The music industry has perpetrated quite a few scams and foisted upon us many a lame-brained scheme over the years. (Some of which they are now paying for, dearly.) So have the Hollywood studios. But when they join forces in this regard, it’s a sight to behold. But for all the wrong reasons, mind you.
The main instance that comes to mind was the proliferation of the pseudo soundtrack during the ‘90s. You know the one: “Music from and Inspired by [insert name of purported blockbuster]”, littered with tunes of no relevance to the movie at hand—that most of the time weren’t even featured in the damn thing—and frequently just a cheap ploy to draw interest in the flick; promote catalog sales of an artist in need of some current relevance; or to simply create extra revenue via soundtrack album sales, with no regard to an actual connection to the film at hand.
There’s way too many of those for us to list here—you may own one or two—but with music sales being hit hard in recent years, we were wondering if the original scores of today’s movies are being released as frequently as they once were. Guitarist David Torn’s original score for Lars and the Real Girl and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s for Silk, both of which we’ve been enjoying recently, got us thinking about our old record store days, when our then-place of employment had a modest but solid soundtrack section, that did brisk business with followers of this subgenre.
Yes, Garden State’s was a big deal and so are the High School Musical ones, but we’re interested in finding out what’s going on with those similar to the aforementioned Torn and Sakamoto albums.
Anyone?
