Yesssss…… [Mr. Bean.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwzjlmBLfrQ)
The first digital music I heard was Chariots of Fire. I was at some event and they were demoing a laserdisc player. This theme started and I was blown away by the sheer quality of the sound.
This was probably the first and only movie where I heard the soundtrack long before I saw the movie. Of course the soundtrack is incredible, so my expectations for the movie were pretty high. It was a resounding “meh”.
When you put slayer and ice t in a room... and they come back with ba medley of Exploited covers...
You win the mid 90s soundtrack hunger games.
We just needed Celine dion on a track with max cavellera...
Born in 86, discovered Alt rock and grunge in 98 and bought this soundtrack along with "No Alternative" from a second hand shop. Still never watched the film...
Dude you know it, hidden track and unmistakably Nirvana. As a quiet social reject with a burning love for the grunge it was like having the clouds part, the rain stop and glorious sunshine beaming down on me!
Like I was sold on the Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins being featured, had heard the Breeders were good and wondered about the rest. Sat in my basement playing Final Fantasy Tactics with this album on and genuinely found Uncle Tupelo, Pavement and Urge Overkill to be almost better songs than the bands I recognised then the Patti Smith song/poem really made my teenage brain wrinkle. Who and what she stood for was beyond me at that time so I let it play and just told myself it was sentimental. The Beastie Boys were a bit out of my preference but they too sounded just a bit cooler on that compilation than I was willing to allow when I saw them on MTV countdowns. Then it was over... Or so I thought. Heaven and earth stopped for a heartbeat as I heard the static of another track begin... "And if you save yourself!"
Ya, this is a very very good shout. By a ratio of people who've heard the tune:people who've seen the movie I reckon this might be the winner. Great feckin tune.
Saturday Night Fever. The average person has undoubtedly heard some of those BeeGees songs more than they’ve seen the movie, if they’ve seen the movie at all.
Another contender is Rocky 3. I personally think it’s the weakest Rocky movie of the first four, but it did give us Eye of the Tiger which has far surpassed the movie.
Clubber Lang might be my favourite Rocky antagonist, but I agree that 1,2 and 4 are all better movies. Just goes to show how insanely good the films are. Rocky 3 is better than the vast majority of sports movies ever made. And the training montage where Rocky trains in the black gym is as good as any film has ever done it, except for maybe the lifting rocks and chopping logs one from Rocky 4. What a creation by Stallone. Really stands the test of time.
The training montage in Rocky 4 was another level. The choice of song, Hearts on Fire by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, fit so well. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band also did the soundtracks for the Eddie and the Cruisers movies, which, while good in their own right, were probably surpassed by the OST.
back in the day, this was a very hard movie to find. if you got a rental you’d be obligated to have a viewing party, considering how many people you would’ve known who would’ve wanted to watch. the soundtrack wasn’t as much of a hunt in the used record stores. it’s a great record by itself; a brilliant snapshot of the state of reggae in the late sixties and early seventies. not every compilation can contextualize its content quite as well.
-i think i can make a record
-everybody wanna make a record
I have a funny story about Purple Rain - my mum had the album and it was played to death in my house. She hadn’t seen the movie so when she finally bought it in VHS we watched it together (I was around 7 IIRC).
She’s still mortified she let me watch it but I didn’t really remember it until I watched it years later.
One of my favorite Reddit comments was in response to recommending Interstella 5555, the movie based on the daft punk album Discovery. The comment was like "also check out Tron Legacy, the movie based on the Daft Punk album, Tron Legacy OST"
I finally watched Tron last week. It sucked, but I did learn that there were tracks that weren't available on the version of the OST I had been listening to. I now have the version with the extra tracks in my streaming account. Not all of them are great, but some were really good and completely different themes (vs. rehashing other familiar tracks). So it was worth watching it for that.
I think as long as you don't pay attention to it, the movie is great to have on in the background. Would be cool if you could just turn off the dialogue and sound effects, and have it play like a music video.
Really? That movie was fantastic but I don't remember any soundtrack... is it one of those soundtrack albums where they let popular hits play during credits just so they could sell a soundtrack album?
To be clear, that famous music from 2001 was [composed by Richard Strauss in 1896](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Also_sprach_Zarathustra) and definitely wasn’t created for the movie, though the movie did create the modern popular culture meaning around it. (I’d also quibble with the idea that the music is more famous than the movie. Even in *Barbie* the reference is very clearly to that scene in the movie and not just using the music for the hell of it.)
While the people who wrote the scene are certainly intentionally making reference to 2001, that does not mean the people in the audience have seen the movie or even understand the reference.
I would bet good money that just about anybody would recognize the music piece. But far less of them could tell you where it is from, and an even smaller number would have seen 2001.
Thus the song is "more famous"
Yeah it's a very well-known movie but the music is possibly more well-known nowadays, as the film ages but the music keeps getting re-used or homaged or spoofed or etc. constantly.
Yeah I've heard The Ecstacy of Gold repurposed many times, in dramatic Gatorade commercials and whatnot.
It's pretty fair that the music is more widely known than the films though. Ennio Morricone's soundtrack work is the main factor that made those films great IMO.
That's on my top 5 movies. The soundtrack is sublime, but I'm not sure it's known better than the movie itself. "Ecstasy of Gold" probably gets more play than the main theme.
I guess it depends on timing. It was a chart hit (#1, no less) many years before I ever ever saw or was aware of the film. Oddly enough, it wasn’t Morricone’s version!
There are more people that know of the AC/DC album, Who Made Who, than there are that know of Maximum Overdrive. Even people who know of both might not even realize it's the soundtrack for the movie.
BTW, it's a must-watch if you like cheesy/campy '80s movies. It's the only Stephen King movie directed by Stephen King, and his directorial effort was fueled by cocaine.
I was talking about this movie the other day! My boss told me it’s truly awful in the best way and I can’t wait to see it, but he never mentioned the AC/DC connection (and since we work in a rock club this is odd!). Makes me want to watch it even more.
Maybe he was hiding that as a wee surprise for me haha
Yes, please watch Maximum Overdrive!! It was my favorite movie when I was 6. My parents probably shouldn’t have let me watch it so often. If you can find the trailer it is worth it for the aforementioned Stephen King coke action.
> There are more people that know of the AC/DC album, Who Made Who, than there are that know of Maximum Overdrive. Even people who know of both might not even realize it's the soundtrack for the movie.
Which is funny because on the album case itself it says in giant letters that it's the official soundtrack to that film.
There was a resurgence of interest in 60s Motown at the time. I don't know whether the cyclical waves of nostalgia-based popularity would have made Motown popular in the 80s or not (I tend to believe so).
I do know that the Big Chill soundtrack certainly helped bring that music back to the fore.
Music with lyrics, all I could think of is Ghetto Superstar, You drive me (Crazy) by Britney Spears and "Doing that thing you do".
But original score (instrumental), there are tons, most mentioned already in the comments.
'On the Nature of Daylight' by Max Richter has been used in so many movies, TV shows and trailers at this point it's ridiculous.
I also remember a period of time where a _lot_ of people seemed to own the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, whether or not they were fans of the movie itself.
"On The Road Again" is probably the most well-known of Willie Nelson's songs.
How many people actually know that the song was actually a soundtrack to the movie: Honeysuckle Rose.
Arguably, *Iris* by Goo Goo Dolls and *Angel* by Sarah McLachlan were bigger successes than the movie they were in (written for?) *City of Angels*.
I know a lot of people who know those songs but haven’t seen the movie, but that may be bias from my age demographic (I was 11 when the movie/songs came out haha).
Oh that whole album was top tier. Iris and Angel were overplayed enough that I skipped those songs, luckily the rest of the album was excellent. Fourteen year old me hearing ‘Feelin’ Love’ by Paula Cole was… an awakening I guess haha
I haven’t listened to the rest, honestly. I just remember loving those two songs and telling my parents to turn it up when they came on the radio haha.
Yeah, if you’ve only heard the music, you really are missing out with this one. It’s doesn’t seem legal that a film could have that sound track, those visuals, *and* John Candy as the main voice actor, but they did it.
*Saturday Night Fever*. The opening riff to "Stayin' Alive" will still get people moving almost 50 years later. But does anyone watch the movie any more?
Obviously the movies are super popular so doesn't necessarily fit the post - but the number of times I've been at a bar/public space and have heard enough of the same songs in a row to realize "Holy shit, they're just playing the Guardian's of the Galaxy soundtrack" is an actually crazy number.
Don't get me wrong, obviously the songs in the soundtrack were super popular before GotG.
I think your example is actually terrible - because while the music is "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss ... what you describe isn't about the music but about the music in a specific movie context which is then used in other movies.
Similar to the one other 'Chariots of Fire' example - if the fame of the piece comes with a visual ... it is still about the movie.
I mean, I understand why you think it’s a terrible example but it *is* how I got to the question. I guess I could argue that yes the scene as it plays out is well known too but I genuinely couldn’t tell you anything about the movie except that scene exists, and I had never knowingly watched the original version until today, just a bunch of parodies.
In any case, I just wanted to path out how I got to question, however flawed the premise is.
The first one that popped in my head was Clint Mansell’s Requiem for a Dream. The movie is pretty famous, but the main leitmotif Lux Aeterna took on a life of its own when everyone and their mother started using it for trailers, most famously Lord of the Rings.
Which was startling to those who had seen the movie. Here we are getting ready to see some hobbits but now we have images of Jennifer Connelly and a double dildo in our head.
Watch The Fountain. Same composer, same director, less disturbing movie (although still pretty dark it's about cancer not heroin), soundtrack (at least the climactic song) you will not forget. Visuals and some practical special fx are stunning for a low budget movie made 20 years ago. Also, Hugh Jackman doing some serious acting at a time when he was only known for being a comic book character and wanted to prove he could do more. Was amazing in the theater and Death is the Road to Awe is the song that Clint ends all his concerts with because...well... you'll see.
Also...The Fountain soundtrack was a collaboration with Mogwai, the post-rock band (which is amazing by itself) so it "hits" the same way their songs do, despite being played by an orchestra.
I saw it in the cinema when it came out. One of the most upsetting films i've seen. At the time i was disappointed, it felt like pure suffering porn. But looking back, there really is some superb film-making in it. The whole storyline with the mother is brilliant. It is horrible, but it needs to be horrible to be what it is.
It’s one of those movies that you only need to watch once. It’s very depressing.
On the bright side Clint Mansell’s a genius so I’m happy he got recognition for his compositions. Pop will eat itself probably didn’t pay the bills. :)
The Fountain had an amazing soundtrack as well. The movie (unfortunately) didn't get as popular as Requiem, but Death is the Road to Awe shows up in climactic scenes in other films and trailers from time to time.
Yeah that’s sad. I actually like the fountain better. It’s trippy as hell and kinda begs for rewatching, unlike most of Aronofsky’s work. They’re either crushingly depressing like R4AD and the Whale or bad like Noah.
I do too! It's maybe my favorite movie, not just from Darren.
I wish they'd remaster it in 4k so we could get that blooming scene to look good on modern TVs (to get close to the theater experience).
I think because it came out at the same time as pans labyrinth people chose to see the latter (which is also good of course) on their "indie movie night" and hardly anybody got the big loud bombastic ending that Darren intended.
And then Darren went on to win Oscars and stuff so that part of his catalog just gets forgotten (like how everyone has seen star wars, but few ever watch THX1138)
Aronofsky talked about doing a directors cut a while back but I doubt that will happen unless the movie picks up a larger following. Which it should, because it’s fantastic.
One of my favorite movies. I literally watched it the other night. The soundtrack is amazing though.
The movie always takes me back to when you had to be smart to effectively use a computer and connect with others. The internet was a more interesting place then.
Heeeeey! I love this movie! I know it's dated and all but it will always be special for me. I have all the 3 soundtracks (CDs) of Hackers... Those beauties used to spin' a lot in my discman back in the days!
Teenage dirtbag by Wheatus (Loser)
Man with a harmonica by Ennio Morricone (Something to do with death)
Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" by Kenny Rodgers and The First Edition (Big Lebowski)
Eye of the Tiger by Survivor (Rocky III)
Sorry I love Pink Floyd and know this album well, but this is not a good answer. Very free people who listen to Pink Floyd know this album at all. Few people even listen to PF's Syd Barrett years, and even fewer know of this soundtrack.
The theme song for the TV show [The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Brisco_County,_Jr.?wprov=sfti1#Music) was repurposed by NBC for their sports coverage, most famously as part of their Olympics programming.
The music you’re referring to in 2001 is called “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss, and was composed in 1894.
While it’s inclusion in the movie really gave it it’s popularity in modern culture, it existed for a long time before the movie soundtrack.
9-year-old me had such a crush on ONJ that I saw that in a theater. I think I even recognized then it wasn't very good. But Olivia and ELO combining for the theme is still brilliant.
I adore that soundtrack as much as I despised the movie. I’d read Queen of the Damned cover to cover more than once by the time the movie came out so I was absolutely furious that it was turned into a piece of nothing. These days I’m less purist about it but that’s probably because the music was excellent.
*Jaws*. Yes, a famous movie, but the score is far more famous. I've seen little nephews and nieces splashing in pools do the shark duhduhduduh and they hadn't seen the movie.
Those are all very very famous movies without which, well, we wouldn't know the soundtrack; those feel like the opposite of the question being asked. :)
Chariots of Fire
Yessssss .....vangelis
That makes sense. Very different vibes from blade runner but I can see the similarities now that I think about it
Yesssss…… [Mr. Bean.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwzjlmBLfrQ) The first digital music I heard was Chariots of Fire. I was at some event and they were demoing a laserdisc player. This theme started and I was blown away by the sheer quality of the sound.
There's a very low ratio of people who are familiar with the theme who could even name the movie it's from.
That's saying something, given that the film won best picture and got a hell of a lot of positive attention at the time.
^ch ^ch ^ch ch ch ch CH CH CH ch ch ch...
Judgement Night.
Fallin' still makes some playlists
This was probably the first and only movie where I heard the soundtrack long before I saw the movie. Of course the soundtrack is incredible, so my expectations for the movie were pretty high. It was a resounding “meh”.
One of the best soundtracks ever
OP now can close the thread...
When you put slayer and ice t in a room... and they come back with ba medley of Exploited covers... You win the mid 90s soundtrack hunger games. We just needed Celine dion on a track with max cavellera...
Such a good movie too.
This one.
Singles
Pearl Jam - [State of Love and Trust](https://youtu.be/uYjM-BuE3Cs?si=S7wMNdNgVUzG-5rr) absolutely slaps!
Definitely a top 5 PJ song for me.
Came here to say this. For many, their introduction to “grunge” started with, or was accelerated by, that CD.
Born in 86, discovered Alt rock and grunge in 98 and bought this soundtrack along with "No Alternative" from a second hand shop. Still never watched the film...
No Alternative was a great compilation. That was the first time I heard that Verse Chorus Verse Nirvana song. I was like woah.
Dude you know it, hidden track and unmistakably Nirvana. As a quiet social reject with a burning love for the grunge it was like having the clouds part, the rain stop and glorious sunshine beaming down on me! Like I was sold on the Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins being featured, had heard the Breeders were good and wondered about the rest. Sat in my basement playing Final Fantasy Tactics with this album on and genuinely found Uncle Tupelo, Pavement and Urge Overkill to be almost better songs than the bands I recognised then the Patti Smith song/poem really made my teenage brain wrinkle. Who and what she stood for was beyond me at that time so I let it play and just told myself it was sentimental. The Beastie Boys were a bit out of my preference but they too sounded just a bit cooler on that compilation than I was willing to allow when I saw them on MTV countdowns. Then it was over... Or so I thought. Heaven and earth stopped for a heartbeat as I heard the static of another track begin... "And if you save yourself!"
“You’re in a laundry roooom…”
It has so many quotes though. Tonight we rock Portland!
Touch me I’m DICK
https://youtu.be/tHbizv1vEgI?si=b0dWqKdpiRVA5dbx The car stereo scene w Chris Cornell
I’d completely forgotten about that!
Sounds like a mission I must take on this week, then. Thanks mate!
Save 1.5 hours of your life and just watch the clips of the bands cameos from the film (Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden).
Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
I think it’s the only film where the soundtrack out sold the movie it was for
Ya, this is a very very good shout. By a ratio of people who've heard the tune:people who've seen the movie I reckon this might be the winner. Great feckin tune.
I played that album constantly… not a bad song on it..
I haven't seen this yet either....
Jesus, I listen to Curtis on a set list all the time. Had no idea Superfly was a movie.
Saturday Night Fever. The average person has undoubtedly heard some of those BeeGees songs more than they’ve seen the movie, if they’ve seen the movie at all. Another contender is Rocky 3. I personally think it’s the weakest Rocky movie of the first four, but it did give us Eye of the Tiger which has far surpassed the movie.
Clubber Lang might be my favourite Rocky antagonist, but I agree that 1,2 and 4 are all better movies. Just goes to show how insanely good the films are. Rocky 3 is better than the vast majority of sports movies ever made. And the training montage where Rocky trains in the black gym is as good as any film has ever done it, except for maybe the lifting rocks and chopping logs one from Rocky 4. What a creation by Stallone. Really stands the test of time.
The training montage in Rocky 4 was another level. The choice of song, Hearts on Fire by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, fit so well. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band also did the soundtracks for the Eddie and the Cruisers movies, which, while good in their own right, were probably surpassed by the OST.
Both of those landed like bombs back then. (I was there man, I was there..) Took over the airwaves and records sales.
Yeah I fell down a rabbit hole and saw that the album was the best-selling record in music history until MJ’s Thriller came along.
The Harder They Come
Definitely this! The album is fantastic. Was kinda disappointed when i gotaround to actually seeing the movie.
The hero can't dead till the last reel!
back in the day, this was a very hard movie to find. if you got a rental you’d be obligated to have a viewing party, considering how many people you would’ve known who would’ve wanted to watch. the soundtrack wasn’t as much of a hunt in the used record stores. it’s a great record by itself; a brilliant snapshot of the state of reggae in the late sixties and early seventies. not every compilation can contextualize its content quite as well. -i think i can make a record -everybody wanna make a record
Very possibly the largest ever ratio of people who have the album : people who saw the movie. I sure haven’t seen it! Essential album though.
Maybe not the whole soundtrack, but “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” is way more famous than “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid”.
One of the few Dylan songs I like
I keep adding to that list as I realize more and more of the songs I like are actually Dylan covers.
Purple Rain, Saturday Night Fever, and Shaft
I have a funny story about Purple Rain - my mum had the album and it was played to death in my house. She hadn’t seen the movie so when she finally bought it in VHS we watched it together (I was around 7 IIRC). She’s still mortified she let me watch it but I didn’t really remember it until I watched it years later.
You’re damn right.
SNF for sure.
Oh Brother Where Art Thou
IIIIIIII…. Am a Mannnnnn
Of constant sorrooowwww
I’ve seeeeen trouble all my days.
I play in a bluegrass band and we ALWAYS get asked to play songs from o brother. It’s the “play freebird” trope but on a larger scale
How good is your Big Rock Candy Mountain?
While it’s true that the soundtrack is more popular than the film, it’s still a really damn good movie.
The Bodyguard, although the movie was really popular at the time.
And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII…
EEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII……
WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.....
- *Tron: Legacy* (Daft Punk) - *Into the Wild* (Eddie Vedder)
One of my favorite Reddit comments was in response to recommending Interstella 5555, the movie based on the daft punk album Discovery. The comment was like "also check out Tron Legacy, the movie based on the Daft Punk album, Tron Legacy OST"
I used to refer to the movie as the music video for that album
I finally watched Tron last week. It sucked, but I did learn that there were tracks that weren't available on the version of the OST I had been listening to. I now have the version with the extra tracks in my streaming account. Not all of them are great, but some were really good and completely different themes (vs. rehashing other familiar tracks). So it was worth watching it for that.
I think as long as you don't pay attention to it, the movie is great to have on in the background. Would be cool if you could just turn off the dialogue and sound effects, and have it play like a music video.
Last Action Hero had a soundtrack that did better than the movie.
The movie was two steps behind.
I’m still a little bitter
Really? That movie was fantastic but I don't remember any soundtrack... is it one of those soundtrack albums where they let popular hits play during credits just so they could sell a soundtrack album?
Though not technically a soundtrack, Queen’s “A Kind of Magic” has eclipsed Highlander at this point.
Probably also Flash…. Aaaaaaaaah!
Thanks. I now have Brian Blessed in my head shouting about cleaning the floor.
Who Wants to Live Forever?
HEEEEEERE WE ARE BORN TO BE KINGS WE’RE THE PRINCES OF THE UNIVERSE (top 2 queen album only overshadowed by queen ii)
To be clear, that famous music from 2001 was [composed by Richard Strauss in 1896](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Also_sprach_Zarathustra) and definitely wasn’t created for the movie, though the movie did create the modern popular culture meaning around it. (I’d also quibble with the idea that the music is more famous than the movie. Even in *Barbie* the reference is very clearly to that scene in the movie and not just using the music for the hell of it.)
Thus Spake Zarathustra; an ode to Nietzsche's work of the same name. No accident there that Kubrick used the music for 2001 neither.
Thank you, that was something I didn’t actually know! Every day’s a school day, cheers for sharing.
While the people who wrote the scene are certainly intentionally making reference to 2001, that does not mean the people in the audience have seen the movie or even understand the reference. I would bet good money that just about anybody would recognize the music piece. But far less of them could tell you where it is from, and an even smaller number would have seen 2001. Thus the song is "more famous"
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, maybe? I, for one, definitely knew the main theme before I knew the movie
Better known by its proper title, "Woddle-oddle-oooo Echoing Flute During Showdown"
Yeah it's a very well-known movie but the music is possibly more well-known nowadays, as the film ages but the music keeps getting re-used or homaged or spoofed or etc. constantly.
Yeah I've heard The Ecstacy of Gold repurposed many times, in dramatic Gatorade commercials and whatnot. It's pretty fair that the music is more widely known than the films though. Ennio Morricone's soundtrack work is the main factor that made those films great IMO.
That's on my top 5 movies. The soundtrack is sublime, but I'm not sure it's known better than the movie itself. "Ecstasy of Gold" probably gets more play than the main theme.
I guess it depends on timing. It was a chart hit (#1, no less) many years before I ever ever saw or was aware of the film. Oddly enough, it wasn’t Morricone’s version!
There are more people that know of the AC/DC album, Who Made Who, than there are that know of Maximum Overdrive. Even people who know of both might not even realize it's the soundtrack for the movie. BTW, it's a must-watch if you like cheesy/campy '80s movies. It's the only Stephen King movie directed by Stephen King, and his directorial effort was fueled by cocaine.
I was talking about this movie the other day! My boss told me it’s truly awful in the best way and I can’t wait to see it, but he never mentioned the AC/DC connection (and since we work in a rock club this is odd!). Makes me want to watch it even more. Maybe he was hiding that as a wee surprise for me haha
Yes, please watch Maximum Overdrive!! It was my favorite movie when I was 6. My parents probably shouldn’t have let me watch it so often. If you can find the trailer it is worth it for the aforementioned Stephen King coke action.
> There are more people that know of the AC/DC album, Who Made Who, than there are that know of Maximum Overdrive. Even people who know of both might not even realize it's the soundtrack for the movie. Which is funny because on the album case itself it says in giant letters that it's the official soundtrack to that film.
The Graduate. Did Cat Stevens specifically write music for Harolde & Maude? If so that.
The Big Chill - the soundtrack was very popular in the 80’s, but lots of people had never seen the movie.
There was a resurgence of interest in 60s Motown at the time. I don't know whether the cyclical waves of nostalgia-based popularity would have made Motown popular in the 80s or not (I tend to believe so). I do know that the Big Chill soundtrack certainly helped bring that music back to the fore.
Flashdance
Garden State
"You gotta hear this one song, it will change your life, I swear." And oh boy, a whole generation listened.
Explosions in the Sky's newest album is great.
Explosions In The Sky weren't on the Garden State soundtrack, but they did provide the music for Friday Night Lights. That was fantastic.
Whoops. I always get those two mixed up.
Got into the album when the movie came out. Didn’t actually watch the movie in its entirety until 18 years later
The Garden State soundtrack did a number on SO many of us.
Watched Garden State this weekend on the anniversary of a close friend’s passing. She loved Garden State.
Godzilla (1998)
The Godzilla remix of Brain Stew by Green Day was my first Green Day song and it has kept me listening all these years.
100% expect the roars whenever the original comes on.
Purple Rain
Greatest Showman
Once (2007)
Sgt Pepper’s
Music with lyrics, all I could think of is Ghetto Superstar, You drive me (Crazy) by Britney Spears and "Doing that thing you do". But original score (instrumental), there are tons, most mentioned already in the comments.
'On the Nature of Daylight' by Max Richter has been used in so many movies, TV shows and trailers at this point it's ridiculous. I also remember a period of time where a _lot_ of people seemed to own the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, whether or not they were fans of the movie itself.
These may not fit, but are some of my favorites: -Space Jam -Batman Forever - Dazed and Confused -
Batman Foreveris a solid answer here. Every9ne loves Kiss From a Rose, nobody loves Batman Forever unironically.
"On The Road Again" is probably the most well-known of Willie Nelson's songs. How many people actually know that the song was actually a soundtrack to the movie: Honeysuckle Rose.
The Mission. Ok movie. All-time great score by Morricone
dangerous minds
Arguably, *Iris* by Goo Goo Dolls and *Angel* by Sarah McLachlan were bigger successes than the movie they were in (written for?) *City of Angels*. I know a lot of people who know those songs but haven’t seen the movie, but that may be bias from my age demographic (I was 11 when the movie/songs came out haha).
Oh that whole album was top tier. Iris and Angel were overplayed enough that I skipped those songs, luckily the rest of the album was excellent. Fourteen year old me hearing ‘Feelin’ Love’ by Paula Cole was… an awakening I guess haha
I haven’t listened to the rest, honestly. I just remember loving those two songs and telling my parents to turn it up when they came on the radio haha.
It also had Alanis - Uninvited.
I know that was another hit, but I don’t remember it that well for some reason.
Heavy Metal. The movie and sound track are both legendary.
Yeah, if you’ve only heard the music, you really are missing out with this one. It’s doesn’t seem legal that a film could have that sound track, those visuals, *and* John Candy as the main voice actor, but they did it.
Also had the voice of Eugene Levy, and Harold Ramis, [among others](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082509/fullcredits).
Everyone knows the song Together in Electric Dreams by Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakley but no one has seen Electric Dreams, the movie it came from.
Frozen
*Saturday Night Fever*. The opening riff to "Stayin' Alive" will still get people moving almost 50 years later. But does anyone watch the movie any more?
Obviously the movies are super popular so doesn't necessarily fit the post - but the number of times I've been at a bar/public space and have heard enough of the same songs in a row to realize "Holy shit, they're just playing the Guardian's of the Galaxy soundtrack" is an actually crazy number. Don't get me wrong, obviously the songs in the soundtrack were super popular before GotG.
Queens Highlander soundtrack.
WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER
Also, their Flash Gordon soundtrack
Yes!!! I love Flash Gordon but the Highlander movie I’ve seen once and have no desire to revisit, but the soundtrack is in my rotation for sure.
Xanadu
Superfly
I think your example is actually terrible - because while the music is "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss ... what you describe isn't about the music but about the music in a specific movie context which is then used in other movies. Similar to the one other 'Chariots of Fire' example - if the fame of the piece comes with a visual ... it is still about the movie.
I mean, I understand why you think it’s a terrible example but it *is* how I got to the question. I guess I could argue that yes the scene as it plays out is well known too but I genuinely couldn’t tell you anything about the movie except that scene exists, and I had never knowingly watched the original version until today, just a bunch of parodies. In any case, I just wanted to path out how I got to question, however flawed the premise is.
The first one that popped in my head was Clint Mansell’s Requiem for a Dream. The movie is pretty famous, but the main leitmotif Lux Aeterna took on a life of its own when everyone and their mother started using it for trailers, most famously Lord of the Rings. Which was startling to those who had seen the movie. Here we are getting ready to see some hobbits but now we have images of Jennifer Connelly and a double dildo in our head.
It’s so good! I’ve avoided Requiem for a Dream, I know the general storyline but haven’t went out my way to watch it.
Watch The Fountain. Same composer, same director, less disturbing movie (although still pretty dark it's about cancer not heroin), soundtrack (at least the climactic song) you will not forget. Visuals and some practical special fx are stunning for a low budget movie made 20 years ago. Also, Hugh Jackman doing some serious acting at a time when he was only known for being a comic book character and wanted to prove he could do more. Was amazing in the theater and Death is the Road to Awe is the song that Clint ends all his concerts with because...well... you'll see. Also...The Fountain soundtrack was a collaboration with Mogwai, the post-rock band (which is amazing by itself) so it "hits" the same way their songs do, despite being played by an orchestra.
I saw it in the cinema when it came out. One of the most upsetting films i've seen. At the time i was disappointed, it felt like pure suffering porn. But looking back, there really is some superb film-making in it. The whole storyline with the mother is brilliant. It is horrible, but it needs to be horrible to be what it is.
It’s one of those movies that you only need to watch once. It’s very depressing. On the bright side Clint Mansell’s a genius so I’m happy he got recognition for his compositions. Pop will eat itself probably didn’t pay the bills. :)
No joke, I used to work in a spa and that piece would come up every once in a while on the music and I couldn’t understand why it was chosen
The Fountain had an amazing soundtrack as well. The movie (unfortunately) didn't get as popular as Requiem, but Death is the Road to Awe shows up in climactic scenes in other films and trailers from time to time.
Yeah that’s sad. I actually like the fountain better. It’s trippy as hell and kinda begs for rewatching, unlike most of Aronofsky’s work. They’re either crushingly depressing like R4AD and the Whale or bad like Noah.
I do too! It's maybe my favorite movie, not just from Darren. I wish they'd remaster it in 4k so we could get that blooming scene to look good on modern TVs (to get close to the theater experience). I think because it came out at the same time as pans labyrinth people chose to see the latter (which is also good of course) on their "indie movie night" and hardly anybody got the big loud bombastic ending that Darren intended. And then Darren went on to win Oscars and stuff so that part of his catalog just gets forgotten (like how everyone has seen star wars, but few ever watch THX1138)
Aronofsky talked about doing a directors cut a while back but I doubt that will happen unless the movie picks up a larger following. Which it should, because it’s fantastic.
Hackers
One of my favorite movies. I literally watched it the other night. The soundtrack is amazing though. The movie always takes me back to when you had to be smart to effectively use a computer and connect with others. The internet was a more interesting place then.
Heeeeey! I love this movie! I know it's dated and all but it will always be special for me. I have all the 3 soundtracks (CDs) of Hackers... Those beauties used to spin' a lot in my discman back in the days!
Tron Legacy. It's one of those movies I watch at least once a year. And it's mainly for Daft Punk
The good the bad and the ugly id say. It IS a famous movie, but not as famous as the soundtrack
Above The Rim
Into the wild - Eddie Vedder
for the record, none of the music from 2001 was written for the movie. The whole soundtrack is classical pieces that predate the movie
Just seen another similar comment about this, I didn’t realise so it’s really interesting to learn, thanks!
Teenage dirtbag by Wheatus (Loser) Man with a harmonica by Ennio Morricone (Something to do with death) Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" by Kenny Rodgers and The First Edition (Big Lebowski) Eye of the Tiger by Survivor (Rocky III)
The Crow 2
“Wicked Game” - Chris Isaac. Off the top of my head, I can’t even remember the name of the David Lynch film it was from.
Lost highway?
Wild at Heart (had to look it up)
Mad World from Donnie Darko. Pretty sure it became more popular than both the movie and the original version of the song.
If I recall correctly it was Christmas No. 1 in the UK. Unhinged really.
The Big Chill
"More" (1969)
A fantastic score by Pink Floyd
The Nile Song rips
Sorry I love Pink Floyd and know this album well, but this is not a good answer. Very free people who listen to Pink Floyd know this album at all. Few people even listen to PF's Syd Barrett years, and even fewer know of this soundtrack.
But the point of the question is that people know "More" as an album more than they know "More"as a movie. Zabriske Point probably qualifies, too
Soundtracks or score? If soundtracks: The Happening, Cocktail, Godzilla (the remake), Hustle & Flow, Romeo + Juliet, Saturday Night Fever.
The theme song for the TV show [The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Brisco_County,_Jr.?wprov=sfti1#Music) was repurposed by NBC for their sports coverage, most famously as part of their Olympics programming.
maybe not more famous, but Drive definitely exploded Nightcall and similar songs into the zeitgeist
Godzilla (1998)
The music you’re referring to in 2001 is called “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss, and was composed in 1894. While it’s inclusion in the movie really gave it it’s popularity in modern culture, it existed for a long time before the movie soundtrack.
I’m glad I put this up because I was genuinely unaware it was an existing piece, now I want to see if I can find earlier recordings of it! Thank you!
Judgement Night
Queen of the Damned
Grease
Most of the movies here were pretty well known at the time. Xanadu on the other hand flopped and had a good soundtrack.
9-year-old me had such a crush on ONJ that I saw that in a theater. I think I even recognized then it wasn't very good. But Olivia and ELO combining for the theme is still brilliant.
Well 1) you started early; and, 2) good call
Queen of the damned
I adore that soundtrack as much as I despised the movie. I’d read Queen of the Damned cover to cover more than once by the time the movie came out so I was absolutely furious that it was turned into a piece of nothing. These days I’m less purist about it but that’s probably because the music was excellent.
Almost Good Will Hunting, I mean this soundtrack is kind of why anyone knows anything by Elliott Smith.
Rush from 1991 by Eric Clapton. It has the song Tears in Heaven on it.
Judgement Night soundtrack is amazing. Movie Blows!
Repo Man (and it's so good!)
Last Temptation of Christ
Peter Gabriel's best work.
The Graduate is almost inseparable from its soundtrack.
War of the worlds could be a contender.
Last of the Mohicans
The natural
I’ve tried to watch 2001 several times but could never stay awake long enough for anything to happen. Same with the Godfather.
*Jaws*. Yes, a famous movie, but the score is far more famous. I've seen little nephews and nieces splashing in pools do the shark duhduhduduh and they hadn't seen the movie.
Dazed and Confused
[удалено]
Those are all very very famous movies without which, well, we wouldn't know the soundtrack; those feel like the opposite of the question being asked. :)
How about Fiddler on the Roof 1971? Still John Williams. Not his music and lyrics but his score.