What happened to "iconic" movie soundtracks/theme tunes?

[Cooper Garcia]

What happened to "iconic" movie soundtracks/theme tunes?

Movies used to have incredibly iconic soundtracks, but nowadays music in film seems to be more of a background ambience/white noise effect, rather than an emotional drive at the centre stage.

Compare the likes of Burton's Batman and Raimi's Spider-Man, hell, even 2003's Hulk theme to modern capeshit as an example. Can any of you honestly tell me you can hum the theme to Captain America, Iron Man, Thor or even The Avengers? There's no emotional attachment to that aspect of a film any more.

[Juan Johnson]

Different scores have different purposes. I won't deny that Marvel scores suck as much as any other part of those films, but overall I enjoy the "mood music" scores that embellish the emotion of the scene without overpowering it. Look at 95% of old films where the music is just blaring at any available point but rarely has any character or effort put into it. Both ways can be used poorly

[Gavin Watson]

I agree, but even films that use more ambience centred scores can leave that lasting impression, like TDK.

Outside of a few exceptions over the past 10 years there hasn't been many that even achieve that. I think Whiplash was the last films I saw that I really sat there and thought this score is excellent.

[Hunter Williams]

Under the Skin had a phenomenal score in my mind but I know that's not everyones cup of tea.

[William Wright]

Jonny Greenwood and Clint Mansell consistently do good work, but that's more on the indie front. I agree that it's been sorely lacking in blockbuster films for the last few years. If I had to guess, they probably just rush it and don't give the musicians enough time, and they simply don't hire the "difficult" ones. Same reason special effects have gone to shit even though the technology is better than ever

[James Lewis]

All music is getting worse OP, there are only so many epic themes that can be written by humans. We burned out of all other genres and film music just happened to be the last genre to begin sucking.

To be fair OP, most movie themes were designed to just fill in audio space until the Bernard Hermann and the one dude who scored Gone With the Wind I forget atm.

We are just going back to an age where people don't care about music in films.

Directors need to begin putting explicitly EDM soundtracks in their movies or doing something dramatically different or else its all going to sound the same.

[Carson Cruz]

Download a billboard top 100 from 30 years ago and compare it to today's top 100.

Music and peoples tastes are fucking shit now.

[Jack Edwards]

Because movies stopped being iconic as well. There is little to no new stuff that revolutionizes the industry. Everything works with the same old formula which ended up giving us heaps of capeshit and romcom dramas. A movie has to be somewhat iconic to also have an iconic score that will be remembered for decades such as most of John Williams' stuff from 25ish years ago. Nowadays the only soundtracks that are semi memorable are the ones that punch you in the face like most of hans zimmer's works and this is mostly due to the fact that their music is used in every single trailer, news compilation or youtube video which trys to be intense. It sure is a declining art.

[Lucas Ramirez]

>Captain America
Not him, but his buddy:
youtube.com/watch?v=HVJGh51wR7k

>Iron Man
youtube.com/watch?v=Uctu1e353os
Or, if it has to be an original song
youtube.com/watch?v=D5lmDMcmW6c

>The Avengers
youtu.be/8VGJGXMUhmc?t=1m4s

Another fantastic recent one:
youtube.com/watch?v=Q4uoNAFfvKg

It's not so much that soaring orchestral themes don't exist anymore. Listen to "Arrival to Earth", "He's a Pirate", "Flight", or for more percussive examples, "World Engine" or "Rise". There's plenty of examples, once you go looking for them. The problem is you have to go looking for them.

Look at the opening credits of Tim Burton's Batman:
youtube.com/watch?v=38lWxFNzCas

And of Donner's Superman:
youtube.com/watch?v=Rk1aQx9hTaE

Now here's The Dark Knight:
youtube.com/watch?v=yf8Ey1ZHIGo

And Man of Steel:
youtube.com/watch?v=Zs8hGVxWkFE

90% of why superhero movies seem to no longer have iconic scores anymore is the music is never allowed to breath and represent itself. And 90% of that is that movies don't have opening credits/titles anymore. If you put "Master of the Mystical End Credits" over some trippy montage with actor names and company logos, boom, that's an iconic and memorable opening credit scene. And suddenly that Pink Floyd mashup becomes "the Doctor Strange theme" and you can play it over a scene in Avengers 5: Age of Cashgrabs and people know that Strange is about to show up and do something magical. Chop the mid credits sequence from the Winter Soldier out, put it at the front of the movie, boom, memorable opening credits scene.

Remember how amazing the first 8-ish minutes of Watchmen was? The logos, a surreal scene of a super strong old man being beaten and thrown to his death by a faceless goon, and then Bob Dylan over a montage of the history of this alternate universe. It's a gold standard, and few movies really do that sort of thing anymore.

[Brandon Morris]

John Murphy and Clint Mansell are probably the 2 best out there now

Hanz Zimmer is the modern John Williams; he's been copying himself for the last ~20 years and is absolutely not trying

[Carter Sanchez]

I quite like michael giacchino, especially his star trek ost's, which is a pretty big feat considering star trek has some of the most iconic music.

[Nathaniel Cook]

Themes are the same. They just aren't marketed as heavily

[Nathaniel Perry]

Can only really remember Wonder Woman's theme out of all the superhero movies I've seen so far.

[Xavier Miller]

Hans Zimmer still gets it done

[Liam Howard]

Clint Mansell did the music for Ghost in the Shell, amusingly enough.

[Ian Nguyen]

I'm just gonna post the video
youtube.com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs

[Juan Barnes]

whoops responded to the wrong post mean

[Andrew Lee]

youtube.com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs

This is the "every frame a painting" thing, in case you've already seen it, but for everyone else... this guy goes over how modern movies handle music differently than in the past (using how the Marvel movies mostly does not have memorable music as the basis of his examples).

There's some Danny Elfman bitching about how modern directors seem to believe that music in movies should not be noticed.

[Levi Johnson]

I wish Steve Jablonsky got more work. He does a great job scoring the Transformers movies.

[Leo Brooks]

Temp music killed modern movie music

[Evan Taylor]

The John Wick Soundtracks were amazing.
So is Hans Zimmer.

[Bentley Jenkins]

is it a sound track if its diegetic?

[Ryan Adams]

youtube.com/watch?v=rgXLEM8MhJo

[Ryan Thomas]

>load up any 70-90s movie
>instantly recognizable and kickass soundtrack with thought out theme that fits the movie and is wholly original and memorable
>load up any 00+ movie
>can't separate it's soundtrack from a generic orchestral soundtrack mix on youtube

makes me sad. Kino themes are dead.

[Wyatt Martin]

Godzilla 2014 had a really good theme tbqh.

youtube.com/watch?v=mv6mcB9g5-4

[Tyler Green]

and the shit he obviously did for GITS 2017 is fuckin' great. Hetook what Kenji Kawai did and gave it a prime Brian Eno ambient overhaul.

It was Lorne Balfe's half-assed bullshit spurn from heavy pre-release re-editing that was generic mush.

[Easton Baker]

Honestly, it's pacing. Today's movies are quickly cut and edited down. They don't have time to breath,so no time for music. A dialogue scene in a blockbuster movie back then probably last thrice as long as dialogue scenes in blockbusters today. A lot of stuff happening in a short time is what killed music.

youtube.com/watch?v=PJlmYh27MHg

youtube.com/watch?v=SpdMVuUvkkI