A soundtrack, also written sound track, can
be recorded music accompanying and synchronized
to the images of a motion picture, book, television
program or video game; a commercially released
soundtrack album of music as featured in the
soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical
area of a film that contains the synchronized
recorded sound.
Origin of the term
In movie industry terminology usage, a sound
track is an audio recording created or used
in film production or post-production. Initially
the dialogue, sound effects, and music in
a film each has its own separate track, and
these are mixed together to make what is called
the composite track, which is heard in the
film. A dubbing track is often later created
when films are dubbed into another language.
This is also known as a M & E track containing
all sound elements minus dialogue which is
then supplied by the foreign distributor in
the native language of its territory.
The contraction soundtrack came into public
consciousness with the advent of so-called
"soundtrack albums" in the late 1940s. First
conceived by movie companies as a promotional
gimmick for new films, these commercially
available recordings were labeled and advertised
as "music from the original motion picture
soundtrack", or "music from and inspired by
the motion picture." These phrases were soon
shortened to just "original motion picture
soundtrack." More accurately, such recordings
are made from a film's music track, because
they usually consist of the isolated music
from a film, not the composite track with
dialogue and sound effects.
The abbreviation OST is often used to describe
the musical soundtrack on a recorded medium,
such as CD, and it stands for Original Soundtrack;
however, it is sometimes also used to differentiate
the original music heard and recorded versus
a rerecording or cover of the music.
Types of recordings
There are five types of soundtrack recordings:
Musical film soundtracks which concentrate
primarily on the songs
(Examples: Grease, Singin' in the Rain)
Film scores which showcase the background
music from non-musicals
(Examples: Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings)
Albums of pop songs heard in whole or part
in the background of non-musicals
(Examples: Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry
Met Sally...)
Video game soundtracks are often released
after a game's release, usually consisting
of the background music from the game's levels,
menus, title screens, promo material, cut-screens
and occasionally sound-effects used in the
game
(Examples: Sonic Heroes, The Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time)
Albums which contain both music and dialogue
from the film, such as the 1968 Romeo and
Juliet, or the first authentic soundtrack
album of The Wizard of Oz.
The soundtrack to the 1937 Walt Disney film
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first
commercially issued film soundtrack. It was
released by RCA Victor Records on multiple
78 RPM discs in January 1938 as Songs from
Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
and has since seen numerous expansions and
reissues.
The first live-action musical film to have
a commercially issued soundtrack album was
MGM’s 1946 film biography of Show Boat composer
Jerome Kern, Till the Clouds Roll By. The
album was originally issued as a set of four
10-inch 78-rpm records. Only eight selections
from the film were included in this first
edition of the album. In order to fit the
songs onto the record sides the musical material
needed editing and manipulation. This was
before tape existed, so the record producer
needed to copy segments from the playback
discs used on set, then copy and re-copy them
from one disc to another adding transitions
and cross-fades until the final master was
created. Needless to say, it was several generations
removed from the original and the sound quality
suffered for it. The playback recordings were
purposely recorded very "dry"; otherwise it
would come across as too hollow sounding in
large movie theatres. This made these albums
sound flat and boxy.
Terminology
MGM Records called these "original cast albums"
in the style of Decca's Broadway show cast
albums mostly because the material on the
disc(s) would not lock to picture, thereby
creating the largest distinction between `Original
Motion Picture Soundtrack' which, in its strictest
sense would contain music that would lock
to picture if the home user would play one
alongside the other and `Original Cast Soundtrack'
which in ITS' strictest sense would refer
to studio recordings of film music by the
original film cast, but which had been edited
and/or rearranged for time and content and
would NOT lock to picture.
In reality however, soundtrack producers remain
ambiguous about this distinction, and titles
in which the music on the album does lock
to picture may be labeled as OCS and music
from an album that does not lock to picture
may be referred to as OMPS.
The phrase "recorded directly from the soundtrack"
was used for awhile in the 70's, 80's and
90's to differentiate material that would
lock to picture from that which would not,
but again, in part because many `film takes'
actually consisted of several different attempts
at the song and edited together to form the
master, that term as well became nebulous
and vague over time when, in cases where the
master take used in the film could not be
found in its' isolated form, the aforementioned
alternate masters and alternate vocal and
solo performances which COULD be located were
included in their place.
As a result of all this nebulosity, over the
years the term "soundtrack" began to be commonly
applied to any recording from a film, whether
taken from the actual film soundtrack or re-recorded
in the studio at an earlier or later time.
The phrase is also sometimes incorrectly used
for Broadway cast recordings. While it is
correct in some instances to call a "soundtrack"
a "cast recording" it is never correct to
call a "cast recording" a "soundtrack."
Contributing to the vagueness of the term
are projects such as The Sound of Music Live!
which was filmed live on the set for an NBC
holiday season special first broadcast in
2013. The album released three days before
the broadcast contained studio pre-recordings
of all the songs used in the special, performed
by the original cast therefrom, but due to
the fact that only the orchestral portion
of the material from the album is the same
as that used in the special,, this creates
a similar technicality due to the fact that
although the instrumental music bed from the
CD will lock to picture, the vocal performances
will not, although it IS possible to create
a complete soundtrack recording by lifting
the vocal performances from the DVD, erasing
the alternate vocal masters from the CD and
combining the two.
Among MGM's most notable soundtrack albums
were those of the films Good News, Easter
Parade, Annie Get Your Gun, Singin' in the
Rain, Show Boat, The Band Wagon, Seven Brides
for Seven Brothers, and Gigi.
Film score albums
Film score albums did not really become popular
until the LP era, although a few were issued
in 78-rpm albums. Alex North’s score for
the 1951 film version of A Streetcar Named
Desire was released on a 10-inch LP by Capitol
Records and sold so well that the label later
re-released it on one side of a 12-inch LP
with some of Max Steiner's film music on the
reverse.
Steiner’s score for Gone with the Wind has
been recorded many times, but when the film
was reissued in 1967, MGM Records finally
released an album of the famous score recorded
directly from the soundtrack. Like the 1967
re-release of the film, this version of the
score was artificially "enhanced for stereo".
In recent years, Rhino Records has released
a 2-CD set of the complete Gone With the Wind
score, restored to its original mono sound.
One of the biggest-selling film scores of
all time was John Williams's music from the
movie Star Wars. Many film score albums go
out-of-print after the films finish their
theatrical runs and some have become extremely
rare collectors’ items.
Composite film tracks included on record
In a few rare instances an entire film dialogue
track was issued on records. The 1968 Franco
Zeffirelli film of Romeo and Juliet was issued
as a 4-LP set, as a single LP with musical
and dialogue excerpts, and as an album containing
only the film's musical score. The ground-breaking
film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was issued
by Warner Bros Records as a 2-LP set containing
virtually all the dialogue from the film.
RCA Victor also issued a double-album set
what was virtually all the dialogue from the
film soundtrack of A Man for All Seasons,
Decca Records issued a double-album for Man
of La Mancha and Buena Vista Records issued
a similar double-album for its' soundtrack
for The Hobbit.
Movie and television soundtracks
The term soundtrack now most commonly refers
to the music used in a movie, or to an album
sold containing that music. Sometimes, the
music has been recorded just for the film
or album. Often, but not always, and depending
on the type of movie, the soundtrack album
will contain portions of the score, music
composed for dramatic effect as the movie's
plot occurs.
In 1908, Camille Saint-Saëns composed the
first music specifically for use in a motion
picture, and releasing recordings of songs
used in films became prevalent in the 1930s.
Henry Mancini, who won an Emmy Award and two
Grammys for his soundtrack to Peter Gunn,
was the first composer to have a widespread
hit with a song from a soundtrack.
By convention, a soundtrack record can contain
all kinds of music including music "inspired
by" but not actually appearing in the movie;
the score contains only music by the original
film's composer(s).
Video game soundtracks
Soundtrack may also refer to music used in
video games. While sound effects were nearly
universally used for action happening in the
game, music to accompany the gameplay was
a later development. Rob Hubbard and Martin
Galway were early composers of music specifically
for video games for the 1980s Commodore 64
computer. Koji Kondo was an early and important
composer for Nintendo games. As the technology
improved, polyphonic and often orchestral
soundtracks replaced simple monophonic melodies
starting in the late 1980s and the soundtracks
to popular games such as the Dragon Quest
and Final Fantasy series began to be released
separately. In addition to compositions written
specifically for video games, the advent of
CD technology allowed developers to incorporate
licensed songs into their soundtrack. Furthermore,
when Microsoft released the Xbox in 2001,
it featured an option allowing users to customize
the soundtrack for certain games by ripping
a CD to the hard-drive.
Theme park, cruise ship and event soundtracks
As in Sound of Music Live! the music or dialogue
in question was prepared specifically for
use in or at an event such as that described
above.
In the case of theme parks, actors may be
ensconced in large costumes where their faces
may be obscured. They mime along to a prerecorded
music, effects and narration track that may
sound as if it was lifted from a movie, or
may sound as if it had been overly dramatized
for effect.
In the case of cruise ships, the small stage
spaces do not allow for full orchestration,
so that possibly the larger instruments may
be pre-recorded onto a backing track and the
remaining instruments may play live, or the
reverse may occur in such instances as Elvis:
The Concert or Sinatra: His Voice. His World.
His Way both of which use isolated vocal and
video performances accompanied by a live band.
In the case of event soundtracks, large public
gatherings such as Hands Across America, The
Live Aid Concert, the 200th Anniversary Celebration
of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia,
The MUSE Concerts or the various Greenpeace
events all had special music, effects and
dialogue written especially for the event
which later went on sale to the record and
later video-buying public.
Book soundtracks
Only a few cases exist of an entire soundtrack
being written specifically for a book.
A soundtrack for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings was composed by
Craig Russell for the San Luis Obispo Youth
Symphony. Commissioned in 1995, it was finally
put on disk in 2000 by the San Luis Obispo
Symphony.
For the 1996 Star Wars novel Shadows of the
Empire, Lucasfilm chose Joel McNeely to write
a score. This was an eccentric, experimental
project, in contrast to all other soundtracks,
as the composer was allowed to convey general
moods and themes, rather than having to write
music to flow for specific scenes. A project
called "Sine Fiction" has made some soundtracks
to novels by science fiction writers like
Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, and has
thus far released 19 soundtracks to science-fiction
novels or short stories. All of them are available
for free download.
Author L. Ron Hubbard composed and recorded
a soundtrack album to his novel Battlefield
Earth entitled Space Jazz. He marketed the
concept album as "the only original sound
track ever produced for a book before it becomes
a movie". There are two other soundtracks
to Hubbard novels, being Mission Earth by
Edgar Winter and To the Stars by Chick Corea.
The 1985 novel Always Coming Home by Ursula
K. Le Guin, originally came in a box set with
an audiocassette entitled Music and Poetry
of the Kesh, featuring three performances
of poetry, and ten musical compositions by
Todd Barton.
In comics, Daniel Clowes' graphic novel Like
a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron had an official
soundtrack album. The original black-and-white
Nexus #3 from Capitol comics included the
"Flexi-Nexi" which was a soundtrack flexi-disc
for the issue. Trosper by Jim Woodring included
a soundtrack album composed and performed
by Bill Frisell, and the Absolute Edition
of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:
Black Dossier is planned to include an original
vinyl record. The Crow released a soundtrack
album called Fear and Bullets to coincide
with the limited edition hardcover copy of
the graphic novel. The comic book Hellblazer
released an annual with a song called Venus
of the Hardsell, which was then recorded and
a music video to accompany with.
As Internet access became more widespread,
a similar practice developed of accompanying
a printed work with a downloadable theme song,
rather than a complete and physically published
album. The theme songs for Nextwave, Runaways,
Achewood, Dinosaur Comics and Killroy and
Tina are examples of this.
In Japan, such examples of music inspired
by a work and not intended to soundtrack an
radio play or motion picture adaptation of
it are known as an "image album" or "image
song," though this definition also includes
such things as film score demos inspired by
concept art and songs inspired by a TV series
which do not feature in it. Many audio books
have some form of musical accompaniment, but
these are generally not extensive enough to
be released as a separate soundtrack.
See also
Audio restoration
Film score
Filmi - term used for Indian film soundtracks
Image album
Image song
List of soundtrack composers
Cast recording – for musical theater
Soundtrack album
SoundtrackNet
Musivisual Language
jingle
References
External links
the Soundtrack INFO project
Internet Movie Soundtracks Database
