A soundtrack
is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a
motion picture
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
,
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
,
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
,
television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...
,
radio program
A radio program, radio programme, or radio show is a segment of content intended for broadcast on radio. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series. A single program in a series is called an episode.
Radio networ ...
, or
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
; a commercially released
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'' ...
of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film, video, or television presentation; or the physical area of a film that contains the
synchronised recorded sound.
In movie industry terminology usage, a
sound track
A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of ...
is an audio recording created or used in
film production
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...
or
post-production
Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments.
The ...
. Initially, the dialogue, sound effects, and music in a film each has its own separate track (''dialogue track'', ''sound effects track'', and '' music track''), and these are mixed together to make what is called the ''composite track,'' which is heard in the film. A ''
dubbing
Dubbing (re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production, often in concert with sound design, in which additional or supplementary recordings are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production sou ...
track'' is often later created when films are dubbed into another language. This is also known as an M&E (music and effects) track. M&E tracks contain all sound elements minus dialogue, which is then supplied by the foreign distributor in the native language of its territory.
Current dictionary entries for soundtrack document soundtrack as a noun, and as verb.
An early attempt at popularizing the term “sound track” was printed in the magazine
Photoplay
''Photoplay'' was one of the first American film (another name for ''photoplay'') fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded '' Motion Picture Story,'' a magazine also directed at fans. For mo ...
in 1929.
A 1992 technical dictionary entry in Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology does not distinguish between the form sound track and soundtrack.
The contraction soundtrack came into public consciousness with the advent of so-called "soundtrack albums" in the late 1940s. First conceived by movie companies as a promotional gimmick for new films, these commercially available recordings were labeled and advertised as "music from the original motion picture ''soundtrack''", or "music from and inspired by the motion picture." These phrases were soon shortened to just "original motion picture ''soundtrack''." More accurately, such recordings are made from a film's ''music track,'' because they usually consist of isolated music from a film, not the composite (sound) track with dialogue and sound effects.
The abbreviation OST is often used to describe the musical soundtrack on a recorded medium, such as
CD, and it stands for Original Soundtrack; however, it is sometimes also used to differentiate the original music heard and recorded versus a rerecording or
cover
Cover or covers may refer to:
Packaging
* Another name for a lid
* Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package
* Album cover, the front of the packaging
* Book cover or magazine cover
** Book design
** Back cover copy, part of co ...
.
Types of recordings
Types of soundtrack recordings include:
#
Musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks ...
soundtracks are for the film versions of musical theatre; they concentrate primarily on the songs.
(Examples: ''
Grease'', ''
Singin' in the Rain
''Singin' in the Rain'' is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charis ...
'')
#
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...
s showcase the primarily instrumental musical themes and background music from movies.
(Examples: ''
The Wizard of Oz'', ''
Psycho''
)
# For movies that contain both orchestral film scores and pop songs, both types of music.
(Examples:
Shrek series)
# Albums of popular songs heard in whole or part in the background of non-musical movies.
(Examples: ''
Sleepless in Seattle
''Sleepless in Seattle'' is a 1993 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nora Ephron, from a screenplay she wrote with David S. Ward and Jeff Arch. Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the film follows a journalist (Ryan) who, despite be ...
'', ''
When Harry Met Sally...'')
# Video game soundtracks are often released after a game's release, usually consisting of the theme and background music from the game's levels, menus, title screens, promo material (such as entire songs of which only segments were used in the game), cut-screens and occasionally sound-effects used in the game.
(Examples: ''
Sonic Heroes
is a 2003 3D platform game developed by Sonic Team USA and published by Sega as part of the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series. The player races a team of series characters through levels to amass rings, defeat robots, and collect the seven Chaos ...
'', ''
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time'')
# Albums which contain both music and dialogue from the film, such as the 1968 ''
Romeo and Juliet
''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetim ...
'', or the first authentic soundtrack album of ''
The Wizard of Oz''.
The soundtrack to the 1937
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
animated film ''
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as Ta ...
'' was the first commercially issued film soundtrack.
It was released by
RCA Victor Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Aris ...
on multiple 78 RPM discs in January 1938 as ''Songs from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (with the Same Characters and Sound Effects as in the Film of That Title)'' and has since seen numerous expansions and reissues.
The first live-action musical film to have a commercially issued soundtrack album was
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
’s 1946 film biography of ''
Show Boat
''Show Boat'' is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock worke ...
'' composer
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over ...
, ''
Till the Clouds Roll By
''Till The Clouds Roll By'' is a 1946 American Technicolor musical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A fictionalized biopic of composer Jerome Kern, portrayed by Robert Walker, Kern was originally involved with the production, but died before ...
''. The album was originally issued as a set of four 10-inch 78-rpm records. Only eight selections from the film were included in this first edition of the album. In order to fit the songs onto the record sides the musical material needed editing and manipulation. This was before tape existed, so the record producer needed to copy segments from the playback discs used on set, then copy and re-copy them from one disc to another adding transitions and cross-fades until the final master was created. Needless to say, it was several generations removed from the original and the sound quality suffered for it. The playback recordings were purposely recorded very "dry" (without reverberation); otherwise it would come across as too hollow sounding in large movie theatres. This made these albums sound flat and boxy.
Terminology
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label founded by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack recordings (later LP albums) of their musical films. It transitioned into a pop music label that continued into the ...
called these "original cast albums" in the style of
Decca Broadway
Decca Broadway is an American record label specializing in musical theater recordings founded in 1999 by Decca Records and is a unit of Universal Music Group.
Decca Broadway issued both new original cast albums as well as reissues of classic music ...
show cast albums mostly because the material on the discs would not lock to picture, thereby creating the largest distinction between 'Original ''Motion Picture'' Soundtrack' which, in its strictest sense would contain music that would lock to picture if the home user would play one alongside the other and 'Original ''Cast'' Soundtrack' which in its strictest sense would refer to studio recordings of film music by the original film cast, but which had been edited or rearranged for time and content and would not lock to picture.
In reality, however, soundtrack producers remain ambiguous about this distinction, and titles in which the music on the album ''does'' lock to picture may be labeled as OCS and music from an album that does ''not'' lock to picture may be referred to as OMPS.
The phrase "recorded directly from the soundtrack" was used for a while in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to differentiate material that would lock to picture from that which would not (excluding alternate masters and alternate vocals or solos), but again, in part because many 'film takes' actually consisted of several different attempts at the song and edited together to form the master, that term as well became nebulous and vague over time when, in cases where the master take used in the film could not be found in its isolated form, (without the M&E) the aforementioned alternate masters and alternate vocal and solo performances which could be located were included in their place.
As a result of all this nebulosity, over the years the term "soundtrack" began to be commonly applied to any recording from a film, whether taken from the actual film soundtrack or re-recorded in the studio at an earlier or later time. The phrase is also sometimes incorrectly used for Broadway cast recordings. While it is correct in some instances to call a "soundtrack" a "cast recording" (since in most cases it contains performances recorded by the original film cast) it is never correct to call a "cast recording" a "soundtrack."
Contributing to the vagueness of the term are projects such as ''
The Sound of Music Live!
''The Sound of Music Live!'' is an American television special that was originally broadcast by NBC on December 5, 2013. Produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the special was an adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1959 Broadway musical ''T ...
'' which was filmed live on the set for an NBC holiday season special first broadcast in 2013. The ''album'' released three days before the broadcast contained studio pre-recordings of all the songs used in the special, performed by the original cast therefrom, but because only the orchestral portion of the material from the album is the same as that used in the special, (i.e. the vocals were sung live over a prerecorded track), this creates a similar technicality because although the ''instrumental music bed'' from the CD will lock to picture, the vocal performances will not, although it IS possible to create a complete soundtrack recording by lifting the vocal performances from the DVD, erasing the alternate vocal masters from the CD and combining the two.
Among MGM's most notable soundtrack albums were those of the films ''
Good News'', ''
Easter Parade'', ''
Annie Get Your Gun'', ''
Singin' in the Rain
''Singin' in the Rain'' is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charis ...
'', ''
Show Boat
''Show Boat'' is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock worke ...
'', ''
The Band Wagon
''The Band Wagon'' is a 1953 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. It tells the story of an aging musical star who hopes a Broadway show will restart his career. However, th ...
'', ''
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' is a 1954 American musical film, directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Gene de Paul, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and choreography by Michael Kidd. The screenplay, by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorot ...
'', and ''
Gigi''.
Film score albums
Film score albums did not really become popular until the
LP era, although a few were issued in 78-rpm albums.
Alex North
Alex North (born Isadore Soifer, December 4, 1910 – September 8, 1991) was an American composer best known for his many film scores, including ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' (one of the first jazz-based film scores), ''Viva Zapata!'', ''Spa ...
’s score for the 1951 film version of ''
A Streetcar Named Desire
''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of person ...
'' was released on a 10-inch LP by
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
and sold so well that the label later rereleased it on one side of a 12-inch LP with some of
Max Steiner
Maximilian Raoul Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and went on to become one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers.
Steiner was a child prodigy who conducted ...
's film music on the reverse.
Steiner's score for ''
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind most often refers to:
* Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
* Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel
Gone with the Win ...
'' has been recorded many times, but when the film was reissued in 1967, MGM Records finally released an album of the famous score recorded directly from the soundtrack. Like the 1967 rerelease of the film, this version of the score was artificially "enhanced for stereo". In recent years,
Rhino Records
A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...
has released a 2-CD set of the complete ''Gone With the Wind'' score, restored to its original mono sound.
One of the biggest-selling film scores of all time was
John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who wa ...
' music from the movie ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
''. Many film score albums go out-of-print after the films finish their theatrical runs and some have become extremely rare collectors’ items.
Composite film tracks included on record
In a few rare instances an entire film dialogue track was issued on records. The 1968
Franco Zeffirelli
Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019), was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post-World War II era, ...
film of ''
Romeo and Juliet
''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetim ...
'' was issued as a 4-LP set, as a single LP with musical and dialogue excerpts, and as an album containing only the film's musical score. The ground-breaking film ''
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962. It examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive ...
'' was issued by Warner Bros Records as a 2-LP set containing virtually all the dialogue from the film.
RCA Victor
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Aris ...
also issued a double-album set what was virtually all the dialogue from the film soundtrack of ''
A Man for All Seasons'',
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...
issued a double-album for ''
Man of La Mancha
''Man of La Mancha'' is a 1965 musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay ''I, Don Quixote'', which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes ...
'' and
Disney Music Group
Disney Music Group (DMG) is the music recording arm of Disney Platform Distribution, a division of The Walt Disney Company. It is located at the studio's headquarters in Burbank, California. The division's subsidiaries consist of two owned record ...
(formerly Buena Vista Records) issued a similar double-album for its soundtrack for ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...
''.
Movie and television soundtracks
When a blockbuster film is released, or during and after a television series airs, an
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
in the form of a soundtrack is typically released alongside that.
A soundtrack typically contains instrumentation or alternatively a
film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...
. But it can also feature songs that were sung or performed by characters in a scene (or a cover version of a song in the media, rerecorded by a popular artist), songs that were used as intentional or unintentional
background music
Background music (British English: piped music) is a mode of musical performance in which the music is not intended to be a primary focus of potential listeners, but its content, character, and volume level are deliberately chosen to affect behav ...
in important scenes, songs that were heard in the
closing credits
Closing credits or end credits are a list of the Cast member, cast and Film crew, crew of a particular Film, motion picture, television program, or video game. Where opening credits appear at the beginning of a work, closing credits appear clos ...
, or songs for no apparent reason related to the media other than for promotion, that were included in a soundtrack.
Soundtracks are usually released on major record labels (just as if they were released by a musical artist), and the songs and the soundtrack itself can also be on music charts, and win musical awards.
By convention, a ''soundtrack'' record can contain all kinds of music including music "inspired by" but not actually appearing in the movie; the ''score'' contains only music by the original film's composers.
Contemporaneously, a soundtrack can go against normality, (most typically used in popular culture franchises) and contains recently released and/or exclusive never before released original
pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describe ...
selections, (some of which become high charting records on their own, which due to being released on another franchises title, peaked because of that) and is simply used for promotional purposes for well known artists, or new or unknown artists. These soundtracks contain music not at all heard in the film/television series, and any artistic or lyrical connection is purely coincidental.
However depending on the genre of the media the soundtrack of popular songs would have a set pattern; a lighthearted romance might feature
easy listening
Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...
love songs, whilst a more dark thriller would compose of
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
or
urban music
Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contem ...
.
In 1908,
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...
composed the first music specifically for use in a motion picture (L'assasinat du duc de Guise), and releasing recordings of songs used in films became prevalent in the 1930s.
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini ( ; born Enrico Nicola Mancini, ; April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994) was an American composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and flautist. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Award ...
, who won an
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
and two
Grammy
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...
s for his soundtrack to ''
Peter Gunn
''Peter Gunn'' is an American private eye television series, starring Craig Stevens as Peter Gunn with Lola Albright as his girlfriend, Edie Hart. The series aired on NBC from September 22, 1958, to 1960 and on ABC in 1960–1961. The seri ...
'', was the first composer to have a widespread hit with a song from a soundtrack.
Before the 1970s, soundtracks (with a few exceptions), accompanied towards
musicals
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement ...
, and was an album that featured vocal and instrumental, (and instrumental versions of vocal songs) musical selections performed by cast members. Or cover versions of songs sung by another artist.
After the 1970s, soundtracks started to include more diversity, and music consumers would anticipate a motion picture or television soundtrack. Majority of top charting songs were those featured or released on a film or television soundtrack album.
In recent years the term "soundtrack" sort of subsided. It now mostly commonly refers to instrumental background music used in that media. Popular songs featured in a film or television series are instead highlighted and referenced in the credits, not as part of a "soundtrack".
Psychology of music and movie soundtracks
In the late 1980s,
cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning.
Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...
and
psychology of music
''Psychology of Music'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of music psychology. The editor-in-chief is Alexandra Lamont (Keele University). It was established in 1973 and is published by SAGE Publications on beh ...
started an investigation on the impact that the soundtrack exerts on the interpretation of audiovisual stimuli. Canadian psychologist Annabel J. Cohen is one of the first scholars who systematically studied the relationship between music and moving image within the interpretation process of brief animated videos. Her studies converged in the ''Congruence-Association Model of music and multimedia''. More recent empirical studies proved that the film music goes far beyond the role of an emotionalizing accessory in film contexts; contrarily, it can radically alter the empathy experienced by the viewers toward the characters on screen, attributed emotions (e.g., whether a character is happy or sad), evaluation of the scenic environments, plot anticipations,
and moral judgement of the characters. Furthermore,
eyetracking
Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (where one is looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement. Eye trackers are used in research ...
and
pupillometry Pupillometry, the measurement of pupil size and reactivity, is a key part of the clinical neurological exam for patients with a wide variety of neurological injuries. It is also used in psychology.
Pupillometry in critical care
For more than 100 ...
studies found that film music is able to influence gaze direction and pupil dilation depending on its emotional valence and semantic information conveyed.
Recently, new experiments showed that film music can alter time perception while watching movies; in particular, soundtracks deemed as activating and arousing lead to time overestimation as opposed to more relaxing or sad music. Lastly, soundtracks have been proved to shape the memory of the scene that the viewers form, to the point of biasing their recall coherently with the music's semantic contents.
Video game soundtracks
Soundtrack may also refer to music used in video games. While
sound effect
A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...
s were nearly universally used for action happening in the game, music to accompany the gameplay was a later development.
Rob Hubbard
Rob Hubbard (born 1955 in Kingston upon Hull, England) is a British composer best known for his musical and programming work for microcomputers of the 1980s, such as the Commodore 64.
Early life
Hubbard first started playing music at age seve ...
and
Martin Galway
Martin Galway (born 3 January 1966, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is one of the best known composers of chiptune video game music for the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum. His works include ''Rambo (1985 video game), Rambo: First Blood Part II' ...
were early composers of music specifically for video games for the 1980s
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...
computer.
Koji Kondo
is a Japanese music composer, pianist, and music director who works for the video game company Nintendo. He is best known for his numerous contributions to the '' Super Mario'' and ''The Legend of Zelda'' series of video games, among others pr ...
was an early and important composer for
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
games. As the technology improved,
polyphonic
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...
and often orchestral soundtracks replaced simple
monophonic
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...
melodies starting in the late 1980s and the soundtracks to popular games such as the ''
Dragon Quest
previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a franchise of Japanese role-playing video games created by Armor Project (Yuji Horii), Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama) and Sugiyama Kobo (Koichi Sugiyama) to its publi ...
'' and ''
Final Fantasy
is a Japanese video game, Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square (video game company), Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and ...
'' series began to be released separately. In addition to compositions written specifically for video games, the advent of CD technology allowed developers to incorporate licensed songs into their soundtrack (the
''Grand Theft Auto'' series is a good example of this). Furthermore, when
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
released the
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
in 2001, it featured an option allowing users to customize the soundtrack for certain games by ripping a CD to the hard-drive.
Theme park, cruise ship, and event soundtracks
As in ''Sound of Music Live!'' the music or dialogue in question was prepared specifically for use in or at an event such as that described above.
In the case of theme parks, actors may be ensconced in large costumes where their faces may be obscured. They mime along to a prerecorded music, effects and narration track that may sound as if it was lifted from a movie, or may sound as if it had been overly dramatized for effect.
In the case of cruise ships, the small stage spaces do not allow for full orchestration, so that possibly the larger instruments may be pre-recorded onto a backing track and the remaining instruments may play live, or the reverse may occur in such instances as ''
Elvis: The Concert'' or ''Sinatra: His Voice. His World. His Way'' both of which use isolated vocal and video performances accompanied by a live band.
In the case of event soundtracks, large public gatherings such as ''
Hands Across America
Hands Across America was a public fundraising event on Sunday, May 25, 1986, when 5 to 6.5 million people held hands for 15 minutes in an attempt to form a continuous human chain across the contiguous United States. The attempt to have a co ...
'', The ''
Live Aid
Live Aid was a multi-venue benefit concert held on Saturday 13 July 1985, as well as a music-based fundraising initiative. The original event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise further funds for relief of the 1983–1985 fami ...
'' Concert, the 200th Anniversary Celebration of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, ''
The MUSE Concerts'' or the various ''
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
'' events (i.e. ''The First International Greenpeace Record Project'', ''Rainbow Warriors'' and ''Alternative NRG'') all had special music, effects and dialogue written especially for the event which later went on sale to the record and later video-buying public.
Book soundtracks
Only a few cases exist of an entire soundtrack being written specifically for a book.
‘Kaladin’, a book soundtrack to popular fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson's book, ‘The Way of Kings’, was written by The Black Piper. The Black Piper, hailing from Provo, Utah, is a combined group of composers who share a love for fantasy literature. ‘Kaladin’ was funded through Kickstarter and raised over $112,000. It was released December 2017.
A New York Times Bestselling series, "''
Green Rider
''Green Rider'' (titled ''The Green Rider'' in some later printings) is the first novel written by Kristen Britain and is the first book in its series. It was nominated for the Crawford Award in 1999.
Plot summary
Karigan G'ladheon, a merchant' ...
"'' by
Kristen Britain
Kristen Britain is an American author. She wrote '' Green Rider'' (which was nominated for the Crawford Award), '' First Rider's Call'', '' The High King's Tomb'', '' Blackveil'' (which was nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award), and ''Mir ...
, celebrated its 25th anniversary with the release of a book soundtrack by the same name. It was recorded in Utah, featuring artist Jenny Oaks Baker and William Arnold and was released in 2018.
A soundtrack for
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
's ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...
'' and ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'' was composed by
Craig Russell for the San Luis Obispo Youth Symphony. Commissioned in 1995, it was finally put on disk in 2000 by the San Luis Obispo Symphony.
For the 1996 ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' novel ''
Shadows of the Empire
''Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire'' is a 1996 multimedia project created by Lucasfilm. The idea was to create a story set between the films ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and ''Return of the Jedi'', and to explore all commercial possibilities of a ...
'' (written by author
Steve Perry
Stephen Ray Perry (born January 22, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of the rock band Journey during their most commercially successful periods from 1977 to 1987, and again from 1995 to 1998. He also wrote/co ...
),
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ' ...
chose
Joel McNeely
Joel McNeely (born March 28, 1959) is an American composer, arranger, musician, lyricist, and record producer. A protégé of composer Jerry Goldsmith, he is best known for his film and television scores. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outst ...
to write a score. This was an eccentric, experimental project, in contrast to all other soundtracks, as the composer was allowed to convey general moods and themes, rather than having to write music to flow for specific scenes. A project called "Sine Fiction"
has made some soundtracks to novels by
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
writers like
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
, spouse =
, relatives =
, children = 2
, death_date =
, death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
, nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
and
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.
He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...
, and has thus far released 19 soundtracks to science-fiction novels or short stories. All of them are available for free download.
Author
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author, primarily of science fiction and fantasy stories, who is best known for having founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored '' Dianetic ...
composed and recorded a soundtrack album to his novel ''
Battlefield Earth'' entitled ''
Space Jazz
''Space Jazz: The soundtrack of the book Battlefield Earth'' is a music album and soundtrack companion to the novel '' Battlefield Earth'' by L. Ron Hubbard, released in 1982. United States Copyright Office. Type of Work: Visual Material, Registr ...
''. He marketed the concept album as "the only original sound track ever produced for a book before it becomes a movie". There are two other soundtracks to Hubbard novels, being ''
Mission Earth'' by
Edgar Winter
Edgar Holland Winter (born December 28, 1946) is an American musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist, playing keyboards, guitar, saxophone, and percussion, as well as singing. His success peaked in the 1970s with his band the Edgar Winter Group ...
and ''
To the Stars'' by
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz composer, pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", " 500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba", and ...
.
The 1985 novel ''
Always Coming Home
''Always Coming Home'' is a 1985 science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It is in parts narrative, pseudo-textbook and pseudo-anthropologist's record. It describes the life and society of the Kesh people, a cultural group ...
'' by
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
originally came in a box set with an audiocassette entitled ''Music and Poetry of the Kesh'', featuring three performances of poetry, and ten musical compositions by Todd Barton.
In comics, Daniel Clowes' graphic novel ''
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron
''Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron'' is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Daniel Clowes. The book follows a fantastic and paranoid plot, differing in tone from the stark realism of Clowes' later more widely known '' Ghost World''. It contains ...
'' had an official soundtrack album. The original black-and-white Nexus #3 from Capitol comics included the "Flexi-Nexi" which was a soundtrack
flexi-disc
The flexi disc (also known as a phonosheet, Sonosheet or Soundsheet, a trademark) is a phonograph record made of a thin, flexible vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntabl ...
for the issue. ''Trosper'' by
Jim Woodring
James William Woodring (born October 11, 1952) is an American cartoonist, fine artist, writer and toy designer. He is best known for the dream-based comics he published in his magazine ''Jim'', and as the creator of the anthropomorphic cartoon ...
included a soundtrack album composed and performed by
Bill Frisell
William Richard Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger. Frisell first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts ...
,
and the
Absolute Edition
DC Comics Absolute Edition is a series of archival quality printings of graphic novels published by DC Comics and its imprints WildStorm Productions and Vertigo. Each is presented in a hardcover and slipcased edition with cloth bookmark consisting ...
of ''
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier'' is planned to include an original
vinyl record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...
. ''
The Crow
The Crow is a supernatural superhero comic book series created by James O'Barr revolving around the titular character of the same name. The series, which was originally created by O'Barr as a means of dealing with the death of his fiancée at t ...
'' released a soundtrack album called ''
Fear and Bullets
''Fear and Bullets'' is an soundtrack album by Trust Obey created through a collaboration between James O'Barr and longtime friend John Bergin as a soundtrack to O'Barr's graphic novel ''The Crow''. It was originally released in 1994 along with a ...
'' to coincide with the limited edition hardcover copy of the graphic novel. The comic book ''
Hellblazer
''John Constantine, Hellblazer'' is an American contemporary Horror fiction, horror comic-book series published by DC Comics since January 1988, and subsequently by its Vertigo Comics, Vertigo imprint since March 1993, when the imprint was introd ...
'' released an annual with a song called ''
Venus of the Hardsell
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
'', which was then recorded and a music video to accompany with.
The Brazilian graphic novel ''
Achados e Perdidos'' (''"Lost and Found"''), by
Eduardo Damasceno
Eduardo is the Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese form of the male given name Edward. Another version is Duarte (name), Duarte. It may refer to:
Association football
* Eduardo Bonvallet, Chilean football player and spor ...
and
Luís Felipe Garrocho
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...
, had an original soundtrack composed by musician
Bruno Ito. The book was self-published in 2011 after a crowdfunding campaign and was accompanied by a CD with eight songs (one for each chapter of the story). In 2012, this graphic novel won the
Troféu HQ Mix
Troféu HQ Mix is a Brazilian comics award. The prize was created in 1989 by João Gualberto Costa (Gual) and José Alberto Lovetro (Jal), members of the Association of the Brazilian Cartoonists.
The name refers to the television show about comics ...
(Brazilian most important comic book award) in the category "Special Homage".
As
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
access became more widespread, a similar practice developed of accompanying a printed work with a downloadable
theme song
Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at so ...
, rather than a complete and physically published album. The theme songs for ''
Nextwave
''Nextwave'' is a humorous comic book series by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen, published by Marvel Comics between 2006 and 2007. ''Nextwave'' consistently features extreme violence and comedy, and simultaneously satirizes and celebrates Marve ...
'',
''
Runaways
Runaway, Runaways or Run Away may refer to:
Engineering
* Runaway reaction, a chemical reaction releasing more heat than what can be removed and becoming uncontrollable
* Thermal runaway, self-increase of the reaction rate of an exothermic proce ...
'',
''
Achewood'', and ''
Dinosaur Comics
''Dinosaur Comics'' is a constrained webcomic by Canadian writer Ryan North. It is also known as "Qwantz", after the site's domain name, "qwantz.com". The first comic was posted on February 1, 2003, although there were earlier prototypes. ''Dino ...
'' are examples of this.
In
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, such examples of music inspired by a work and not intended to soundtrack a
radio play
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...
or motion picture adaptation of it are known as an "image album" or "
image song
An image song or character song is a song on a tie-in single or album (often called an image album or character album) for an anime, game, ''dorama'', manga, or commercial product that is sometimes sung by the voice actor or actor of a character ...
", though this definition also includes such things as film score
demos
Demos may refer to:
Computing
* DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system
* DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR
* Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems
* plural for Demo (computer programming)
...
inspired by
concept art
Concept art is a form of visual art used to convey an idea for use in films, video games, animation, comic books, or other media before it is put into the final product. Concept art usually refers to world-building artwork used to inspire the ...
and songs inspired by a TV series that are not featured in them. Many
audiobook
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sc ...
s have some form of musical accompaniment, but these are generally not extensive enough to be released as a separate soundtrack.
See also
*
Audio restoration
Audio restoration is the process of removing imperfections (such as hiss, impulse noise, crackle, wow and flutter, background noise, and mains hum) from sound recordings. Audio restoration can be performed directly on the recording medium (for ...
*
Cast recording
A cast recording is a recording of a stage musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording or OCR, as the name implies, features the voices of the sho ...
– for musical theater
*
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...
*
Filmi
Filmi ("of films") music soundtracks are music produced for India's mainstream motion picture industry and written and performed for Indian cinema. In cinema, music directors make up the main body of composers; the songs are performed by playba ...
– term used for Indian film soundtracks
*
Image album
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
*
Image song
An image song or character song is a song on a tie-in single or album (often called an image album or character album) for an anime, game, ''dorama'', manga, or commercial product that is sometimes sung by the voice actor or actor of a character ...
*
Jingle
A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...
*
List of soundtrack composers
The following is a list of notable people who compose or have composed soundtrack music for films (i.e. film scores), television, video games and radio.
A
* Michael Abels (born 1962)''Get Out'', '' Us, Bad Education''
* Rod Abernethy'' Star ...
*
Music of Bollywood
Hindi film songs, more formally known as Hindi Geet or filmi songs and informally known as Bollywood music, are songs featured in Hindi films. Derived from the song-and-dance routines common in Indian films, Bollywood songs, along with danc ...
*
Musivisual Language
*
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'' ...
*
SoundtrackNet
Soundtrack.Net (originally SoundtrackNet) is a website dedicated to film and television music.
History
Created in 1997 by Amélie E. Koran and Dan Goldwasser at Carnegie Mellon University, Soundtrack.Net has grown over the past decade to become o ...
References
:Talk:Soundtrack#Cleanup
External links
SoundtrackTracklist Databasethe Soundtrack INFO projectInternet Movie Soundtracks DatabaseFilmMusicSite.com Soundtracks Database
{{Media series
Film and video terminology