposes – they help the producer to sell the movie and the artist (sometimes new) to showcase his talent. In the end it reaches the right audience, young movie goers and music lovers who in the end are the ticket buyers. A great marketing tactic that is working wonders for many films.

The other set of soundtracks are musicals which today are barely found playing in theatres unless of course if it’s a movie dated to around 30 – 40 years ago. Musicals which today are rarely made, had the actors sing the songs in the film which were later sold as soundtracks of the movie. Most memorable would be the classics like the 1965 winner of 5 Academy awards Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, ‘Thank God it’s Friday’, ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘Fame’, ‘Grease’ among the main ones. Interestingly all the above were once major stage productions or went on to become major stage production before their film adaptation.

The comparison of Hollywood to Bollywood film music is interesting. We find that the music generated and produced by Hollywood is independent of the music industry, whereas in India it’s the other way round, popular music contributions come mainly from Bollywood music. Thus the outcome of it all is that film and film music each have their own definition, for while music composed for films ranges from the purely commercial, film music (background score) is purely futuristic.

Record companies all around the world are getting wiser and frequently bring out compilations of ‘music from the movies’ capitalizing on the catchy tracks of box office movies thereby creating yet another area generating money and creating another genre of music.

Top 5 Soundtracks of all Time

-          Pretty Woman

-          Notting Hill

-          Dirty Dancing

-          The Bodyguard

-          Top Gun

 -- By Verus Ferreira