Music and the Movies - Part 1

Now that title alone conjures up a mix of images, you cannot think of one without the other.

Before the 70's music and the movies was very much tied to soundtracks of stage shows and books promoted to the screen.

The Bond films signaled the first shift in trend in making the title song as big as the film. It was always hard to detach the song in your mind from the movie itself.

Films such as The Graduate and the cult classic Easy Rider broke new ground with pop culture and rock music.

The 70's saw films such as The Sting, Jaws, The Godfather and Star Wars with hugely popular soundtracks. Who can forgot the classic theme to Jaws?!

Even The Exorcist had a successful selling soundtrack, helped in no small part to the music of Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield which propelled Richard Branson to the big league through his Virgin record label.

By this time film studios and record labels had begun to realize that bringing in established recording artists to generate film soundtracks would tap into the baby boomers market who were buying music in the millions.

The Bond films for example kept in tune with the times using Paul McCartney and Carly Simon, both huge recording artists of the decade.

Barbara Streisand enjoyed new commercial success in A Star is Born with Kris Kristofferson, with the theme tune Evergreen and the accompanying album selling a respectable 15 million copies.

Shortly following this Saturday Night Fever arrived and movies and music changed forever.

Released in 1978, the album to date has sold over a staggering 40 million sales. It was the 5th best selling album of the 70's and ended up being bigger than the film itself. It is the eighth best selling album of all time and to this day it is still seen as the movie soundtrack of the disco period. It also propelled the Bee Gees back in to the big time and the album won a Grammy award.

The same year Grease was released and became the 15th best selling album of the decade. It has sold over 28 million.

From these two films alone singles such as Night Fever, Staying Alive, How Deep is Your Love, Disco Inferno, You're The One That I Want, Summer Nights and Hopelessly Devoted to You dominated world sales.

In few instances however the music was bigger and more successful than the film. Take the film and soundtrack Xanadu in 1980. The film was a commercial flop, yet the music soundtrack was a commercial success around the world including the hits by Olivia Newton John Magic, Xanadu, and Suddenly performed with Cliff Richard. The soundtrack also encompasses a trio of hits from the popular ELO.

Despite this, the 80's would go on to prove and surprise with film sound track successes that would dwarf the previous decades.

Join me next month when I explore the film soundtrack successes of the 80's, 90's and beyond.