Some good: Beverly Hills Cop, How The West Was Won, Fiddler on the Roof, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Flashdance, Grease, West Side Story, Oklahoma!

Some bad: The Blues Brothers 2000. Royally sucks. Thankfully, I've never bought it but someone at work (who's now on the other shift) used to play it a lot.

What else sucks?

Don't know about sucking, but my favorite soundtracks are

1. Saturday Night Fever
2. Fast Times At Ridgemont High
3. Heavy Metal
4. South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (I love the "Blue Danube Waltz")
6. The Carl Stalling Project (Music from the old Looney-Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts).

We shouldn't talk about ones that ••••!

South Park and Heavy Metal tottally kick ass. I also like Batman & Robin soundtrack (better than the movie), Scary Movie, Flash Gordon (Queen rocks), Forrest Gump, The Big Chill, and that's all I can think of right now.

Two I forgot:

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

and

2. Purple Rain by Prince. (Yes, I do like His Royal Badness.)

Heavy Metal has possibly the most awesome soundtrack I have ever heard.

D*mn! I gotta go out and rent it (the uncut version) this weekend!

Saturday Night Fever's soundtrack is now remastered and I've got it ordered with Columbia House. Can't wait for it.

Hi chitty, ho chitty...

I think I get the reference.... the star of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (written by Ian Fleming, of James Bond fame) was Dick VanDyke, who plays Dr. Mark Sloan on Diagnosis Murder?

Heavy Metal has two soundtracks -- the Heavy Metal one, of course, and the lesser-known Elmer Bernstein symphonic score. That one includes most of the music heard in the Taarna sequence. Both are excellent!

I've always loved soundtracks -- they are half of my over 300 CD collection, and most of my vinyl records. Way back when, before videotape became practical for everyday use, they were the only way to experience a movie over and over again.

I like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure way more than I thought I would on repeated listenings.

Did anyone mention ST:TMP yet? The main title (bogarted for TNG) is best here -- played by a big orchestra.

The Sea Hawk and Robin Hood by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

Most of the Bernard Herrman scores for the Charles Schneer/Ray Harryhausen films.

Waterworld, believe it or not -- very adventurous.

2001 was really my introduction to classical music. I spent a long time trying to combine the two separate parts of the Blue Danube waltz (from the LP onto a tape) without too much of a gap in between. The selection previous to the second part had such a long fadeout of choral voices, I could never tell when part 2 was gonna start.
That's the best version I've ever heard, played similarly by the Vienna Philharmonic on their New Year's Day concert every year.

ST:TMP had a GREAT soundtrack. The title theme fades into the Klingon theme (du-DUH, du-DUH, du-DUH-du-duh-du-du-DUH!).

Also the Enterprise Theme is wonderful.

The Klingon Theme..... my favorite bit of Trek music. I loved how they used it in First Contact when they show Worf on the Defiant.

I need to go and get a Godzilla soundtrack. For a Japanese movie, not that godawful may-they-rot-in-Hell-for-making-it-American-one.

I also need the soundtrack to Backdraft, because they use about 90% of the music from it on Iron Chef!

I'm not going to comment on this category; I only own a few movie soundtracks (enough to count on one hand), and they're all over a decade old!

Aw, what the heck! I like the soundtrack to the movie "Cocktail". I got it as a Christmas present from someone who knows I'm a Beach Boys fan!

The soundtrack for Jurrasic Park holds it's own quite well ... even the "stalking monsters" tracks. I espeacially enjoy the track "Journey to the Island" that starts when we first see the helicopter and ends when the group enters the room where the "kind-of-a-ride" seats are.

Waterworld, believe it or not -- very adventurous.

That is a good one, I think that James Newton Howard is a very underrated composer. I say under-rated because I never hear his name nearly as often as Willams, Horner, Elfman, Goldsmith. Howard also did the Dinosaur soundtrack, great music.

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Mark Isham yet. I think Film Music was his first and it's still my fave. In fact it's rare that I even think of it as a soundtrack at all, it's such a wonderful and evocative piece of music in its own right. Some sections from "Never Cry Wolf" are absolutely breathtaking.

This begs the question, I suppose, of whether a great soundtrack should stand independently from the film or should it in some way be reminiscent of it? The great ones, I'm sure, do both.

As far as rock soundtracks go I'd be hard pressed to find one better than Until the End of the World from Wim Wenders' film. Nick (friggin) Cave and the Bad Seeds, Crime and the City Solution, Jane Sibbery, even a nice turn by the likes of U2 and Talking Heads. Still amazing after all these years.

For pure coolness factor you can't beat the Jim Jarmusch soundtracks, though. And Mystery Train with its blend of Memphis classics and John Lurie's avant-lounge-blues is the best of those.

This begs the question, I suppose, of whether a great soundtrack should stand independently from the film or should it in some way be reminiscent of it? The great ones, I'm sure, do both.

I think it depends on the movie and the soundtrack. For example Come See Paradise by Randy Edelman, never heard of the movie? Most people haven't, but everyone has heard the music to it because it's been in about a dozen movie previews (Clear & Presant Danger & Devil in a Blue Dress come to mind)

On the other hand, you can't hear any music from Top Gun without thinking about fighter jets. Also I can't hear Danny Elfman's Batman theam without thinking of Burton's wonderfuly dark cityscape.

I thought Prince (or the Artist) wrote the Batman theme?

Nope. Prince just did several songs on the soundtrack. The one everybody remembers is "Batdance", but "Electric Chair" is a good song, too.
Incidentally, if you've heard of the saxophonist Candy Dulfer, she was in Prince's band at the time. I remember seeing them perform those two songs I mentioned on Saturday Night Live once. I think it was a special or something, because it hasn't been re-run, to my knowledge.

You're all going to think I'm loco en la cabeza when I tell you this, and I'm embarrased to admit it, but I own the soundtrack to Howard the Duck! I bought it for ONE song; "Don't Turn Away" by Thomas Dolby. The song has a great Harmonica player on it, and its hard to believe that song is by the same guy who did "She Blinded Me With Science"!
Lea Thompson sings on a few tracks (she was in a rock band in the movie, for those of you lucky enough to never have seen that piece of celluloid garbage), and she's actually pretty good!

I haven't listened to the cassette since about a year and a half after the movie was out.

Another movie soundtrack thats used in movie previews is the theme from Stargate. I know this is off topic, but.... doesn't Disney's Atlantis look like it stole its first hour from Stargate!?

oh, Disney's LtlLntis... (they used the Greek letter Lambda for the "A")

You mean Disney's LtlLntis.

Another movie soundtrack thats used in movie previews is the theme from Stargate.

I know that they did this with "Titan AE".

Oh, that funny "A" replacement is basically the symbol for Earth on Stargate

The symbol for earth on Stargate is actually a cross between an Angstrom symbol and a lambda. It's a lambda with a circle on top. Angstrom is an A with a circle on top.

Right, it represents a pyramid with the sun overhead. Disney has to be careful, it thinks its getting a too powerful for anyone to stand up to them. If they keep this up, they are gonna get sued. I guess the theme from Stargate is used so much because its such a rousing, "here comes adventure", scifi theme....

>>I guess the theme from Stargate is used so much because its such a rousing, "here comes adventure", scifi theme....<<

Tchaikovsky would've loved it ... it sounds remarkably like the section in The Nucracker Suite called "Journey Through the Snow".

Yes it does. Fits the movie great, doesn't it? Snow, searing desert :-)

I agree with a lot of the soundtracks on here, but I have two words: "Almost Famous."

Great movie! The "Tiny Dancer" sequence to me is one of the best movie scenes. Of course, I fell so in love with Kate Hudson watching this film.

Atlantis, btw, features an excellent score by James Newton Howard; one of his best works in fact.

Aaanyway, as I'm something of an expert on film music, here's some interesting sites:

http://www.filmtracks.com - Authoritative review site

http://www.cinemusic.net - more reviews

http://scorerealm.cjb.net - my review site!

The soundtrack for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is well done. Highly recommended. It is so well choreographed in the movie, the soundtrack brings the exact scenes to mind.

Re "Almost Famous" soundtrack . . .

Not nearly every song featured in the film appears on the soundtrack. If I remember correctly, most of the action of the film is supposed to take place in 1973. This creates a few anachronisms with the music which appears in the film. One notable example is at the party, Deep Purple's "Burn" is being played. The Burn album was released in 1974. Whoops! Also, there is an early scene at the hotel where one of the girls gets all excited because "Simon Kirke of Bad Company" is out by the pool. Again, there was no such group as Bad Company in 1973. The band with Kirke, Rogers, etc. was still calling itself Free and wouldn't change its name until mid-'74.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but in the Seventies, there really was a band called Stillwater. They're listed in one of Rolling Stone Record Guides. Only the real Stillwater was a Southern Rock band, and not from Detroit. I've never heard them, so I have no idea what they were like.

I'm ready to put "Almost Famous" in the same class of seventies retro-rock films as "Dazed And Confused" and "The Stoned Age" (Benn, I know you like the latter because of all the BOC references!)

Hehehe.

Eric and Buck are in it as a matter of fact. They appear at the end of the credits trying to sell the kids Blue Oyster Cult T-shirts. The kids dismiss Eric and Buck saying the shirts are bootlegs. I have those shirts. I guarantee you they aren't bootlegs.

Actually, I think Almost Famous is superior to The Stoned Age. I haven't seen Dazed and Confused yet, but I suspect it isn't as good as Almost Famous.

I would really like one of those Tyranny and Mutation tour shirts. I remember once when I was in college in the late eighties, I was walking down the street when I saw a girl wearing a T&M shirt! I wanted to run her down and ask her where the hell she got it!

I've a T-shirt that has the cover to Blue Oyster Cult on it. If you're interested in other B.O.C. merchandise, as well as news, tour info and the like, go to (I hope this works!) www.blueoystercult.com. It's the band's official website.

Best rock movie soundtrack - "Easy Rider"

There's a song on the soundtrack by The Byrds. Has the word "follow" in it. I don't remember it too precisely. Anyway, I once heard that The Monkees were supposed to record it and their version was supposed to be on the album. Monkee money did help finance Easy Rider.

"Wasn't Born To Follow"

Yes, but the Monkees got their own movie - Head.

Believe it or not, I like Head. Moreover, I like it better than Easy Rider. That probably doesn't say a whole lot good about me. (Or on the other hand, if you give into the obvious pun...)

I know this is off topic, but.... doesn't Disney's Atlantis look like it stole its first hour from Stargate!?

Hmm, possibly, but it owes far more to Laputa: Castle in the Sky (Tenkuu no Shiro Rapyuta), the 1986 anime by Hayao Miyazaki. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Disney owns the distribution rights to it...

Laputa? Isn't that from Gulliver's Travels?

It is indeed, though that's the only thing it has in common with Gulliver's Travels.

Fiddler On The Roof has now been reissued on a new remastered CD with extra songs from the film not included on the original soundtrack albums and CD. I haven't gotten it yet but I'd like to. The film itself is also now on DVD, again remastered with an extra hour-long documentary. AMC showed it last week, followed by FOTR. I thought the film would have the restored footage of the songs that were added to the CD but it didn't. Still, it's a great film and soundtrack.

Favorite soundtracks (non-musicals):
THE THIRD MAN (play that funky zither, Anton!)
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
HIGH NOON
TAXI DRIVER
HIGH FIDELITY
TRAINSPOTTING
STAGECOACH
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956 version)
GOODFELLAS