''Amélie'' is the

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ( ...

to the 2001 film of the same name. Director

Jean-Pierre Jeunet Jean-Pierre Jeunet (; born 3 September 1953) is a French film director and screenwriter. His films combine fantasy, realism, and science fiction to create idealized realities or to give relevance to mundane situations. Jeunet debuted as a direc ...

was introduced to the accordion and piano-driven music of

Yann Tiersen Yann Pierre Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a French Breton musician and composer. His musical career is split between studio recordings, music collaborations, and film soundtracks songwriting. His music incorporates a large variety of classical ...

by his production assistant. Greatly impressed, he immediately bought Tiersen's entire catalogue and eventually commissioned him to compose pieces for the film. Before discovering Tiersen, Jeunet wanted composer

Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his lengthy ...

to score the film. The soundtrack features compositions from Tiersen's first three albums, as well as new items, variants of which can be found on his fourth album, ''

L'Absente ''L'Absente'' is the fourth studio album by French composer and musician Yann Tiersen. When French film director Jean-Pierre Jeunet asked Tiersen if he was interested in writing the film score for ''Amélie'', Tiersen was already working on ''L ...

'', which he was writing at the same time. The music features parts played with accordion, piano, harpsichord, banjo, bass guitar, vibraphone, and even a bicycle wheel at the end of "La Dispute" (which plays over the opening titles in the motion picture). "Les Jours Tristes", was co-written with

Neil Hannon Edward Neil Anthony Hannon (born 7 November 1970) is a singer and songwriter from Northern Ireland. He is the founder and frontman of the chamber pop group the Divine Comedy, and is the band's only constant member since its inception in 1989. H ...

The Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest wor ...

. The track later received English lyrics, and was released by The Divine Comedy as a B-side to the '' Regeneration'' single, "Perfect Lovesong". The English-language version also appeared on Tiersen's ''

''. "The Child", by

Alex Gopher Alexis Latrobe (), known professionally as Alex Gopher, is a French mastering engineer, electronic musician and producer. He worked as a sound engineer at Translab Studio, notably for Angèle, Clara Luciani, Lomepal, -M-, Mr. Oizo, Gesaffelst ...

also features on the film soundtrack; however, it is not on this album.

Track listing

Personnel

Musicians *

– piano, toy piano,

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a musical keyboard, keyboard and consists of at least 23 bells. The bells are Bellfounding, cast in Bell metal, bronze, hung in fixed suspension, and Musical tuning, tu ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

, guitar,

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

vibraphone The vibraphone (also called the vibraharp) is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using Percussion mallet, mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

, bass,

melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usu ...

* Ensemble Orchestral Synaxis – orchestra on "Les Jours tristes" and "À quai" * Christine Ott –

ondes Martenot The ondes Martenot ( ; , ) or ondes musicales () is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a lateral-vibrato Keyboard instrument, keyboard or by moving a ring tied to a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin. D ...

on "À quai" * Christian Quermalet – drums on "Les Jours tristes" Production * Uwe Teichert – mastering * Fabrice Laureau – mixing * Marc Bruckert – artwork * Laurent Lufroy – film poster

Awards and nominations

The list is made with information from IMDb.

Awards

* 2001 —

World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Score of the Year The WS Award for Best Original Soundtrack of the Year is one of the three main prizes given by the World Soundtrack Academy to honour the best movie soundtracks. "†" means that the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Winners an ...

* 2002 —

César Award for Best Music Written for a Film Cesar or César may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''César'' (film), a 1936 French romantic drama * ''César'' (play), a play by Marcel Pagnolt Places * Cesar, Portugal * Cesar Department, Colombia * Cesar River, in Colombia * Cesar R ...

Nominations

* 2001 —

BAFTA Award for Best Film Music The BAFTA Award for Best Original Music, formerly known as the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, is a film award that is presented to film composers by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. It has been presented annually at the B ...

* 2001 —

World Soundtrack Award for Soundtrack Composer of the Year The World Soundtrack Award for Soundtrack Composer of the Year (a.k.a. "Film Composer of the Year") is one of the three main prizes given by the World Soundtrack Academy to honour the best movie soundtracks and the people who work on them. Winne ...

* 2001 — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Soundtrack of the Year

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

Covers

The band

New Found Glory New Found Glory (formerly A New Found Glory) is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Coral Springs, Florida, in 1997. The band currently consists of Jordan Pundik (lead vocals), Ian Grushka (bass), Chad Gilbert (guitar, backing vocals), ...

covered "J'y suis jamais allé" on their second covers album ''

From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II ''From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II'' is a cover album by American band New Found Glory, and is the follow-up from the Extended play, EP ''From the Screen to Your Stereo'' (2000). All the tracks are cover versions of songs from motion pictu ...

''. The song was also used by Expression Crew in their dance act ''Marionette''. Pianist and composer Dmytro Morykit arranged and plays a cover version of "Comptine d'un autre été : L'après-midi".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amelie (Soundtrack) 2000s film soundtrack albums 2001 soundtrack albums Comedy film soundtracks French-language soundtracks 2000s French-language albums Romance film soundtracks Virgin Records soundtracks Yann Tiersen albums