Music Meme (Movie Scores continued, and Opera)

[shadowkat]

Regarding the music meme? I should clarify something? It's not supposed to be your favorites or the best music ever. Just pick some that you listen to and like. I don't believe in putting value judgements on this stuff any longer - because, well, it's subjective and I'm agnostic on my choices. They change with the wind.

Eclectic means non-discriminatory - basically, I really don't have "favorites" per se, I just have songs I like at various points depending on mood. I'm not really critical when it comes to music. I'm critical with enough things already, so there should be a few that I'm not critical with, right?

So these lists are really just whatever songs or albums I happen to remember or can find. (I am not proud of this - but I had to look up the James Bond Movie Theme Songs to come up with five that I liked and wanted to share.) They are by no means my favorite.

At work today, I listened to the scores to Game of Thrones, Arcane, Obi-Wan, and various others on Apple Music.

Without further ado - here's the music lists for tonight.

Meme rules:

Pick a music category, list five songs or albums from different performers in it. Try to provide links if possible (but if you can't, that's okay.) Outside of that, do whatever you want. If you want to pick you favorites or the best ones - go for it. I'm picking whatever I can come up with at the moment.

Movie Scores

1. 2001 : A Space Odyssey Score by Alex North

2. George Gershwin's An American in Paris

3. Lawrence of Arabia by Maurice Jarre

4. Beetlejuice by Danny Elfman

5. Star Wars by John Williams

Oh and... A Clockwork Orange Film Score by Wendy Carlos

Opera, Rock and otherwise

1. The Who's Tommy

2. Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado - I actually worked on the makeup crew when my high school did a presentation of it.

3. Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

4. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar

5. Bizet's Carmen (I've seen three productions of Carmen, one a high school, one in Convent Garden by the Royal Opera Company, one on television.)

Comments

[mtbc]

I grew up rather with The Mikado, Jesus Christ Superstar, Carmen, through life with my parents, so very much in my comfort zone there.

[yourlibrarian]

Movie scores, so many favorites. I think I'll go for some of the lesser known:

a) Alice's Theme by Danny Elfman
b) Now You See Me by Brian Tyler
c) A Bridge Too Far by John Addison
d) Henry V theme by Patrick Doyle
e) Ladyhawke Main Theme by Toto

Opera

I really like the Jesus Christ Superstar overture and many of its songs, but I consider it a musical. So below are both vocal and instrumental favorites from operas.

a) Nessun Dorma (Turandot)
b) O Fortuna (Carmina Burana)
c) Tristan and Isolde Prelude by Wagner
d) Can Can (Orpheus in Hell)
e) Vesti la Giubba (Pagliacci)

[shadowkat]

Oh, I like the Henry the V music (guessing it's from the Kenneth Branagh version not the Olivier version) and Ladyhawk.

Opera is actually defined as a story told completely in song with no spoken dialogue. Hamilton comes very close to a rap opera. Except, I think it has dialogue.

Jesus Christ Superstar is considered a rock opera, it started out as just a concert album. As is Evita, and all the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

I'm not a fan of straight opera. But, the music is admittedly beautiful in some of those.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh interesting about the opera definition! I think Hamilton would qualify, but I only saw it entirely through once so I'm not sure.

And yes, the Branagh version. I believe Patrick Doyle has worked with him in all his films.

[shadowkat]

Les Miserables is also an Opera - or close, it has dialogue in there, I think. As did Miss Saigon. The Rock Opera was very popular in the late 20th Century - or 1970s-1990s.

But all the Andrew Lloyd Webbers are operas. They kind of created the rock opera. Along with Meatloaf and I think to an extent Queen and the Who, also Pink Floyd. All did variations on Rock Operas. Which really aren't that different than the classical music versions, just loader and with electronic instruments.

I'm a huge fan of the rock operas - mainly because I can understand the lyrics, which I can't in the others.