Dear word explorer,
Do you listen to music every day? Is it via streaming playlists or on the radio? Do you enjoy listening to an entire LP via a vinyl record player? Do you own a CD player any more? We have a 3-disc CD changer that is currently not hooked up to speakers, but I could use my PS4 if I needed to listen to a CD immediately. I’ve kept my ancient boom box with double cassette players, as I’m nostalgic about it. I’m sure both machines will work if I plugged them in.
We converted our entire CD collection to MP3 files at least twenty years ago1, and have been listening to digital music ever since. Simply, our racks of CDs took up a lot of space and I wanted that real estate back. Over time, all the music I ever wanted appeared online. I want to support bands, so I’m less satisfied with the subscription model the giants like Spotify or YouTube offer since the artists only receive a pittance when their music is played.
I have a lot of friends who are vinyl heads and I understand the draw to the physical artefact, and better yet, taking the time to listen to an entire album. It’s also a good revenue stream for the artists, although vinyl is expensive for the fans. I’m happy that vinyl has had a resurgence in popularity even though I’m doubtful I’ll hop on that retro music train.
I’ve discussed music in my newsletter before when I tackled my love of a good Concept Album, which you can read here:
I suspect most of us experience music daily, and for the musicians among you it must be an experience akin to breathing. I often wake up with a song in my head, or have one triggered by a phrase or a scene in my life.
When I’m writing I only listen to soundtracks or music in another language, because otherwise it’s too distracting. Over the years I have created playlists of various genres of music to match the mood of what I’m writing. I’ve developed a keen ear for soundtracks, as I’m always on the hunt for a new one to slot into my writing music rotation.
Recently, I was thinking about my love of soundtracks for films as I was admiring the latest release by composer Chris Benstead. His music first caught my attention when I watched the Guy Ritchie’s 2021 action thriller, Wrath of Man - a brutal action thriller starring Jason Statham which is a great watch if you enjoy that kind of movie (violent films aren’t for everyone). It’s based on a 2004 French thriller called Le Convoyeur, directed by Nicolas Boukhrief. Ritchie’s version is a terrific, lean film with excellent action sequences and a relentless, icy Statham focused on his mission.
It contains a string engine leitmotif which growls under most of the tracks. Statham’s character, known as H for much of the film, is single-minded and ruthless, and the music perfectly matches his unrelenting drive.
I subsequently discovered that Benstead created his first soundtrack for the previous Ritchie project, The Gentlemen in 2019 (The Gentlemen has since been adapted into a Netflix series with Benstead creating the soundtrack for it again). He had been working in the industry since 2004, and even shared an Oscar with the sound team for 2013’s Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón.
Since The Gentleman, Benstead has composed the soundtracks for all of Ritchie’s films. Clearly they have established a strong and fruitful partnership.
When I began watching Ritchie’s latest World War II film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, I was struck by the music, which distinctly references the iconic soundtracks by Italian maestro, Ennio Morricone.
The film, which features a charismatic cast playing specialist rogues thwarting the fuelling of Nazi submarines, is very loosely based on the 2014 book, Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII by Damien Lewis, and focuses on a critical heist known as Operation Postmaster. It’s a fun, entertaining romp.
This made me wonder when I first noticed a soundtrack as a distinct piece of music that contributed to the ambiance or the tone/theme of the film? I could not say for certain, but a good bet would be one of Morricone’s compositions. I grew up watching pretty much any movie from any era that was broadcast on the few channels we could get: dramas, musicals, action, war films, horror, science fiction, animation, noir detective flicks, and comedy.
But my dad was a big fan of Westerns, especially anything with John Wayne, so I watched a lot of Westerns as a kid, to the point where I eventually developed a fondness for the genre. Is there a soundtrack that instantly evokes a film more than The Good, The Bad and The Ugly? The 1966 Italian spaghetti Western is directed by Sergio Leone and starred Clint Eastwood as ‘the Good’, Lee Van Cleef as ‘the Bad’, and Eli Wallach as ‘the Ugly’. I’m pretty sure I saw this one before I was ten years old and the music and the characters are as one in my mind.
The soundtracks I came to love on my own terms were often created as a cosmic soundscape for futuristic visions. Jerry Goldsmith was already a legend long before he wrote the soundtrack for Alien in 1979, as he cut his teeth writing for TV shows and went on to compose incredible pieces for films such as, Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Patton, Chinatown, and The Omen. But for me, Alien was the one where I start paying attention to the names of the composers.
That opening scene of Alien, with the Nostromo hanging in the void, is perfectly accompanied by Goldsmith’s fragile music, which has thrills of life signs in between the dark horns, and the scenes on the desolate planet are made more sinister thanks to his music. James Horner went on to develop and create his own disturbing mark on the soundtrack for the 1986 sequel, Aliens, directed by James Cameron. The music both composers created has been reused and remixed ever since in the expanding franchise.
A towering influence of this era is Vangelis, and his stand-out soundtrack to the futuristic detective noir, Bladerunner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott. It was a wash of modern synths and electronica and despite the dystopian tone of the movie it occasionally felt oddly uplifting.
The Bladerunner soundtrack was written a year after Vangelis’s soundtrack for Chariots of Fire had become a global hit and sold over one million albums in the USA. It now seems inconceivable today that a soundtrack would sell so well and make its composer rock-star famous.
Just a year after Bladerunner, a small indie Japanese film was released with a memorable soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto — Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. It was directed by Nagisa Ōshima and based on events in a prisoner of war camp in Java, and starred Tom Conti, David Bowie, Takeshi Kitano, and Sakamoto himself. Most of the pieces are played simply on the piano, and they are elegiac and compassionate. I became a life-long fan of Sakamoto’s work thereafter. And I’m pretty sure I previously mentioned my love of the genius soundtrack by Geinoh Yamashirogumi for the animated film Akira (1988), directed by Katsuhiro Otomo.
As I arrive at this point I realise that there is no easy way to describe all the pieces in this field I appreciate without it turning into a listicle. The above is a sample of some of the soundtracks that impressed me early and encouraged me pay attention to this artform. The best part of my interest was returning to great movies and appreciating the talented composers that influenced these later musicians, such as Bernard Herrmann, Miklós Rózsa, Alfred Newman and John Barry (to name a few).
It would be easier for me to break down my favourites by genre, so perhaps I’ll tackle that as a series for the newsletter. Don’t worry, I won’t do it all in one go, but as an intermittent series. Plus, there’s a entire category of amazing music composed for TV shows and for video games!
In the meantime, I’ll drop one final piece, ‘Morning Passages’ by the venerable Philip Glass (I’m a huge fan of his work). It is one of the most sublime pieces of piano music composed for film, in this case for The Hours a 2002 drama directed by Stephen Daldry, and starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.
In the mean time, keep listening to music and being inspired and uplifted (or even allowing it to transform rage and grief).
After food, water, shelter and sex, it is our most primordial need.2
How is it twenty years ago? I remember it took both of us weeks of painstakingly going through stacks of CDs every time we sat at our computer, as a daily background task. We filled an entire external drive dedicated to music. Boxes of CDs remain in my attic as backups. I never put any of the music online, in case people think I did… this was in a era of low download/upload speeds and dismal Internet connections in Ireland, plus I never wanted to pirate artists’ works. I own a variety of MP3 players of various ages, and I used to put an extra SIM on my phone just for music for driving or exercising. It’s now mostly unnecessary thanks to unlimited data streaming and universal 4/5G connections.
Some musicians I know might rate it higher…
Well said
Speaking of soundtracks and foreign languages, I got OBSESSED with Seu Jorge's David Bowie covers from the Wes Anderson movie, the Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Soundtracks are a weakness of mine and have been a gateway drug to a number of artists.