Top five film soundtracks of all time from Neil Rose

What have A Fistful of Dollars, Vampyros Lesbos, A Clockwork Orange, Monkey Magic and The Amityville Horror got in common? They’ve all got superb soundtracks, according to Neil Rose, sonic artist and film arts lecturer. Find out what makes them so good and why they are in his top five soundtracks of all time

1. Amityville Horror (1979)- Lalo Schrifrin
This was a tough choice between Amityville and the sound track to Dirty Harry, which are both by Lalo Schrifrin Dirty Harry is far superior soundtrack but Schrifrin’s score was nominated for an academy award. Try the film without the music and it isn’t scary at all, Schrifrin’s use of children’s voices is the key, and the sound design is fabulous too, lots of recordings of angry insects being shaken in jars.

“For God’s Sake, Get Out!”

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2. Monkey Magic (1978) – Godiego
I know this has had a bit of a vogue since old Damon Albarn made his musical, but the TV series Monkey was essential viewing when I was a kid, the opening theme to the series is a genius piece of fusion that will live with me forever. Godiego, I think were responsible for the whole score and apparently they are a popular Japanese band, although my not being able to read Japanese limits my research on this matter.

“In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned…”

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3. A Clockwork Orange (1972) – Walter (later Wendy) Carlos
Some excellent Moog versions of popular classical music, classically Wendy Carlos (Walter underwent gender realignment around the late 70′s) and I suggest exploring releases like Switched on Bach and most notably the soundtrack to Tron.

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4. Vampyros Lesbos (1971) – Manfred Hubler & Siegfried Schwab
This is the sound of what Austin Powers wants to be, fabulous use of the big muff (the guitar I mean) and if you have to choose an exploitation film, it may as well have vampires in it. The record label Crippled Dick Hot Wax have released a selection of tracks from the soundtrack and some hard to find ones, all by Hubler and Schwab.

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5. A Fistful of Dollars (1964) – Ennio Morricone
I would feel like I was lying if I didn’t include Ennio Morricone, the man (arguably along with the early pioneers of electronic music) that changed film music from orchestral into something much more fluid and relying on concrete sound sources and bizarre instruments, I love the films of Sergio Leone and believe they used to play Morricone’s tracks on set so the ambling cowboys could get the timing right. Leone clearly had an understanding of the importance of sound and music in film and ALL of his rely heavily on this.

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• Neil Rose is a sonic artist and works in performance, electroacoustic composition, electronic music production, sound design, installation and Film Making. He is currently resident in Plymouth, where he is attempting to learn to speak Devon. Neil delivers the sound provision for Plymouth College of Art and lectures Fine Art and Film Arts.

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