At a time when lists of all kinds
abound , it was strange that there was none minimally authorized with the best soundtracks in the history of cinema, let alone any made from the field of cinephilia, historiography or film criticism.
In 2005, the American Film Institute (AFI) launched an exclusively Hollywood canon with 25 titles headed by Star Wars , by John Williams, and with an eminently classic or neoclassical bias.with the presence of recurring films such as Psycho and Vertigo, by Bernard Herrmann, King Kong and Gone with the Wind, by Max Steiner, Lawrence of Arabia, by Maurice Jarre, Jaws and ET, also by Williams, The Magnificent Seven and Kill To a Mockingbird, by Elmer Bernstein, Planet of the Apes and Chinatown, by Jerry Goldsmith, and other milestones of golden Hollywood and its star composers such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (Korngold), Alone in the face of danger (Tiomkin), Sunset Boulevard (Waxman), Laura (Raksin), Ben-Hur (Rozsa), The Law of Silence (Bernstein) or A Streetcar Named Desire (North) and the cinema of the last decades of the 20th century such as The Godfather (Rota), The Mission (Morricone), Out of Africa (Barry) or On Golden Pond (Grusin).
Sixteen years later and from a different perspective, thelist with the 100 best original soundtracks that has just been published by the veteran magazine Rockdelux , now in an online edition, offers a very different and much broader, transversal and heterogeneous vision of what the relationship between music and cinema (worldwide) has been. ), a list that already includes numerous styles, models, periods and genres , from orchestral symphonism to rap, from avant-garde and contemporary music to progressive rock, from pop to jazz, from soul to electronica, from disco music to bossa nova, and in which the many trends and possible ways of interaction are tracked with special attention to uniqueness and innovation.
It is thus understood that, for the more than 70 participants in the survey , critics, specialists, musicians and audiovisual composers, most of whom are Spanish, a revolutionary soundtrack (but also tremendously popular) like that of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), by Ennio Morricone , was the great winner (we are told by a landslide) in his reformulation of western music based on the numerous vocal, instrumental and compositional discoveries incorporated into a visual universe that was also trying to redefine music. iconography and the language of gender.
Ennio Morricone is consolidated as the composer most loved by critics and by the composers themselves.
Just one year after his death, Morricone thus established himself as the film composer most appreciated by specialists and by musicians themselves, with an unfathomable work of which this title (another Leone, Once upon a time in America , also appears in the position 20) is but a small and concentrated sample of the innumerable contributions that the Roman master made to all genres of European, auteur and Hollywood cinema over five decades, from the early sixties to The Hateful Eight (2015). , Tarantino) with which he won the Oscar.
A look at the first ten of the list also reveals that those summoned by Rockdelux prefer European cinema and its singular models.to North American cinema, represented not so much by its classic or standardized aspect across genres as by titles with peculiar, innovative or groundbreaking soundtracks for the canons of its time: there they are, in order, Vertigo , Under the skin (Mica Levi -Glazer), the real pleasant surprise of this list and the realization that experimentation also has a prize beyond the (minimum) genre quota, El contempt (Delerue-Godard), Casanova (Rota-Fellini), Blade runner ( Vangelis-Scott), Elevator for the gallows (Davis-Malle), Suspiria (Goblin-Argento), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy-Legrand) andHalloween night (Carpenter), at the head of the selection.
Not only has post-romantic symphonism already disappeared (with the exception of Vertigo, synthesis, sublimation and the canon of excellence of the entire model), but the borders of classicism have also been erased to embrace modern and contemporary cinema as areas where has produced a true revolution in languages ​​and musico-visual relationships. Examples include Philip Glass’s music for Koyaanisqatsi (in 80th place), Carter Burwell’s for Fargo (76), Howard Shore’s for Crash (83), Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s for The Social Network (21 ), that of Daniel Lopatin forRough Diamonds (47), Johann Johannsson ‘s for Arrival (25), Jon Brion’s for Magnolia (79) and Forget Me (62), Hans Zimmer’s for Interstellar (67), Jonny Greenwood’s for Wells of ambition (33) or the recycling of Michael Nyman for the documentary McQueen (95).
In any case, the list does not lack other imperishable classics of the AFI or indispensable such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (11), Goldfinger (27), Alexander Nevsky (35), Singing in the rain (37), Thirst for evil (41), The Wizard of Oz (53), Johnny Guitar (54) or The Third Man (59), but the presence of soundtracks clearly or with jazz influences is greatly appreciated(Anatomy for a murder, The man with the golden arm, Blow-up, The Ipcress file, Bullitt, In the heat of the night, Let’s get lost, The last tango in Paris, Taxi Driver), those with a marked soul- funk (Superfly, Shaft, The harder they come), those with an electronic or environmental bias (Forbidden planet, Charge cursed, Solaris, Aguirre, God’s wrath, Drive), those with a compilation of classical-contemporary repertoire (2001, An odyssey of space, The glow) or those of a pop-rock nature based on songs (Help!, The Graduate, Casino Royale, Anna, American Graffiti, The Wicker man, Saturday Night Fever, Purple rain, Blue Velvet, Reservoir dogs, On connait la chanson, Death penalty, Oh! Brother, Wishing to love, Lost in translation).
In the Rockdelux list there is room for jazz, electronic music, soul, disco music, contemporary music or bossa nova.
Being a magazine of pop-rock trends, the presence of some of its leading icons could not be missing from this selection : there are also Bob Dylan (Pat Garrett and Billy el Nino), Neil Young (Dead man), Tom Waits ( Hunch), Prince (Purple rain), Ryuichi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence), Scott Walker (Pola X), Ry Cooder (Paris, Texas), rapper RZA (Ghost Dog), Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (The murder of Jesse James),Bjork (Dance in the dark), Tindersticks (Trouble every day) or the Balkan of wedding and funeral bands Goran Bregovic (Underground).

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