10 Best Randy Newman Movie Scores
10 Best Randy Newman Movie Scores
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Randy Newman is one of the most talented musicians in Hollywood. His work on various film scores is iconic and span several major genres.
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Randy Newman’s career in music has taken him from the heights of rock and roll stardom to the silver screen. As a film composer, Newman showed that he was up to the challenge of scoring some of the screen’s biggest hit films.
Whether he is composing for an epic drama, a period piece, or even a children’s cartoon film, Newman always brings a signature style to his work. After a fifty-plus-year career, Randy Newman has created some of the most beautiful and memorable scores of all time.
Parenthood (1989)
Stream On Peacock
When Randy Newman scored the 1989 comedy Parenthood, he threw in every trick he knew. The film is a cute and heartwarming story about the interweaving lives of the Buckman family as they make it day to day. Newman’s score is appropriately bouncy and has all of the trademark highlights of one of his works.
It seamlessly pivots from big and grandiose to small and intimate to match the different moods of the film’s story. He is able to play with more traditional instrumentation, such as strings and brass, while also throwing in his signature New Orleans Jazz style.
Cars (2006)
Stream On Disney+
By the time Newman scored Cars, he had already established himself as the sound of Pixar films. However, Cars offered him a chance to experiment with different sounds that branched out from the Jazz heavy scores of his other Pixar works. The film follows a race car who gets stuck in a small town as he tries to work back up to the big race.
The Cars score is classic Newman in its orchestration but it also contains elements of hard rock and country music to match the environments of the film. Newman had experience with sports style scores and the music for the race sequences is appropriately exhilarating.
Maverick (1994)
Stream On Starz & IMDb TV
Randy Newman had worked in several film genres by the time he was tasked with scoring the western Maverick. The movies follows a professional gambler in the old west who has to make money before he can enter into a big poker tournament.
Maverick offered a unique challenge for Newman as a composer as the western genre comes with certain expectations. Newman was able to give the film the sweeping grandeur that is expected of a western while also throwing in his signature jazz touches. Though the film may sound less like other Newman scores, it shows his strength as a composer that he is able to work in other soundscapes.
Ragtime (1981)
Rent On Amazon Prime
Ragtime was a project unlike anything that Newman had ever worked on before. The classic musical film tells the story of racial tension in early twentieth-century New York, and the lives of various families. The challenge came from having to not only provide the score but lyrics for the musical sequences as well.
Newman had proven in his solo music career that he was a master storyteller with his lyrics, thus his work on Ragtime is top-notch. The time period of the film fits his musical style perfectly and he is able to put not only his composing chops on display but his skill as a lyricist. Providing a score is difficult enough for a feature film but Newman proved he could wear several hats on the project.
A Bug’s Life (1998)
Stream On Disney+
After his groundbreaking first outing with Pixar, Newman was tapped once again to score their second film. A Bug’s Life is an adventure comedy about an inventive ant who must work with a band of circus bugs to save his colony from evil grasshoppers.
Newman understood what was expected of him and his score is just as fun and jaunty as his previous Pixar outing. He proved he could work cleverly with scope and scale with his music by shrinking the orchestrations down in scenes that needed simplicity. The film is about a tiny world and the music reflects both the smallness of the world and the overwhelming size of Flik’s adventure.
The Princess And The Frog (2009)
Stream On Disney+
After establishing himself as the official sound of Pixar films, Newman was tapped to score one of Disney’s feature animated films. The Princess and the Frog is a clever spin on the classic fairytale set in Jazz Age New Orleans. Newman’s jazz-influenced style was put on full display and he was able to play around with his technique.
A film about New Orleans and Randy Newman was a match made in cinematic heaven. Long a proponent for New Orleans Jazz, Newman was in his element when scoring the film. However, the composer didn’t play it safe and was very adventurous with his compositions, expressing the excitement and whimsy of the fairytale in the music.
Marriage Story (2019)
Stream On Netflix
Netflix’s Marriage Story is a comedic drama about the collapse of a relationship and how the two parents co-exist for the sake of their child. The film is at times both heartwarming and tragic and gave Randy Newman an opportunity to explore the world of the film musically in a way that only he could.
Newman’s score is both light and plucky, as well as sad and morose. He cleverly uses the individual instruments to suggest certain emotions and knows exactly when to lay the music on thick and when to play it soft. The film could have easily fallen into melodrama and it was up to Newman’s score to keep the film grounded in reality.
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Stream On Disney+
Once could have been a fluke, and twice a coincidence, but by his third outing with Pixar, there was no doubt about his skills as a composer. Monsters, Inc. is about a world of monsters that is powered by the screams of children.
Instead of playing it safe, Newman produced one of his brightest and most adventurous scores. The score for Monsters, Inc. fulfills all of the necessary things that a film score should do and it hits the emotional beats perfectly. What it also does is establish a tone with its quick and jazzy hooks. The music from the film is instantly recognizable and proved that Newman wasn’t going to rest on his laurels and go back to the same wells he had tapped before.
The Natural (1984)
Stream On Showtime
Sports films often come with certain expectations from the viewer, and an exciting score is one of those expectations. The Natural is a story of a down-and-out baseball player who gets another shot at glory with a big league team. Newman proved that he was not only up for the challenge but could exceed everyone’s expectations.
The music for the film is appropriately grandiose for its genre, but it also shows that Newman was explorative. Though the film is set in the early 1900s, the instrumentation includes synthesizers and electronic elements that were unusual to Newman’s composing. The result is that the score is both timeless and very much a product of its time and Newman proved he wasn’t set in his ways musically.
Toy Story (1995)
Stream On Disney+
Pixar took a big risk by producing the film Toy Story. An entirely CG cartoon about toys that come to life was a strange premise and the technical limitations of the time seemed like impossible hurdles. Not only was the film well crafted but the choice of score was one of the things that put it over the top and made it a huge hit.
Randy Newman not only provided beautiful score music but he wrote and sang several songs that would become Disney staples forever. The fun and clever premise is reflected in his score and he showed that he enjoyed making the music. The music perfectly compliments the action on screen and shows that Newman was a master of his craft.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/randy-newman-best-film-scores-music/
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