Alan Silvestri is an American composer that started out at the age of 21 and hasn’t slowed down since. Composing the music for a low-budget film called The Doberman Gang was one of his first, but when he met up with famed director Robert Zemeckis his career really started to take off. Silvestri is known for producing powerful works that lift up the picture no matter if it’s critically acclaimed or not. His use of powerful undertones and triumphant pieces is so masterful that despite not knowing his name many people have grown very attached to the movies that he’s written the original score for in the past. Even when his music is a little more whimsical than powerful it’s something that will tend to stick in your mind since it fits the movie so well.
Take a listen to some of these and you’ll see.
5. Overboard
The movie has a more back country feel to it than some of his other scores but it accentuates the lifestyle and the vast contrast between the characters of Dean Profitt and Joanna Stayton perfectly. One of them is a well to do socialite from New York and the other is a carpenter for hire who’s trying to make ends meet in what’s supposed to be the countryside of Oregon. The music is light enough that it makes the movie just a little more fun.
4. Back to the Future
This same music set the tone for all three movies but it was the most masterful in the first one since it hadn’t been heard before and as a result no one saw it coming. It gave a definite lift to the film in a way that made it triumphant and put an exclamation point on Marty and Doc’s adventure so as to say that they’d really done something spectacular.
3. The Avengers
There’s a very real sense of danger, apprehension, and a call to action in this piece that fits the idea of the Avengers. It builds up the moment in such a way that you get the idea that things are about to break off or have already done so and the call to the team has gone through to assemble and make their way forth to do battle with the bad guys. The scenes in which this music sounds are usually quite epic.
2. Predator
It takes a little bit for this piece to really get rolling but once it does there’s a big reveal followed by a lot of lower, reclusive notes that seem to indicate that something sinister is about to happen but we won’t know what until later. As the music continues to move forward you get this sense of impending danger that is just barely offset by the fact that feeling of preparedness that offers some kind of hope.
1. The Polar Express
There’s nothing else to say about this piece except that it starts off with a grand flourish and doesn’t slow down much throughout. This movie is all about belief and the idea that believing is seeing more often than not. In that manner the music is given a little more power to back up this claim.
Alan Silvestri knows very well what he’s doing, and it’s awesome.
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