By Brett Blake
Picking up right where I left off with Part 1 (which can be read right here!) of my look at the best film scores of 2015, now I’m going to move right into discussing my Top 10 favorite scores of the year, each of which represent some truly wonderful, inventive, or magically evocative music. In most cases, I’ll be embedding one track with each entry, and also linking to one or two more; do listen to them all! 10. KRAMPUS (Douglas Pipes) Composer Pipes, who’s not as prolific as I might like, has an innate ability to channel the very mood of a given holiday (Christmas, in this case, or Halloween in the case of his terrific TRICK ‘R TREAT score) and fuse that vibe with horror elements. As such, his work for KRAMPUS is as much a Christmasy score as it is a frightening one; Pipes uses the melodies of several well-known carols throughout his music, twisting them and darkening them to reflect the sinister goings-on in the film. “Krampus Karol of the Bells”
“Elfen”
“The Shadow of St. Nicholas” 09. SPECTRE (Thomas Newman) Thomas Newman, who returned to the James Bond franchise after SKYFALL, amplifies and expands on the “sound” he brought to that film. SPECTRE’s music is big and bombastic when it needs to be (the action cue “Snow Plane” certainly comes to mind), but is also full of atmospheric and ethereal passages - “Secret Room” and “SPECTRE (End Title)” are prime examples of that, and the second half of the “End Title” track contains a hauntingly lush melody that is unusually bittersweet for the Bond franchise. “Snow Plane” “Secret Room” “SPECTRE (End Title)” 08. THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (Daniel Pemberton) In his score for this cinematic update of the popular 1960s television show, Pemberton takes us right back to that era with his hip, jazzy, snazzy score that pulls from the likes of Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, and John Barry to synthesize a delightful throwback score that is endlessly entertaining. “His Name is Napoleon Solo” and “Bugs, Beats and Bowties” sound like they could have been written back in the ‘60s, while “Circular Story” updates that sound just a bit to give it a slightly more contemporary flair. “His Name is Napoleon Solo”
“Bugs, Beats and Bowties”
“Circular Story” 07. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION (Joe Kraemer) Kraemer - another composer who should be scoring more movies than he does - delivers a kick-ass action/thriller score, one which honors and extensively utilizes the classic Lalo Schifrin MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE theme while also charting its own musical course full of new motifs and tones. “The A400” is a perfect example of that, being a track built around the M:I theme while also displaying Kraemer’s new spins and variations on it. “Moroccan Pursuit” is one of the great action cues of the year, being incredibly propulsive and exciting, and “Solomon Lane” presents Kraemer’s theme for the movie’s villain in a way that slowly builds to nearly operatic levels. “The A400” “Moroccan Pursuit”
"Solomon Lane"
06. JURASSIC WORLD (Michael Giacchino) Anybody following in the footsteps of John Williams’ JURASSIC PARK score would be facing an unenviable task, but Michael Giacchino proved to be the perfect guy to do it. The primary Williams melodies are included, but Giacchino mostly goes his own way, crafting more than a half-dozen new themes and motifs, all of which feel completely of-a-piece with what Williams did on the original film. “As the Jurassic World Turns” presents one of Giacchino’s primary new themes in a grand fashion, “Nine to Survival Job” underscores the characters’ emotional finale, and “Jurassic World Suite” is a masterful (if long) presentation of several of the score’s secondary themes, most of which are quite catchy. This is a first-rate adventure score. “As the Jurassic World Turns” “Nine to Survival Job”
"Jurassic World Suite"
05. THE HATEFUL EIGHT (Ennio Morricone) Ennio Morricone contributes the first-ever original score for a Quentin Tarantino film, and it’s a great one, one that surprisingly does not bear the hallmarks of a more traditional Morricone western score, but rather feels much more like the music to a horror film, by design. It’s classic Morricone, though, with the deeply chilling “Overture” setting the stage for the dark events about to unfold, while “L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock” amplifies that mood and adds a sense of quirk and sinister mischief to the proceedings. “Overture”
“L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock”
04. TOMORROWLAND (Michael Giacchino) The second Giacchino score to appear on my list, TOMORROWLAND feels like a classic 1980s fantasy score, with big, bold themes and an intangible sense of magic hanging over everything. Giacchino’s music here is broad when necessary, and intimate when appropriate, but the pervasive optimism one can hear when listening is completely infectious and delightful. “Pin-Ultimate Experience” underscores perhaps the movie’s best scene, showing off Tomorrowland in all its glory with a wonderful, building playfulness and sense of discovery. “All House Assault” showcases Giacchino’s ease with big action moments, and the “End Credits” track is a superb and engaging summation of the movie’s major thematic ideas. “Pin-Ultimate Experience”
“All House Assault”
“End Credits” 03. STEVE JOBS (Daniel Pemberton) Pemberton is a composer I was unfamiliar with before this year, and yet here he is on this list with two of my favorite scores of the year. His music for STEVE JOBS fuses both the electronic and the orchestral, and on the album it is a captivating listening experience. The score lacks a primary or central theme, but it is comprised of individual “setpiece” cues which are enormously memorable and evocative, and which perfectly capture both the movie’s technological undercurrents and the idiosyncratic, prickly personality of the title character. “Change the World” and “The Skylab Plan” are inventive and harmonically interesting, and “Remember” provides a satisfying emotional catharsis in musical form. “Change the World”
"The Skylab Plan" and "Remember" can be found on the playlist below, as can the entire score, for that matter:
02. INSIDE OUT (Michael Giacchino) Giacchino has had great success working on previous Pixar films, and his effort for INSIDE OUT stands as one of his finest achievements. The film is profoundly affecting, and the music is a huge part of why that’s the case. Equally moving and entertaining, it’s a score that is deeply in-touch with human emotion (as it should be, given the film’s subject matter), and one that is not afraid to embrace overt sentiment. Giacchino has created two primary themes for INSIDE OUT, and they’re both wonderful, each able to be played in both melancholic and triumphant settings. “Bundle of Joy” introduces the first of these major themes in a gorgeously ethereal way, conjuring up an almost dreamlike atmosphere. “Nomanisone Island / National Movers” gives the second major theme an extensive and upbeat workout, while “The Joy of Credits” presents both major themes in bright and exuberant (and even jazzy) fashion, along with elaborations on some of the score’s more comedic motifs. “Bundle of Joy”
“Nomanisone Island / National Movers”
“The Joy of Credits” 01. STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (John Williams) People who know me probably know that I am a totally unapologetic John Williams fan, so I was predisposed to enjoy this score before I even heard it. While it may lack the kind of over-the-top grandiosity of some of the best moments from his scores for the STAR WARS prequels, such as “Duel of the Fates,” the score for THE FORCE AWAKENS is more consistently engaging than any STAR WARS score since 1983, presenting a smashing musical journey full of new themes and motifs that Williams has only just begun to play with (and will surely expand upon in the next two episodes). “Rey’s Theme” takes its place with the very best and most intriguing themes Williams has crafted for the franchise, conveying both a sense of longing and of an adventure about to be undertaken. The action writing is bright and exciting, as heard in “I Can Fly Anything” and “The Falcon,” while “March of the Resistance” and “Scherzo for X-Wings” (which makes fantastic use of the saga’s main theme) are delightful throwbacks to Williams’ vintage 1970s/1980s style. As good as the action stuff is, the music that underscores character interaction and drama is equally captivating; “The Abduction” and “Torn Apart” cover some of the darkest sections of the film with sweeping emotion. Finally, “The Jedi Steps and Finale” has John Williams gifting listeners with one of the finest finale and end credit cues of his career, deftly integrating his new themes (for Rey, Kylo Ren, the Resistance, Finn, and Poe) with the old favorites (include the main theme, the Force theme, and the Rebel fanfare) in a way that is, simply, bravura and massively satisfying. Some people have professed to be underwhelmed by this score, but I truly do not get that. This is film scoring on the highest possible level, and at age 83, John Williams remains a musical marvel. "Rey's Theme"
“I Can Fly Anything”
“The Jedi Steps and Finale”
So there you have it, the best that the world of film scoring had to offer in 2015! Please feel free to share your favorites, or perhaps least favorites!
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