Facebook with Latestnigeriannews  Twieet with latestnigeriannews  RSS Page Feed
Home  |  All Headlines  |  Punch  |  Thisday  |  Daily Sun  |  Vanguard   |  Guardian  |  The Nation  |  Daily Times  |  Daily Trust  |  Daily Independent
World  |  Sports  |  Technology  |  Entertainment  |  Business  |  Politics  |  Tribune  |  Leadership  |  National Mirror  |  BusinessDay  |  More Channels...

Viewing Mode:

Archive:

  1.     Tool Tips    
  2.    Collapsible   
  3.    Collapsed     
Click to view all Entertainment headlines today

Click to view all Sports headlines today

20 best movie and TV soundtracks of the decade, according to critics

Published by Business Insider on Wed, 11 Dec 2019


Numerous films and TV shows throughout this decade have also featured stunning soundtracks.Whether it's a horror film like 2019's "Midsommar," or a sci-fi show like "Stranger Things," music has been an integral part of film and TV this past decade.Thrillers like "Gone Girl" have also had evocative, tense music throughout, while lighter films like "A Star Is Born" are also known for their music.Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.Film scores dominated critics' favorites among soundtracks aggregated on Metacritic from 2010-2019.Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood stood out as a composer whose every album was a hit, from "Phantom Thread" to "The Master," as did Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, for films like the Oscar-winning "The Social Network."Soundtracks curated by music superstars like Kendrick Lamar's "Black Panther" and Lorde's "Hunger Games: Mockingjay" also scored highly with critics.Because outlets don't regularly review every soundtrack released, notable albums were left off this list, including fan favorites like "La La Land," "Baby Driver," "Drive" and even best score Oscar winners like "The Shape of Water," "Gravity" and others.Here are 20 of the best soundtracks from this decade so far, according to critics.Johnny Greenwood's "Phantom Thread" (2017) score is one of the most critically acclaimed soundtracks of the 2010s.Metacritic Score: 86/100Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood collaborated with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson four times, and "Phantom Thread" is considered by critics to be his best work yet."He matches the eclecticism of Anderson's playlist with a pastiche that draws from Beethovenian harmony, kinetic post-minimalism a la John Adams, and arch, jazz-influenced French modernism," says Winston Cook-Wilson in Spin. "The score also makes room for some of the squeaking and shrieking string-orchestra dissonance that feels wholly Greenwood-esque by this point in his career. Taken together, the music achieves an out-of-time quality while remaining redolent of Anderson's period setting.""Midsommar" (2019) demanded a score that blended daydream and nightmare, and Bobby Krlic delivered.Metacritic Score: 86/100"Midsommar" director Ari Aster listened to Bobby Krlic, aka the Haxan Cloak, as he was writing one of the most critically acclaimed horror movies of the year, and then asked the musician to score the finished product, culminating in a soundtrack as well-received as the film itself."The result is transfixing, gorgeous, and terrifying at once," says Margaret Farrell in Pitchfork. "Even without the film, Krlic's revelatory work stands on its own."Icelandic composer Jhann Jhannsson composed the music for "Mandy" (2018) shortly before his death.Metacritic Score: 85/100The 1980s inspired Nicolas Cage horror film "Mandy" demanded an equally heavy metal and psychedelic musical backing, and Icelandic composer Jhann Jhannsson delivered, working on the soundtrack right up until the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival -- just a month before he died.Katie Rife of The AV Club says the soundtrack marks "a turning point in his musical style, an embrace of the lush and layered as well as the heavy and metallic. Realizing that, and thinking about what could have come next, makes his death all the more tragic."Some critics thought Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' third collaboration with David Fincher on "Gone Girl" (2014) was their best work yet.Metacritic Score: 84/100For their third collaboration of the 2010s after the Oscar-winning "The Social Network" and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," David Fincher tasked Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with scoring the tense and twisty-turny tale of a dysfunction marriage gone very, very wrong. But the resulting album was very, very right."These complicated combinations of sounds and feelings suggest that Reznor and Ross are nearly as skilled at emotional manipulation as the film's characters," said Heather Phares in AllMusic.The first soundtrack from "Stranger Things" (2016) is the highest television soundtrack to make the best-of-the-decade ranking.Metacritic Score: 83/100Netflix's "Stranger Things" is an over-the-top homage to all things '80s, but composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein put together a much more subdued soundtrack to back the monster-fighting story, much to critics' delight."The canvas they paint on is remarkably spare and restrained," said Saby Reyes-Kulkarni in Pitchfork. "At any given point, it feels as if there are only a handful of sounds in the stereo field, and what at first comes off as a limited range slowly reveals itself as the opposite."The beautiful and unusual alien-invasion film "Arrival" (2016) demanded an equally intriguing soundtrack.Metacritic Score: 82/100Jhann Jhannsson's second appearance on this list is also his third collaboration with "Arrival" director Denis Villeneuve, this time crafting a sparse, haunting soundtrack to lay over the story of a scientist who tries to communicate with an alien species that lands on earth.Rob Wacey of AllMusic called the album "a great piece of film score work, delivering menacing, daunting cacophonies of noise that evoke all types of fear, wonder, and intrigue that are evident within the movie itself."Horror remake "Suspiria" (2018) marked the first foray into feature film composing for Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke.Metacritic Score: 82/100According to Elisa Bray in The Independent, Thom Yorke likened composing music for Luca Guadagnino's horror remake to "making spells," fitting for a remake of the classic Dario Argenta film about a Berlin dance academy that descends into nightmare.Bray describes the score as containing "unnerving cinematic ambiencepitch-bending violins, the threatening hum of deep synths interrupted by bursts of soul-juddering sound, and the tension of melodies unresolved. Angular piano motifs return throughout, drawing the listener back into a familiar sense of dread.""Hereditary" (2018) rounds out the horror soundtracks that have dominated the best of the decade.Metacritic Score: 81/100"Hereditary" is the second film of director Ari Aster to make the best soundtracks of the decade list. Once again, Aster turned to an unexpected musician to help him layer this story of a family's nightmarish secrets: Arcade Fire saxophonist Colin Stetson.Zach Kelly of Pitchfork praises the album for its music and also its "willingness to let wide-open trenches of silence do much of the heavy lifting throughout the film, only to slowly suck you back down into a dank well of insular terror after the collective exhale has begun. In these rare moments of calm, Stetson's cautiously beautiful, fairytale-like asides begin to read more and more sinister."The soundtrack to "Black Panther" (2018) was curated by Kendrick Lamar and is one of the few non-scores to make the list.Metacritic Score: 80/100Kendrick Lamar curated the soundtrack for Marvel's "Black Panther" and also sings on five of its tracks, resulting in an album that is critically acclaimed for being anything but another forgettable blockbuster soundtrack."The tracks play it safe, but the project itself does not," says Clayton Purdom in The AV Club, calling the album "an audacious exertion of energy from one of the planet's most universally revered musicians."Oneohtrix Point Never's "Good Time" (2017) album won best Soundtrack at the Cannes Film Festival.Metacritic Score: 80/100Robert Pattinson crime thriller "Good Time" demanded a pulsing electronic music backing and Daniel Lopatin, working under his moniker Oneohtrix Point Never, more than delivered according to critics' sensibilities."It's a masterful job of homage, and all those pulsating synths and cavernous low tones give the film much of its swagger, and they promise to intensify your own, far less exciting commute as well," said Sean O'Neal in The AV Club.Before "Phantom Thread," Johnny Greenwood's "Inherent Vice" (2014) was also lauded by critics.Metacritic Score: 79/100Johnny Greenwood's third collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson on 2014's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" called for a dazed and confused romp through 1970s' Hollywood."The soundtrack is a pungent, incoherent, occasionally haunting trifle," said Jayson Greene in Pitchfork. "The feeling is of a bunch of intelligent and talented people trying on a bunch of funny-colored clothing and giggling at each other. If you're not wearing the costumes, there's a limit to just how entertained by all of it you can be."Legendary composer Ennio Morricone returned to Westerns to score Quentin Tarantino's "Hateful Eight" (2015), to the delight of critics.Metacritic Score: 79/100Quentin Tarantino's "Hateful Eight" marked the first time Ennio Morricone had scored a Western in over 30 years, and the music has more in common with his later, more traditional work, but the master is still at very much at the top of his game."You might guess that after this long, he'd have to make increasingly complex pieces to find new things to say. Yet the opposite is true," said Marc Masters in Pitchfork. "His melodies are still simple, relying on a few notes to form a backbone from which he never strays far. His arrangements and flourishes build momentum, but the core is always powerfully uncluttered. Morricone trusts that a few strong musical ideas can supply lots of atmosphere and emotion throughout an epic-length film.""Stranger Things Vol 2" (2016), the second part of the collection from Netflix's 1980s nostalgia series, is slightly less critically acclaimed than its predecessor.Metacritic Score: 78/100Even more music from "Stranger Things" composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein was released in a second volume, though critics were slightly cooler on the more supernaturally-tinged follow-up."Volume Two echoes the series' progressively perilous shift toward the supernatural, a track like 'Danger Danger' pivoting from the evocation of bike-riding best buds toward the debut of a demoniacal monster in a parallel universe," said Neph Basedow in The Austin Chronicle."A Star Is Born" (2018) made the best-of-the-decade list.Metacritic Score: 78/100The "A Star Is Born" soundtrack impressed critics, both for its ability to showcase something new in a movie that's remade more often than any other, and for the songwriting abilities of the movie's two leads, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper."The songs from the early portion of the movie are almost impenetrably perfect," said Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone. "Gaga and Cooper take the lead on writing their own songs for most of the album. With Lukas Nelson and sometimes Gaga's help, Cooper found the blues-inflected, country-rock soul of Jackson Maine with gritty, down-home lyrics propelled by the Nelson-led band that backs Maine both on- and off-stage. Cooper's voice, lowered for the film to create the world-weary, addiction-addled Maine, is surprisingly great, either crackling like a pit of fire when he begins to holler or settling into a warm, smoky rasp during the ballads.""The Revenant" (2016) features almost no dialogue, leaving the film's score to do much of the heavy lifting.Metacritic Score: 77/100Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto had no choice but to put together a monster of a score to back up Alejandro G. Irritu's survival tale starring Leonardo Dicaprio. The story features one character, mostly alone in the wilderness, which left him with little to no human interaction."The resulting product is huge in scope, with 23 tracks clocking in at an hour and 10 minutes, but is unnervingly hushed in execution," said John Garrett in PopMatters. "Leonardo DiCaprio's character Hugh Glass may have been violently assaulted by a grizzly bear, leading to abandonment and a fight for his life, but the music rarely approaches a forte dynamic. It's a 70-minute low boil, an astounding amount of tension that never achieves its sweet release.""The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1" (2014) is the only film of the franchise to make this list, though the other soundtracks were also well-regarded.Metacritic Score: 77/100Lorde curated the soundtrack for the third film in the "Hunger Games" YA film franchise and also sings on four of the songs, leading it to be the most critically-acclaimed of the series."Thanks to [Lorde's] vision, and her grip on the series' most important thematic elements, the 50 minutes of music behind 'Mockingjay Part 1' ably function as both a glance at 2014's finest purveyors of complex, downcast pop and a complement to the start of the series' chaotic, brutal conclusion," said Jamieson Cox for Billboard.Mica Levi's score for "Jackie" (2016) landed her an Oscar nomination for best score, the first woman in 20 years to do so.Metacritic Score: 76/100Pablo Larrain's "Jackie" followed Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy after the assassination of John F. Kennedy but was more experimental than just a traditional biopic, requiring a score to match."Levi's score is as powerful a presence as Jackie herself, and its creativity is more appropriate than more traditional music would have been," said Heather Phares in AllMusic."The Social Network" (2010) won Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross the Oscar for best original score.Metacritic Score: 76/100David Fincher's "The Social Network" is one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2010, with the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, in their first collaboration with the director, no exception."Reznor and Ross have pulled off something fairly remarkable here, creating a record that could've existed on its own as an original NIN production, but serves almost perfectly as the sonic document of the evolution of an online phenomenon that began in the dorms of Harvard and eventually took over Silicon Valley," said Kiran Aditham of Lost at Sea."The Master" (2012) rounds out the critically-acclaimed soundtracks from Johnny Greenwood and Paul Thomas Anderson.Metacritic Score: 74/100Every time Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood and director Paul Thomas Anderson work together it seems to be magic to critics' ears, and "The Master," the thinly-veiled deconstruction of Scientology, is no exception."This uneasy listening provides a masterful backdrop for Anderson's film and also makes for fascinating listening in its own right, while once again separating Greenwood from more predictable composers," said Heather Phares in AllMusic."The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2" (2012) marked the end of a franchise and a pop culture era and was also one of the soundtracks of the decade that critics loved best.Metacritic Score: 74/100The often-derided "Twilight" franchise came to an end with "Breaking Dawn Part 2," but its soundtracks were often lauded, culminating in the highest-rated album yet in 2012."From Passion Pit's church-bell ringer 'Where I Come From' to Christina Perri's violin-strung 'A Thousand Years (Part 2),' there's one grand-ballroom epic after another... ranging from ethereal ('Bittersweet' from Ellie Goulding) to awesomely sludgy (St. Vincent's 'The Antidote')," said Melissa Maerz in Entertainment Weekly.
Click here to read full news..

All Channels Nigerian Dailies: Punch  |  Vanguard   |  The Nation  |  Thisday  |  Daily Sun  |  Guardian  |  Daily Times  |  Daily Trust  |  Daily Independent  |   The Herald  |  Tribune  |  Leadership  |  National Mirror  |  BusinessDay  |  New Telegraph  |  Peoples Daily  |  Blueprint  |  Nigerian Pilot  |  Sahara Reporters  |  Premium Times  |  The Cable  |  PM News  |  APO Africa Newsroom

Categories Today: World  |  Sports  |  Technology  |  Entertainment  |  Business  |  Politics  |  Columns  |  All Headlines Today

Entertainment (Local): Linda Ikeji  |  Bella Naija  |  Tori  |  Pulse  |  The NET  |  DailyPost  |  Information Nigeria  |  Gistlover  |  Lailas Blog  |  Miss Petite  |  Olufamous  |  Stella Dimoko Korkus Blog  |  Ynaija  |  All Entertainment News Today

Entertainment (World): TMZ  |  Daily Mail  |  Huffington Post

Sports: Goal  |  African Football  |  Bleacher Report  |  FTBpro  |  Kickoff  |  All Sports Headlines Today

Business & Finance: Nairametrics  |  Nigerian Tenders  |  Business Insider  |  Forbes  |  Entrepreneur  |  The Economist  |  BusinessTech  |  Financial Watch  |  BusinessDay  |  All Business News Headlines Today

Technology (Local): Techpoint  |  TechMoran  |  TechCity  |  Innovation Village  |  IT News Africa  |  Technology Times  |  Technext  |  Techcabal  |  All Technology News Headlines Today

Technology (World): Techcrunch  |  Techmeme  |  Slashdot  |  Wired  |  Hackers News  |  Engadget  |  Pocket Lint  |  The Verge

International Networks:   |  CNN  |  BBC  |  Al Jazeera  |  Yahoo

Forum:   |  Nairaland  |  Naij

Other Links: Home   |  Nigerian Jobs