He Got Game: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

I don't remember too much about the movie He Got Game other than liking it when I was 18, but the soundtrack was amazing. Spike Lee paired music by Public Enemy with what is essentially a "greatest hits" collection of music by composer Aaron Copland. I never bought the Public Enemy disc, but the Copland disc is essentially what got me into 20th century classical music. Everybody knows "Fanfare For The Common Man," which is on this album, but there are a lot of other wonderful mid 20th century capsules of one of America's greatest composers here, from Copland's nostalgic reinterpretations of traditional folk melodies to his dissonant reconstruction of the icon Billy the Kid. So you can be miserly your whole life and blame the economy or you can try to at least enrich your sophisticated half by buying the classical part of a soundtrack to a failed movie indicting college sports if I remember it correctly (and probably racism).

RATING: 84%

Alien Soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith

A Month Of Halloweenie Reviews #10

I've already established how terrific I think the movie Alien is, but the soundtrack is also a great exercise in terror. Jerry Goldsmith runs the gamut here from soft, tonal landscapes to bizarre, expressionistic animal noises. I can't think of any music that would go better with a movie about aliens with heads shaped like peens and eggs shaped like poons. If you like crapping your pants all of a sudden, then perhaps you should check out this soundtrack.

RATING: 84%

That Noise

There it is again! Don't you hear it? It's kind of like a... you know, a thump, and then a growl, but not like an animal growl, like a machine growl, get it? Why can't they just shut up! Do you think it's a murder? Like a murderer is upstairs right now killing the neighbors? Maybe we'll get on television. Oh God, what if the murderer comes here next? Should I get the baseball bat? Do we even have a baseball bat? Now there's words! I definitely heard a word, an English word. Ugh, maybe they're having sex. On a Sunday afternoon? When it's not even raining? That's real polite. There could be kids outside. Jesus, they're definitely having sex. That's awful. Just disgusting. Wait, no, was that a glass clinking? Maybe it's their dishwasher clogging up, you don't hear it?

RATING: 38%

Cassette Tape Memories: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Probably my least favorite kind of music is the kind of music found on this soundtrack - late 80s/early 90s R&B/new jack swing garbage. But still I have a soft spot for all the ridiculous songs on this album, probably because I remember walking around my backyard with a Fischer Price tape player blasting it like crazy when I was 9. At the time I mainly listened to soundtracks, classical music, and jazz, so pop music wasn't really in my vocabulary until a year or two after I owned this album when a friend picked up a Louis Armstrong tape I had in disgust and told me "Glenn, cool people don't listen to Louis Armstrong. Cool people listen to C&C Music Factory." Well, he was half right I guess, but for now just check out some TURTLE Power if you've got a few minutes and I think you do.

RATING: 51%

Taxi Driver soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann did a lot of terrific movie soundtracks in his life (Psycho, The Day The Earth Stood Still, some Sinbad bullshit), but I think his last, Taxi Driver, is his best. A collage of disturbing brass and percussion builds mixed with a whining saxophone melody, this music fits the psychological tenor of the movie perfectly. According to everybody who has ever talked about this soundtrack, Herrmann agreed to score this film based solely on the scene where Travis Bickle pours brandy on his corn flakes. I guess we should be glad Herrmann liked the sauce (died age 64)?

RATING: 79%

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan soundtrack by James Horner

We all know that Jerry Goldsmith's score for the first Star Trek movie is classic in its own right, but to me James Horner's music for parts II and III always hold a higher place in my musical heart. Maybe it's partly because they're better movies, but a lot of it is because Horner has a knack to build odd instrumentations and chord shifts driven largely by the brass that I love. I could probably sing every song on this album on cue. Aw, who am I kidding, there's no probably about it.

RATING: 92%

Made In USA by Sonic Youth

This is the soundtrack to some indie movie from 1986 starring Chris Penn, I don't know I never saw it. Anyway, this is mostly just ambient guitar hums, with one actual new song and one track from EVOL. I guess I can say it's interesting as a curiosity, though I'm pretty much always a fan of Sonic Youth's ambient/noise work. Like almost all of SY's catalog, I'm going to have to again say this one is just for hardcore fans. Maybe I shouldn't have accused the Beatles of being pretentious after all.

RATING: 36%