This weekend, I am lucky enough to be attending the Telluride Film Festival, and it’s gotten me thinking about all the wonderful music that is written for movies. I always love the orchestral masterpieces of movie scores, but one thing I love even more than that is when famous artists help write songs for films. Movies like “Snow White & The Huntsman” and “Her” have had artists write and sing songs to add to the movie as a whole. I’m a huge fan of movies, so when artists I love work with films, I always get very excited.
The James Bond series always features songs by famous artists that end up being huge hits. For the Bond movie “Skyfall,” Adele sang the iconic theme song. It is a beautiful orchestral ballad that obviously takes advantage of the immense talent that is Adele. “Skyfall” the song features the widely-known James Bond theme, as do most of the songs that are written for the James Bond movies. It brings a cool cohesion to the James Bond series and makes it a sought-after musical gig. No matter what James Bond movie comes out, there will always be an original song commissioned, that usually is wonderful; “Skyfall” is definitely one of those.
“The Moon Song,” written and performed by Karen O and featuring Ezra Koenig, was a main part of the movie Her and was even nominated for Best Original Song in this past Emmys. It’s a cute and simple love song that was featured not only in the credits, but also in the movie, through covers by both Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. This easy, yet beautiful song wasn’t just a song for the movie but was actually part of the film.
At times, songs artists write for movies end up being some of those artists’ top hits. In Lana Del Rey’s case, a song she co-wrote for the movie “The Great Gatsby” happens to be her second most listened to song on her Spotify, with over 69 million listens. “Young & Beautiful,” the haunting love song for the movie, ended up reaching number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, putting it at one of her highest charting songs. This just goes to show the recognition an artist can get through their connection with movies and the amazing things that can come together through the combination of two forms of entertainment.
For the movie “Snow White & The Huntsman,” Florence + The Machine created one of the best original songs for a movie I’ve ever heard, “Breath Of Life.” This song takes Florence’s operatic voice, a large choir, and a full orchestra and creates a masterpiece. This epic song floats between rock and classical, creating a dark, yet heroic piece of music. It’s the evil queen’s song, and Florence perfectly encompasses her malevolent aura. It’s actually one of my all-time favorite Florence + The Machine songs; the combination of Florence’s powerhouse voice and the full orchestra is what really does it for me.
Even recent chart-topper Lorde has created music for movies. She recently did a cover of R.E.M.’s classic “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” for the movie “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” With her minor rendition of the song, she gave it the shadowy, creepy twist that Lorde does so well. Like a lot of other original songs for movies, it uses a combination of classical orchestra and the artist’s own unique style. This song must have made a huge impact, because Lorde recently announced that she will be the head curator of the album for the next Hunger Games movie. This means she will be writing an original song for it, as well as picking the songs that will be featured on the soundtrack. I’m definitely excited for that.
The best part of these artists creating music for movies is that it brings two of my favorite forms of entertainment together. I always look forward to original songs from movies and, like the songs mentioned above, they are usually great. It will be interesting to see what Lorde does with the “Mockingjay” album, and I’m excited for all the wonderful songs to be featured in movies in the near future.
