Classic 100

This weekend I’m looking forward to listening to a a lot of film, tv and game soundtracks on the radio as ABC Classic FM is broadcasting their annual Top 100 series: this year’s theme is “music for the screen”.

Listeners got to vote for ten of their favourite pieces of screen music, and to also say which piece is your most favourite – I chose The Mandalorian although I could also have chosen the Civilization IV theme music. I found myself making choices not just based on how “good” or catchy or evocative the music was, but also based on how much I’ve enjoyed the movie or tv show. And of course this meant I had to choose the music from Civ IV as well as The Sims, because I enjoyed those games so much. The Civ IV music definitely ranks as some of my favourite ever game music.

It was very difficult to just narrow it down to ten pieces of music. I could have easily chosen all the very famous/striking pieces, like Jaws and Psycho and Twin Peaks. And I’m still a bit surprised at myself for not including a single Ennio Morricone track – for instance the theme for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. And instead of the Star Wars theme which is probably one of the most famous John Williams works – or the Superman theme – I chose Indiana Jones because I’ve enjoyed those movies a lot. ** SIGH edited the following morning – this is where overthinking things can cause problems. I agonised spent a lot a bit of time thinking about my choices and ended up having to pull pieces that I really wanted to include. Like the music from the other Pride and Prejudice. Brokeback Mountain by Gustavo Santaolalla. Twin Peaks by Angelo Badalamenti (gosh, part of the soundtrack to my twenties; RIP Julee Cruise). Brideshead Revisited by Geoffrey Burgon. And I deliberated agonised over whether to include TWO John Williams pieces in my list and obviously ended up doing so. (Different versions of my list had so many different themes – arrgh! Talk about overthinking. You might be thinking that I like music? Yes. Yes I do.)**

I wonder if any of my choices will make the top ten.

Oh, and apparently we can also play Classic 100 Bingo. Hours of entertainment!