Listen to the Music

*Day 5* I'm blogging everyday till VidCon! What is VidCon? Check it out at www.VidCon2010.com

How do I introduce the topic of this blog?... hmmm.... How 'bout this. About a year or so ago, I was at the movies and a preview for the Sherlock Holmes movie was shown. It was the first time I had ever seen it. My very first reaction to the preview after seeing it was, "Did you hear that music? I think it's the same composer who did Pirates of the Carribean."

This is my confession, I am obsessed with movie soundtracks. When I watch movies, I sometimes pay more attention to the music in the background than anything else. In fact, I was right in my assumption about the Sherlock Holmes soundtrack. The composer of the soundtrack for that movie was Hans Zimmer, who was the producer of the soundtrack for the first Pirates movie and the composer for the other two Pirates movies. He is amazing.

My favorite thing about soundtracks is that while a movie itself might flounder, the soundtack can still soar. Sometimes you find amazing soundtracks attached to the most unlikely movies. Today I just wanted to share and discuss some of my favorite soundtracks.

I think I first began collecting soundtracks in 1997. That was the year Fox released the animated film "Anastasia". I still love the soundtrack for this movie even today. I listen to it all the time, the songs are so much fun to sing along to and some of them are really emotinally deap and moving.

In 1998, I picked up the soundtrack for Disney's Tarzan even before the movie came out in theatres because I saw that Phil Collins had written the soundtrack, and Phil Collins is simply a musical genius. This soundtrack has 14 tracks, only 9 of them are songs with words, but it is still one of my favorites. Even Rosie O'Donnel and N'sync lend their voices on a couple of songs. :-)

There are two soundtracks from 1999 on my top 10 list. The first one is the soundtrack from Pokemon: The First Movie. This is an absolutely fantastic soundtrack full of fun, upbeat pop songs that are still fun to listen to today. This is absolutely one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, I'm always impressed with it everytime I listen to it. The second soundtrack from 1999 is from the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. So many amazing artists contributed to this soundtrack; Semisonic, Save Ferris, Sister Hazel, Letters To Cleo and several others. This soundtrack is a good mix of emo, pop and r&b, I like listening to this soundtrack when I go on roadtrips.

2001 was also a good year for soundtracks. I have two favorites from this year. First is Shrek. If you've ever watched the first Shrek movie, you can not deny that you find yourself singing along with "All Star" by Smash Mouth during the opening credits or with "Bad Reputation" during the scene where Shrek has to defend himself from all the Knights who are competeing to go rescue Fiona. Throw in Eddie Murphy's cover of "I'm a Believer" and even with just those three songs, this would be a great soundtrack, but all of the songs are fun. I don't own a copy of this soundtrack, but I wish so badly that I did. I love it. The other soundtrack from 2001that I highly recommend is a soundtrack that I first bought simply because David Bowie had a song on it. The song is "Golden Years" and the soundtrack is for the movie A Knights Tale. I am so glad that I bought this cd. Every single song on this soundtrack is fantastic, having them all together on one cd is brilliant. Queen, David Bowie, Heart, Eric Clapton, Thin Lizzy, and Third Eye Blind are just a few of the artists found on this soundtrack, and unless you are musically clueless, you have to admit, it is an awesome lineup.

In 2004, I was highly impressed with the soundtrack for the movie Blade Trinity. According to sales records, this was actually the least popular soundtrack of the three Blade movies, but it was my favorite of the three, probably because I found that the soundtrack kept me entertained when the movie did not.

The next soundtrack on my list was originally released in 2005, but I did not hear it until 2006. In 2005, the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was released in Japan. I first watched the film in 2006 and immediately fell in love with the music. I searched everywhere for the soundtrack only to find that it was not available in America. I had to order it from Japan. (Thank God for being able to shop online and order things from other countries so easily!) This soundtrack was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and he is simpley a genius. There are 26 tracks on 2 discs and according to wikipedia, Variety magazine noted that the styles of the songs vary between "sparse piano noodlings, pop metal thrashings and cloying power ballads" which I have to completely agree with. Perhaps my favorite song on the soundtrack is "Advent: One-Winged Angel" which is the theme song for Sephiroth (the villain) and it is absolutely incredible. It starts off with just orchestral drums, then succesive orchestra type instruments come in to play in a layering fashion all building up to.... BAM! An electric guitar! Rock music takes over the orchestra music and then.... a choir starts singing in latin with the music alternating between classical orchestra and rock, it is a fantastically wonderful and fun song to listen to. The whole soundtrack is amazing but two of my other favorite songs are titled "Battle in the Forgotten City" and "J-E-N-O-V-A". Check it out if you ever have the chance.

The last soundtracks I want to mention are very new. I am not much of a "twilight" fan at all, but have you looked at the soundtracks for Twilight and New Moon?! Muse, Paramore, Linkin Park, Perry Farrell, Death Cab for Cutie, Thom Yorke, The Killers and OK Go are just some of the names of artists you will find on these soundtracks. What amazing lineups. Really. I don't own either of these soundtracks yet, but I can't wait to get my hands on them. Sweet sweet music!

I know this was a long blog, but I tried to keep it to a top 10 type review and anyway, I happen to know that at least two people who read this blog regularly will probably appreciate this entry *ahem* Helen and James *cough*cough* :-)

Goodbye 'till tomorrow.