Music can inspire a whole host of things: happiness, sadness, anger, calmness, and everything in between. My favourite type of music revolves around film and TV scores and soundtracks. This genre particularly captivates me because it excels at evoking deep emotions, as it must align perfectly with the scenes on screen.
Sometimes, the impact of a score comes from just a few simple chords or notes. For instance, the initial rapid tingling of a violin at the very beginning of Mission: Impossible sets the stage for excitement and tension. Similarly, the booming baritone from the horn in Inception can send chills down your spine, immediately transporting you into its surreal world. It’s fascinating how a piece of music can instantly take you right back to a specific moment or scene in a film, bypassing all logic and settling straight into your emotional memory.
On the other end of the spectrum, certain soundtracks can almost haunt the scenes they accompany, casting a negative spell. A perfect example of this is “Bare Island” from the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer. The way the score envelops the cinematic visuals and just goes on and on as the scenes goes on and on, I find it the funniest song committed to film. You should check it out.
For me, music has the power to transport me to worlds of my own creation. Take the soundtrack of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, for instance; it sparked my imagination to write a horror-based episode for my project, ONE EPIC YEAR. More details about that story can be found in How/Why I came up with ONE EPIC YEAR. This is where things get interesting: Kingsman: The Golden Circle is far from a horror movie, and its soundtrack does not evoke traditional horror vibes at all. Yet, for me, it managed to harness its emotional undertones to craft a narrative that adds a layer of intrigue and unexpected twists to the show that simply hasn’t been done before.
It’s this creative melding of genres through sound that excites me. Music can serve as a bridge, seamlessly connecting disparate ideas and themes, leading to innovations that surprise both creators and their audiences. With every note, we can challenge expectations and explore new realms of storytelling, demonstrating just how influential a well-composed score can be.
Some other examples;
Let’s Ride by Brian Tyler from Power Rangers
- In the original movie, it’s an eery introduction to their new found powers and and build up to the reveal of the zords as they race across the landscape to do battle with the evil monsters.
- In One Epic Year, it accompanies the rings the main characters have collected throughout the year, begin warm and before they know it, the rings burst into flames and whizz around them. Growing into fiery portals that show the main protagonists their highlights from the year as they’ve worked together. Before stopping behind them and they jump into the portals. Where they gain their armour and superpowers to fight the oncoming army of aliens.
If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher
- Originally a very popular song, and if you grew up in the eighties and nineties was murdered at almost every karaoke night going. Along with a number of Whitney Houston songs.
- In One Epic Year, it’s played at the funeral of Jim, the main characters father figure and mysterious entity that brought them together. Amused by this the four main characters jump up at the chorus to sing along to add comedy to a sad dramatic scene. It’s also a little easter egg as Jim is a time traveller, who could and did turn back time.
At The Speed of Force by Junkie XL from Justice League
- In the Original, a haunting score as The Flash stops time in an instant as the world is decimated around him and he drums up the strength and courage to run faster than he has ever ran before to reverse time and help save the day.
- In One Epic Year, a dark entity from the future drags one of the main protagonists through the time vortex. Where he flies through seeing a sped up timeline of his friends being killed and the landscape around him disintegrate. He see’s the love of his life and he panics trying to grab a hold of her hand to save her, but he can’t an she disappears while being brutally pulled apart by aliens. Until, he finally arrives in post-apocalyptic London forty years from now.
Each one of the songs on the following Spotify playlist has a very specific part in the construction of the story behind One Epic Year. It is a very eclectic collection of songs, but each one of them has a place in the show’s DNA.
I have a listen below and be transported to the world of One Epic Year.
That Jamie Bloke Author of the genre bending ONE EPIC YEAR 