Best Music (Score) – 1985

Official Nominations: Out Of Africa. Agnes Of God. The Colour Purple. Silverado. Witness.

As there were no major musicals this year, The Academy went for a single Scoring category, thankfully. Out Of Africa was the winner here, notching up another win for the film and for John Barry. The funny thing about this score is how much it reminds me of Casino Royale – there are pieces here which are spectacularly similar. Why is that funny? Well, because Barry was known mainly for his work on the Bond series and Casino Royale is a Bond film – though not scored by Barry. In fact, most of the soundtrack makes me think of Bond – it’s not merely the similar use of horns and strings, but there are motifs which remind of of You Only Live Twice, Moonraker and many others. It’s bizarre.

Agnes Of God is one of those films that succeeds because of the cast – it’s unlikely anyone would care if we had a bunch of lesser performers. Delerue’s score is not the most daring – it has moody moments, it’s mostly soft – lots of flute type pieces and choirs to highlight the religious aspects. The Colour Purple landed Quincy Jones and Co another nomination – it’s a nice enough score, some old school blues, some more sentimental pieces, but it’s not my favourite. Silverado is a Western that no-one talks about anymore, a shame because it’s a pure 80s entertainment version of the genre – before Young Guns. Great cast, but the soundtrack isn’t anything special. Finally, Witness sees another nomination for Maurice Jarre. It’s unusual to me though, because at times it feels like the synth-heavy pieces should accompany a sci-fi film. If you closed your eyes and listened to the music, knowing nothing of its ties to Witness, it’s unlikely you’d guess it accompanies a story of an Amish child who witnesses a murder. Yet, it works.

My Winner: Out Of Africa

My Nominations: Out Of Africa. Back To The Future. Cocoon. Commando. Day Of The Dead. Explorers. Flesh And Blood. The Goonies. Ladyhawke. First Blood Part 2. Ran. Red Sonja. Return To Oz. Subway. A View To A Kill.

There are a bunch of scores I’d love to nominate here this year, but can’t as they don’t really have that standard of quality. American Ninja for example – I saw that movie once when I was a young kid and not again for well over a decade later, yet I still remembered the ‘duh du-du duh du DUH DUH’ horn main theme. Not a good movie by any stretch, and not even the most notable music, but it stuck with me.

Back To The Future was definitely deserving of a nomination – still recognizable to anyone within five seconds of hearing it today and probably Alan Silvestri’s most famous work. Continuing the snubs, James Horner’s Cocoon score seemed like it was unfairly overlooked – Horner was an up and comer, and Cocoon was a major hit, besides the fact that the sweet soundtrack accompanies the saccharine film nicely. Having said that, I prefer Horner’s score to Commando, even if it does borrow liberally from his own earlier 48 Hours – an accusation which would follow Horner through his career.

Day Of The Dead was deserving of a nomination here – John Harrison’s unnerving synths perfectly syncing with the increasingly maddening sense of isolation and dread which is a trademark of the film. Of the many child friendly, child-oriented sci-fi films of the 80s, Explorers is one which remains underseen when you weigh up the pedigree of those involved – River Phoenix, Ethan Hawke, Joe Dante, and a Jerry Goldsmith score filled with wonder and tension.

Flesh And Blood sees Basil Poledouris teaming up with Paul Verhoeven – always a winning combination. While not as peerless and bombastic as his earlier Conan The Barbarian score, this is nevertheless an enthralling work littered with ideas of adventure and swashbuckling romance. The Goonies understood what it took to make a hit in the 80s – this was the era of Spielberg, or MTV, so the result was a meticulously crafted adventure, complete with hit songs, a young cast, and a great score by Dave Grusin, coming off the back of On Golden Pond. 

Lawdyhawke’s score was derided at the time as being anachronistic to the period of time the movie was set in. Then again, this was the 80s, and as mentioned above, you needed synth and pop sensibilities if you wanted to get bums in seats. Admittedly, the lead theme is cheesy as all get out, a motif repeating with a batch of different instruments… but it’s somehow endearing and fun, and somewhat ahead of its time when it came to using out of place sounds. First Blood Part 2 sees Jerry Goldsmith building upon his famous theme from the first Rambo movie, adding all manner of weirdness to give that pseudo-Asian, pseudo-alien sound while retaining its patriotic, warlike hooks.

Ran features Toru Takemitsu, a work seminal enough that he would be Hollywood’s go to guy anytime they wanted to make one of those US/Japan crossover movies. What’s key in Ran are the periods of silence, those moments where the score acts more like a silent movie, with a live orchestra hitting certain notes and instruments as if they are sound effects for what is happening on screen. Red Sonja features the great Ennio Morricone in lieu of Poledouris, and his score is one of the few notable positives about the film. Unsurprisingly, it feels like it could fit a Western with its duelling brass, strings, and choir of voices. Return To Oz does everything in its power to set itself apart from Wizard, and the same is true for its soundtrack – darker, more miserable, and less about a sense of wonder as much as wading through a dream of bright highs and nightmarish lows.

Our final two nominations have little in common – Subway featuring future Bond alumni giving us smooth funk and 80s rock vibes, while Bond legend John Barry providing yet another creeping, seductive charge through the spy canon.

My Winner: Back To The Future

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Score – 1984

Official Nominations: A Passage To India. The Temple Of Doom. The Natural. The River. Under The Volcano. Purple Rain. The Muppets Take Manhattan. The Songwriter.

Maurice Jarre picked up an official win for A Passage To India – a score with a lot of different styles at play, from big band jazz and orchestra epic pieces to more subtle sitar and mario-lava-level pieces. It’s big and bold, but it’s lacking in any great hooks to pull me in and doesn’t have a lot of deep resonating emotion. Similarly trawling the depths of Eastern culture and mysticism is Temple Of Doom, the sequel/prequel to Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Most of the best moments are borrowed from the first film, but there are one or two wonderful new pieces and changes to the classics to make it higher in my estimation than the official winner. John Williams was also nominated for The River this year, but it’s a bland enough score to go along with a bland film.

The Natural is a film about baseball, so I’m already not particularly interested, yet there’s something about the sport that makes it apparently the best candidate for translating to screen. There aren’t many great sports movies, but most of them are based around baseball. Randy Newman’s score is fine, moving from inspirational, oft copied ditties to era-specific pieces that I’m not so keen on. Under The Volcano always makes me think of the terrifying kids show Under The Mountain, though the two are in no way related. It and Moondial were pure nightmare fuel. Anyway, Alex North’s score has a lot of South American influence, but even in its more unusual moments it isn’t memorable.

Purple Rain unsurprisingly won the award for Best Original Song score but as I’m not a huge fan of the dearly departed star’s music, it’s not getting my vote. Joining him in that category were The Muppets with another collection of faintly riotous songs and Kris Kristofferson for Songwriter which has too much Country for my tastes.

My Winner: The Temple Of Doom

My Nominations: The Temple Of Doom. Beverly Hills Cop. Birdy. Body Double. The Company Of Wolves. Conan The Destroyer. Ghosbusters. Gremlins. The Karate Kid. The Killing Fields. The Last Starfighter. A Nightmare On Elm Street. Once Upon A Time In America. Police Academy. Splash. Starman. Supergirl. The Terminator.

Only my winner makes it to my list. Beverly Hills Cop gets a nod mostly for the great Axel F track and a variety of other early electronica. Peter Gabriel’s score for Birdy feels like a stark departure from his usual hits, a poignant, dreamlike collection of minimalist mood pieces. Pino Donaggio work well together once again on Body Double to make a score which apes Hitchcock and Hermann but has plenty of its own unique 80s pieces. You can’t talk about dreamlike without mentioning The Company Of Wolves – one of the first horror movies I ever saw and a score which never fails to send chills through me. Conan The Destroyer as a movie is, well, crap in comparison to Conan The Barbarian with the score being one of the major redeeming things. The score isn’t as wonderful as the first movie’s score (what is?) but it has a couple of excellent standalone themes and updates enough of the original’s tracks to remind us what a huge talent Poledouris was. Berstein’s Ghosbusters isn’t merely a bunch of ‘who ya gonna calls’ but has plenty of instrumental pieces of note, from the creepy museum intro to the madness of the ghostly caperings around New York later in the film.

This category is ripe for WTFs, as already discussed in my 1982 post. Gremlins not getting a nod this year is another of those. You have a conductor already recognized as an Academy favourite doing some of his most recognizable work, yet they pass it over. Gizmo’s theme and the main theme are both iconic, fantastic, and more deserving of a mention than most other pieces on this post. The Karate Kid must surely get a nomination too – Bill Conti another previous winner passed over. Sure I’m biased with a lot of these 80s movies as I grew up with them, but even removing yourself from that nostalgic viewpoint these films still have rip-roaring, rousing, inspirational scores – it’s not quite on the level of Rocky but it has a more youthful feel and if anything has more going on than Rocky with a great variety of styles.

Mike Oldfield’s score for The Killing Fields  score is gut-wrenching, epic, haunting, and memorable. There are too many great choices this year. The Last Starfighter may be a Star Wars clone but at least it tries to plough its own musical groove. All good slashers need a good score, or at least a great central theme – A Nightmare On Elm Street has one of the best yet most underrated. Funhouse fairground style sounds collide with child-like rhymes and simple melodies played with menace on the keys. There’s a lot of 80s rock influence there too and a touch of the industrial all meshing together in one nightmarish whole. Morricone’s Once Upon A Time In America – you already know it’s a masterpiece before you hear it. What’s surprising perhaps is how gentle and tender and melancholy it all is, eschewing the usual dramatic overpowering strings with more subtle softer moments, taking in South American, Asian, and European influences. Police Academy has, hands down, one of the best main themes in movie history and while the rest of the score doesn’t live up  to it, it still has other notable once-heard-never-forgotten arrangements.

This is truly the category that never ends. Splash is another romantic, dreamy string led soundtrack which remains beautiful without becoming cutesy. Starman is one of those rare John Carpenter movies where he didn’t provide the score, with Jack Nitzche providing the music instead. His main theme is one of the most gorgeous of the decade, complimented by other romantic and tension filled synthetic tracks. Supergirl… not the greatest film but fun in its own way and it has another great Goldsmith score even if it is a bit too similar to Star Trek. With The Terminator soundtrack Brad Fidel stamped his name on the industry making a score which merges dark techno and rock into a beast unlike anything else at the time. The main theme we all know, the beat in the original being slightly different to the more popular main theme of T2 and taking on a more synthetic and threatening tone than the industrial and emotion led follow-up. The central beat of course has become synonymous with the series and has taken on a life of its own outside of the film. I love how the beat becomes more aggressive as the track progresses, that sense of approaching danger growing, and it is balanced by pulsating chase themes and heartfelt, heart-breaking piano-led track which remain in regular rotation in my iPod.

My Winner: The Terminator

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Score – 1983

Official Nominations: The Right Stuff. Terms Of Endearment. Return of The Jedi. Cross Creek. Under Fire. Yentl. The Sting II. Trading Places.

I didn’t intend to always pick Star Wars as the winner in this category, but look at what other options we have this year – there’s not a lot to go on. The Right Stuff is decent – filled hope, patriotism, and makes you think of ambition – it has always reminded me of Band Of Brothers. Terms Of Endearment is one of those films. It’s one of the best of one of those films, but still. The central pieces – those piano themes – are nice enough, but on their own they are nothing special and feel more like something off the cuff for a Hallmark movie or a TV soap than a big budget weepie. Jedi doesn’t have as effective original themes as the previous two movies, but the introduction of the Ewoks gives Williams a chance to try out some new percussive themes and rhythmic beats and the remixes on the popular pieces are all the more epic this time around. Cross Creek is a film almost no-one remembers, even if it was nominated for four Oscars, including two for acting. It’s a gentle, pastoral score, and quite lovely in places – just not memorable. Under Fire features another dramatic, tension fuelled score by Jerry Goldsmith – if the film was more widely remembered you think the score would be so too. I like how it merges the traditional grand orchestra of US Cinema with South American guitars, panpipes, and outbursts.

The final three nominees had their own special category this year, presumably created/modified so that Yentl could notch up a win. If all you know about Yentl is from The Simpsons, then that’s all you need to know. It has a few catchy songs… really I’m not sure if this category should be merged here or with the Best Original Song. Doesn’t matter, none of them are going to win in my book. Credit to Streisand for making the whole thing happen, and of course to Legrand and the Bergmans. The Sting 2 is mostly unnecessary and the music isn’t that great. I’m not sure if Trading Places should be here given that much of its score is taken from Mozart and several Christmas standards.

My Winner: Return Of The Jedi

My Nominations: Return Of The Jedi. Christine. The Dead Zone. Flashdance. Krull. The Outsiders. Scarface. Videodrome.

Another year, and another Carpenter nomination. Christine isn’t one of my favourite movies by him, but it does have a decent soundtrack. Alan Howarth accompanies, as he always did in those days. It’s another primarily synth based piece, but much of the film gets bogged down by traditional rock music and the lovely originals tend to be forgotten. Many of the pieces are short, mood setting rather than pieces of music in the classical sense. Keeping it horror, Cronenberg gets two entries this year with Videodrome and The Dead Zone. Long term musical partner sits out duties on The Dead Zone, instead working on Videodrome – his work moving from grand orchestral suites to synthetic, computerized pieces which increasingly lack foundation. The Dead Zone is a more traditional score – Michael Kamen stepping up for active duty – but it has enough good old mystery and grandeur to remind us that this is horror.

Flashdance continues the 80s pop musicals, and while it’s a film you remember more for the songs than the general score it has enough emotive and inspiring piano and synth pieces to stand on its own. Krull is one of the many Star Wars rip-offs – one I enjoyed when I was younger but realized how crappy it is when seen as an adult. One of the many things these movies borrow from Lucas and Williams is the epic operatic scores – James Horner was employed for this one and fills the score with choirs ans horns to give an old world Knights and adventure feel. While Coppola released two films this year, The Outsiders (scored by Carmine) is the more interesting of the two. Rumble Fish is more experimental, this one is more dramatic. Finally, the Scarface score is a mixture of Cuban beats, industrial rock, and 80s hip hop, though some of Morodor’s pieces remind me of Goblin and The Wall. 

My Winner: Return Of The Jedi

Best Score – 1982

Official Nominations: ET. Gandhi. An Officer And A Gentleman. Poltergeist. Sophie’s Choice. Victor/Victoria. Annie. One From The Heart.

Here we are ladies and gentlemen; the single greatest snub/error/mistake/catastrophic fuck up in the history of The Oscars, made worse by the fact that this is another year where the Original Score category was split into two awards, and they still didn’t nominate the best movie score of all time. Lets see what they did nominate, the fools.

ET was the winner this year, John Williams racking up another one, and you can’t complain that it won out of the nominations. Really, it’s the only choice here. How one man could create so many greats scores to so many great movies remains a mystery – there is truly no-one like him. I’m not the biggest fan of ET but in truth I haven’t watched it since I was a kid – it is of course on the list of movies to show my kids. The score starts out eerie and mysterious, but before long will have you reaching for the handkerchief.

The Gandhi soundtrack is not one I’m overly fond of – I like it, I like the merging of East and West, but still it never quite touched me. An Officer And A Gentlemen shouldn’t be here, existing solely because of the popularity of the hit song which accompanied the film – half the score is the chorus melody to that song played with different instruments and the other half is other songs. No way it gets nominated here. Poltergeist is okay… for such a stellar horror film it deserves a much better score, Jerry Goldsmith was capable of so much more. Sophie’s Choice is of course a soundtrack filled with beauty and sadness and if you’ve seen the film then hearing pieces of the music are sure to tug at your heart and soul.

On to the adaptation nominations and Victor/Victoria which won the award is… look, lets not even bother. All three choices don’t need to be here, don’t need their own category, and aren’t very good.

My Winner: ET

My Nominations: ET. Sophie’s Choice. Conan The Barbarian. Blade Runner. First Blood. Halloween III. The Wall.

Stop what you’re doing. Watch this clip. Go out and buy the Conan The Barbarian soundtrack. Thank me, and thank Crom. Look at the way the conductor gets his orchestra hyped up for playing in the first few seconds – he knows. If that video doesn’t make you want to go out and punch a camel, suplex a witch into a fire, and behead some roaming marauders then I don’t think I can be friends with you. That clip has a fraction of the power of the original. And that track is only a small piece of the greatest soundtrack ever written. There is no sense in arguing – if you aren’t agreeing with me, you are wrong. If you don’t listen, then to hell with you.

There are many many people who will turn their nose up at this, the mere notion that a Schwarzenegger movie could win a Best Score Oscar. There are many film fans who aren’t even aware that this exists. Once again, stop what you’re doing, and listen to this now. That second clip is Poledouris himself conducting, his only live performance, a few months before he died. The sound quality on it is crap, but still – I guarantee it’ll wipe the floor with anything else you’ll hear today. Never before or since has a movie soundtrack had so many integral pieces, so many memorable cues and melodies. Most movie scores have a main theme, maybe an additional love track, character track, or quirky track but Conan The Barbarian never lets up for a single second.  You can listen to this without ever seeing the film, but seeing it certainly raises the score to another level, just like the score raises the film. If I have one wish from writing these hundreds of Oscars posts, it’s that anyone reading listens to this soundtrack. Go. Now.

What competition was there this year? If you don’t care about Conan missing out on a nomination, surely you feel that Blade Runner deserved one? I guess they didn’t want Vangelis winning again. Jerry Goldsmith was nominated this year, but it should have been for First Blood. It’s unusual for action movies to receive good scores, classy scores, but as we saw with Conan, it’s not always the case – the 80s has a host of monumental scores for action movies.

Although I’m loathe to mention it at all, given that it’s one of the worst films ever made, Halloween III does have a great score, once again provided by the maestro John Carpenter. It’s much different from his previous efforts in the series, uses much more synth, but is filled with threat which the film itself doesn’t have. It’s another score you can stick on and enjoy without seeing the film – in this case that’s probably the best option.

Another travesty, especially when they added an extra category, is that The Wall did not receive a nomination. Pink Floyd’s album may be the best album ever and the film adds additional tracks as well as reworking some from the original. There’s so much wrong with this category this year. Also getting a nomination from me is Morricone’s score to John Carpenter’s The Thing. It’s interesting that Carpenter didn’t write it as it sounds exactly like something he would have written  – I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t heavily involved with its composition.

My Winner: Conan The Barbarian

Feel free to leave a comment once you have listened to the Conan soundtrack, and tell me how it has changed your life!

Best Original Score – 1980

Official Nominations: Fame. Altered States. Tess. The Elephant Man. The Empire Strikes Back.

Fame won the official award this year, but for me you think of the songs (or at least the title song) rather than the score. Deserves the nomination – not the win. Altered States getting nominated is pretty funny because… have you seen Altered States? It’s weird to me that such a weird and not remotely Hollywood film got nominated, but it’s wonderful that it did because it is a great score – horror movie strings and all manner of jump-scare sounds and offbeat rhythms. The Elephant Man is all carnival-esque rhythms and beats which recur over and over throughout the film reminding us of how most people feel towards Merrick even as his story progresses – the main theme for some reason always felt like a missing piece from The Godfather. 

The Empire Strikes Back builds upon everything that made A New Hope so good and adds a number of pieces which have become just as memorable and powerful – The Imperial March in particular becoming synonymous with ‘evil’. The pieces we know from the original often take on darker hues as you would expect given the nature of the film. Finally, Tess… not one of my most favourite Polanski movies, but another with a good score. If it has strings, if it’s emotive, then it’s for me.

My Winner: The Empire Strikes Back

My Nominations: The Elephant Man. The Empire Strikes Back. The Blues Brothers. Cannibal Holocaust. Dressed To Kill. Flash Gordon. The Fog. Friday The 13th. Raging Bull. The Shining.

Only two make it to my list due to some other excellent scores this year. The Blues Brothers updates a number of Blues and rock standards while retaining their core power. It’s one of the only musicals I enjoy and definitely one of the few musical scores I can stand listening to. If Altered States is getting nominated, then there’s no way I’m not nominating Cannibal Holocaust. It’s a horrible, disgusting movie (I love it) but the soundtrack is downright beautiful – the choice of this wavering synth to play the main melody is perfect – beauty skewered. It’s weird because once you’ve seen the movie you can’t help but recall images from it when you hear the music, again making something so sweet leave the bitterest taste in your mouth. It’s a crime this wasn’t nominated with its outlandish disco beats and synthetic beeps and throbs merging with the more traditional strings wonderfully.

Keeping things Italian, Pino Donaggio follows in Riz Ortolani’s footsteps by creating another horror soundtrack which has a beauty all of its own, one which doesn’t (at least on the surface) seem to fit the film it was written for. Look deeper, like with Cannibal Holocaust, and it’s perfect. While Flash Gordon is mainly known for Flash’s Theme, the rest of the score by Queen helps to make a pretty bad film watchable beyond its camp value. Raging Bull’s score is a bit of a cheat nomination given that it’s a mixture of existing popular music from La Motta’s time, and other traditional classical pieces – but it’s the way they are mixed as a whole and how the score works alongside the dialogue and direction which earns its nomination.

Our final entries are all from horror films – if horror as a genre is (stupidly) usually passed over by the Academy for most categories, it should at the very least be a stalwart in this category. Out of my three picks, only The Shining stood any chance of officially being nominated – though its mixture of original and non-original pieces probably exlcudes it. No matter, it still works as an effectively creepy score, evoking birds eye views of cars travelling down winding rounds, empty ballrooms, long corridors, and little dead girls. Friday The 13th isn’t one of my favourite horror scores, but there’s no getting away from how famous parts of it have become, particularly the ‘ki ki ki, ma ma, ma’ and piercing strings of the main title. Finally, The Fog soundtrack is another winner by Carpenter – there haven’t been too many directors in the history of cinema who have also written the music for their own films, and none to the same level of success as Carpenter has. This one has all the creepy factors of his Halloween score, but it’s a little slower, more tense, more malevolent, but maybe lacking that all important widespread appeal motif. In any other year, this would be my winner…. in fact, Empire got my win from the officials so lets split the difference and give it to Carpenter.

My Winner: The Fog

Let us know what you pick as the Best Score of 1980!

Best Original Score – 1979

Official Nominations: A Little Romance. Star Trek. The Champ. 10. The Amityville Horror. All That Jazz. Breaking Away. The Muppet Movie.

A Little Romance and All That Jazz were the winners this year, the former netting Georges Delarue his Oscar. It’s a suitably twee, gentle, unassuming score for a cutesy coming of age romance. Star Trek finally hit the big screen this year with Jerry Goldsmith providing the epic music – most notably the central theme. Dave Grusin’s theme doesn’t adequately match the emotional content of the movie while 10 by Henry Mancini is perfectly bland.

The Amityville Horror gets the rare horror nomination. Music for the genre wasn’t quite starting to copy itself yet, but you can grab many moments from prior classics here, saved mostly by Schifrin’s pedigree. The strings sound creeping, not creepy – there’s some insect like about the way they jab quickly and I like how the brass mimics the string notes. The love theme is pretty good too. If you know me by now, you’ll know my feelings on anything called All That Jazz. Breaking Away is another film which features mostly adaptations while The Muppet Movie is as fantastic as you would expect, though it’s the songs which stand out rather than the other music.

My Winner: Star Trek

My Nominations: 1941. Alien. Apocalypse Now. The Black Stallion. Mad Max. Moonraker. Nosferatu The Vampire. Quadrophenia. Rocky II. Star Trek. Zombie Flesh Eaters. Stalker.

An almost entirely different roster this year, starting with John Williams and Steven Spielberg up to their old tricks. 1941 doesn’t seem like their typical collaboration but still features plenty of great selections with a military feel. It’s that man Goldsmith again – remember he did Star Trek this year too – with the inspired and creepy score for Alien. Not only are their chilling parts which must work even without having seen the movie, but it inspires a sense of wonder and adventure too. Apocalypse Now merges original pieces with period hits and classic music to create a truly hallucinatory whole – merges genres, overlapping with snippets of gunfire, rotors, and warfare. The Coppola love continues with the underrated score of The Black Stallion – Carmine bringing the grace and class.

Over on the other side of the world the score for Mad Max is every bit as chaotic and unhinged as the film with booming brass blasts and thunderous percussion almost blocking out any trace of melody. Moonraker has a score better than the film it blesses, Barry’s familiar strains working oddly well for the unusual setting. Also working against the odds is Popol Vuh’s soundtrack for Nosferatu The Vampire, a work of electronica, chanting monks, sitars, each finely tuned to unsettle. Quadrophenia is The Who’s best opus – far better than Tommy and I much prefer the film too. This one has the much better songs, and the much better overall score. Bonus points for the movie being on as my wife was giving birth to our second child. Rocky II expands upon the original score in a few ways, though I do feel a little dishonest including it because it reuses so many pieces and motifs from the first film. Those are modified enough to suit the sequel and the original pieces are just as good as anything from part 1 – Bill Conti bringing the goods again.

Star Trek brought the famous series to the big screen, feeding off the success of Star Wars. Jerry Goldsmith indeed took inspiration from the music of Williams as well as expanding upon the original TV series themes to create a majestic score in its own right, as mentioned above. Tarkovsky’s Stalker joins him once more with Eduard Artemyev for another unearthly score, mixing oriental string instruments with strange mechanical synth. Finally, ahem, Zombie Flesh Eaters. Seriously, it has a great soundtrack. It’s really creepy, elevating the film itself and working as a great standalone – all threatening beats and epic synths along with random weird noises.

My Winner: Star Trek

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Original Song – 1979

Official Nominations: It Goes Like It Goes. I’ll Never Say Goodbye. It’s Easy To Say. Rainbow Connection. Through The Eyes Of Love.

There’s only one winner here, surely, and it ain’t It Goes Like It Goes which picked up the official win. That song is a little odd, a ballad which starts with this strange minor key intro before dropping into a faux-Joni Mitchell dance. It’s another one of those Oscar songs that goes absolutely nowhere and is mostly forgettable. Melissa Manchester became the first person to be nominated in the same year for two songs from two films – I’ll Never Say Goodbye is belted out but terrible while Through The Eyes Of Love is much better and fits the sentimental nature of Ice Castles (which I’ve always had some fondness for). It’s Easy To Say from 10 is understated but not very interesting. The undisputed winner is of course Rainbow Connection – still not a great song, but sweet, endearing, and light years ahead of anything else in the category.

My Winner: Rainbow Connection.

My Nominations: Rainbow Connection. Moonraker. Aquarius. Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. Fantasy. Goodbye Friends. Get Out And Stay Out. Four Faces. Joker James. The Rose. In The City.

Fantasy is from Robert Altman’s forgotten A Perfect Couple – there’s a number of decent ballads and soft rock songs on its soundtrack so you can pick any from it. Goodbye Friends is from the same soundtrack, maybe the standout song as it feels like a more traditional musical number and moves through different tones and stages. Three songs are added to the soundtrack of Quadrophenia, and they’re all great. I’m biased though as I love the original album so finding these bonus extras is always a treat. Get Out And Stay Out is good but a little too repetitive to win. Four Faces is great but feels pretty different from the rest of the soundtrack, while Joker James is very old school The Who in the chorus with verses having their late 70s vibe. You can’t not include The Rose here, perhaps the most gaping miss from the Official Nominations, with Bette Middler blasting it out. Not typically my sort of thing but it works damn well. So much so that I also allowed it to be one of my Wedding songs – played while going up the aisle/completing the service etc. In The City from The Warriors was later covered by The Eagles – Joe Walsh’s original still feels like quintessential US 70s Rock.

My Winner: Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

Best Original Song – 1978

Official Nominations: Last Dance. Hopelessly Devoted To You. The Last Time I Felt Like This. Ready To Take A Chance Again. When You’re Loved.

It’s the late seventies, so that means disco and Donna Summer. She won an Oscar here for Last Dance from a film she appears in – Thank God It’s Friday. It’s like a crappy, Disco version of Slackers or Dazed And Confused. Last Dance is a simmering ballad that seems to be going nowhere until there’s a pause and the disco comes. That’s when the song really gets going, but for me it’s never more than just okay.  Hopelessly Devoted To You is the single entry for Grease – a little odd when there is at least one more obvious choice. It’s a pretty wanky ballad which starts out with that country twang I hate, then has a bit of the 50s ballad thrown in, then has a belting chorus by Newton-John – unsurprisingly it doesn’t work.

Both of the previous songs were big hits outside of the movies – our remaining options seem minor by comparison. The Last Time I Felt Like This is a nice, simple Mathis/Olivor ballad which starts promisingly but quickly becomes boring while Barry Manilow’s Ready To Take A Chance Again doesn’t start well but has a better chorus. Finally, The Magic Of Lassie is a musical about Lassie and Jimmy Stewart, with a lot of not very good songs. The Sherman Brothers know how to pen a hit, but When You’re Loved is yet another meandering, aimless ballad.

My Winner: Last Dance

My Nominations: You’re The One That I Want. Summer Nights. Greased Lightning. Copacabana. Ease On Down The Road. Caravans. Another Fine Mess. Bright Eyes.

Before we get to Grease, lets look at the other contenders – Caravans, from the movie of same name, is a much more interesting ballad than any of those officially nominated – an epic sounding folk song. Ease On Down The Road from The Wiz is a bit of a forgotten Michael Jackson song – a slice of Mowtown funk from before he truly hit it big as a solo artist. Another Fine Mess from The End is a much better ballad than those above – nice melodies, interesting shifts, good lyrics, and a good Glenn Campbell performance.

The only genuine contender here to Grease is of course Bright Eyes from Watership Down. It’s a haunting piece forever intertwined with visuals from the movie and is arguably the best song here. It’s not quite as iconic as those from Grease though, so that may have a bearing on what you select. Greased Lightning is cheesy rock’n’roll fun. Summer Nights is horny and fun, though I’ve never been keen on the actual vocal performance – it would be much better served without all the backing vocals and musical theatre crap – just do it right. What can you say about You’re The One That I Want? It was always played at school discos when I was young and it occasionally pops up in weddings I’ve been to – it’s fast, fun, changes tone nicely, its infectious, and is one of the most famous songs from the movies.

My Winner: You’re The One That I Want

Best Original Score – 1978

Official Nominations: Midnight Express. The Boys From Brazil. Days Of Heaven. Heaven Can Wait. Superman. The Buddy Holly Story. The Wiz. Pretty Baby.

After last year’s bonanza, John Williams only received a single meagre nomination this time around. Superman is another classic with several rousing themes which go hand in hand with any discussion or review of the movie. Midnight Express was one of the official winners this year, Giorgio Morodor introducing movie audiences to the joys of synths. It’s a weird one – ranging from fast tracks which sound more like a cheesy action movie and love themes which now feel dated. It still feels like a worthy win, though I never feel any of the music evokes any of the horror, despair, or feeling of the movie. The Boys From Brazil probably sounded incredibly old fashioned alongside Morodor’s new-fangled beast, with its waltzes and strings – some good pieces but lacks that core theme.

Another yearly stalwart in this category is of course Ennio Morricone – his work on Malick’s Days of Heaven is ridiculously his first official nomination. Heaven Can Wait seems to have received nominations all over the place – we know The Academy loves Warren Beatty – but they apparently went overboard this year. It does have a memorable lead theme, but I find it veers too close to cheesy daytime soap. The Buddy Holly Story was the other official winner this year – as you would expect it features plenty of early rock’n’roll hits. The Wiz is your everyday African American Adaptation of The Wizard Of Oz featuring Michael Jackson and friends. It’s not really like anything else you’ll ever see. Quincy Jones brings the noise and while he, Ross, and Jackson had all and would later make better music, it’s still interesting and has some good moments. Finally, Pretty Baby is the one film here most people won’t remember, odd given that it’s Louis Malle directing Brooke Shields as a young girl working in a whorehouse. The soundtrack is essentially all Ragtime stuff which I’m not a huge fan of.

My Winner: Superman

My Nominations: Superman. Days Of Heaven. Midnight Express. Jaws 2. Grease. Halloween. American Hot Wax. Big Wednesday. Dawn Of The Dead. Damien: Omen 2. I Wanna To Hold Your Hand. Animal House.

Seriously people – if Pretty Baby and The Buddy Holly Story are getting nominations here, there’s no way Grease should not be nominated. I’m not a huge fan of the film, but its songs and its music are part of our culture much more than most of the films nominated. It was the highest grossing film of the year, one of the biggest selling soundtracks ever, and with some of the most famous movie songs ever – there’s no way it doesn’t get a nomination. Although it’s long forgotten, if we’re including soundtracks on the strength of their songs then we have to include American Hot Wax – it ain’t American Graffiti, but it ain’t far off. While we’re on the subject, we have to also include I Wanna To Hold Your Hand for all those Beatles songs.  And Animal House too. Jeepers.

Here’s an interesting one – I picked Jaws as my winner when it was released but I think Jaws 2 is the better score. It has everything the first one had, but some inspired additional pieces too. I’m not sure I can pick it as winner though given that so much was created for the original. Sticking with horror sequels, and Goldsmith’s work on The Omen 2, while not as effective or creepy as the first one still does enough to be worthy of another nomination. Halloween kick started a hundred horror clichés, music and musical cues among them – Carpenter’s score is one of the best horror scores ever with chilling themes which evoke not only the era but the timeless nature of the season. Speaking of timeless horror soundtracks and we have Dawn Of The Dead – much lesser known outside of horror circles than Carpenter’s work, but Goblin’s score is beloved by everyone inside the genre.

Basil Poledouris is one of the most underrated composers in history and sadly passed away without a single Academy nomination. We change that now, with his work in Big Wednesday much softer and nostalgic than his later work yet no less notable. As you may know, Jerry Goldsmith was on a roll this year – along with The Omen 2 and The Boys From Brazil,  he did Coma, Capricorn One, Swarm, and Magic, the last of which is creepy and dramatic enough to earn a nomination from me.

My Winner: Halloween

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Original Score – 1977

Official Nominations: Star Wars. The Spy Who Loved Me. Julia. Mohammed Messenger Of God. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. A Little Night Music. Pete’s Dragon. The Slipper And The Rose.

Well well well, John Welliams (Williams) was on a bit of a roll this year, with two nominations and one win – both scores of course being indisputable classics which are still listened to by thousands of people today. Lets not kid ourselves – Star Wars is winning this every day of the week. From the main theme, to Leia’s theme, to the Cantina theme, it’s littered with classics and is obviously one of the best and most famous movie scores ever. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind is mostly known for the famous ‘do di do duh doo’ communication melody, but elsewhere the score has many other great pieces ranging from tense buildups and wailing melodies of foreboding.

The Spy Who Loved Me remains one of the most critically acclaimed Bond entries, netting three Oscar nominations. Marvin Hamlisch took over from John Barry and ironically got the first nomination of the series (Skyfall would pick up the second decades on) – his score patriotic, quintessentially Bond yet self mocking. Julia is one of George Delerue’s most suitably poignant efforts while Mohammed Messenger Of God (or The Message) isn’t a film you can see being made or becoming so successful today – Maurice Jarre’s blends East and West quietly. On to the other category and A Little Night Music picked up the official win – you already know how I feel about musicals. Pete’s Dragon is there too, never a favourite film of mine but the music is okay, and finally The Slipper And The Rose is a bizarre British live action musical of Cinderella with some decent songs and tunes.

My Winner: Star Wars

My Nominations: Star Wars. The Spy Who Loved Me. Julia. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Black Sunday. A Bridge Too Far. The Deep. Eraserhead. Hausu. Martin. Saturday Night Fever.

Does anything else stand a chance against Star Wars this year? Well, John Williams didn’t only make two scores this year – he ain’t no slacker – he also made Black Sunday – another string heavy piece which actually has a lot in common with his two official nominations though not as bombastic. A Bridge Too Far is yet another classic war epic with a massive cast  – you know I love those, and while John Addison’s score is not as memorable as others it does still have a great lead theme. The Deep isn’t a great film, but for some reason certain scenes have always stayed with me, usually those involving eels (Louis Gossett Jr never seems to have much luck with aquatic wildlife). The music is good though, reminiscent of Jaws of course, but going its own way too. I’d love it if Eraserhead had received a nomination here (or anywhere) so I’m adding it, for it’s washing, industrial, hissing noise.

The soundtrack to Hausu is great because it was completed before the film had actually been made, yet it manages to be as buck nuts as the film itself, sounding like a children’s TV show and a cheesy rock based musical. The soundtrack of Martin is one of the most beautiful, haunting, and underrated in horror, while we can’t have a discussion about soundtracks without mentioning one of the biggest selling albums ever – Saturday Night Fever – a soundtrack brimming with disco classics. If we’re going to include that, then we must also include Smokey And The Bandit – as much as I’m not a fan of disco, I hate country music more, yet both these soundtracks are great. Susperia remains Argento’s most famous film and probably Goblin’s most acclaimed score – reminding me of Rosemary’s Baby but with hissing and arcane whisperings and chants in place of the lullaby ‘la las’. It’s one of the few soundtracks I can put on and listen to the whole way through, a rip-roaring ride of devilish funk, rock, synth, screams, and more. It would be my winner if not for Star Wars. I think that’s quite enough soundtracks for one year.

My Winner: Star Wars

Let us know in the comments which Score of 1977 you would choose!