Transformers (1986) makes Top 10 list of Best Sci-Fi Soundtracks

Not a surprise, really. I would say it's the greatest soundtrack I have ever heard.

For me,3 tracks comes in my mind:
-Unicron Theme(Pretty cool)
-Death of Optimus Prime(Sad,but very welll done0
-The Touch(Not the most amazing music ever,but seems to fit the movie and the time,the feel,you know?)

I was a little surprised, the other movies are much bigger "names" so it shows how much that soundtrack kicks butt.

This made me smile.

Nice.

Not surprising that Star Wars and Star Trek made the top five. In fact, Star Trek is in there twice (#2 and #4).

It is a great soundtrack.

My favorite cuts are

"Instruments of Destruction"
"Nothin's Gonna Stand in Our Way"
"Dare"
"Transformers (theme)"
"Dare"
"The Touch"

I do like the instrumental stuff too, but these just kick ass.

ROCK ON!!!

Primus1101 wrote:Not a surprise, really. I would say it's the greatest soundtrack I have ever heard.

I agree, man, this is really, in my view, the best soundtrack I own. I love every track and don't just like 3 and skip the other 10, like one would do for another soundtrack. I was even listening to the thing when I came acrossed this article. The music is just so darn good and perfect for this movie. Vince DiCola and Stan Bush, I gotta say, nice job fellas

Primus1101 wrote:Not a surprise, really. I would say it's the greatest soundtrack I have ever heard.

Hell yeah! I still listen to this soundtrack at least once a month. I actually burned some tracks so I could listen to it in my car!

FINALLY, people are realizing what we knew all along; this soundtrack kicks ass!

Woo hoo for a movie that bombed at the boxoffice when originally released it has had a long afterlife. I too have it on a mix mp3 cd in the car as well as having it on my mp3 player.

TulioDude wrote:For me,3 tracks comes in my mind:
-Unicron Theme(Pretty cool)
...

Sadly, some of the best music in the film wasn't on the actual soundtrack... like this very theme. The intro music to the movie, as Unicron is passing the twin suns... Vince DiCola had some great work on the film. Today, it may sound dated, but it still fits the film perfectly.

Hey, maybe we can get a remastered soundtrack for the movie, in time for the 25th anniversary of the film (in 2011)! Make it a 2-disc version, with the original music, along with a lot of the other musical themes, and some of the updated music, like Stan's older reworked version of The Touch (for the love of Primus, not the rap one).

I actually like the Season 1 TF theme better.

I love the soundtrack for the movie! White Lion's version of the Transformers theme and Instruments of Destruction are often on my playlists.

Its cool to finally see the soundtrack get the props it deserves. It one of the best movie soundtracks of all time in my opinion.

Awesome! Man I remember the songs blowing me away as a kid watching the movie in theaters. It would be cool if they released a soundtrack for the series.

I am very pleased and pleasantly surprised to see this. But like many of you are saying, the music made that movie better than what it was. A lot of the music actually does stand up to the test of time and still sounds great..and let's face it, how much guts did it take to put a Weird Al song IN THE MAIN PART OF THE MOVIE? THe music did exactly what music should do- it accentuated the scenes and made you FEEL the movie. I thought that a few tracks from the '07 movie score did that too, mainly "Arrival to Earth" and "Scorponok". Also the end of "You're A Soldier Now" has that feel too. That last sequence has a very Western, cavalry-coming-to-the-rescue, powerful feel to it...perfect for Optimus Prime's heroic and timely arrival at the battle of Mission City. I still get goosebumps at that scene...

As it is, of '86 soundtrack fit its movie perfectly and made the movie tons better than it was. ON those counts I agree that it belongs on this list.

I also have to acknowledge number 1. Is there ANY doubt that John Williams would top the list? Star Wars' soundtrack was more than filler...it was iconic, undeniably powerful, and heaped excitement and emotion on the watcher the entire movie.

For those who might be interested: John Williams has been nominated for FORTY FIVE Oscars. He has won THIRTEEN Oscars. Without a doubt, the most influential composer of our lifetimes. Consider the excitement over when Tom Hanks won three Oscars. Williams tops that by double digits. Absolutely incredible.

Yeah, you can't deny that John Williams/Star Wars should be #1.

I was glad to see Flash Gordon on this list. My parents had that record when I was a kid!

"FLASHHH! AH AHHHHHHHHH!" - Good stuff...

I'm going be minority here, I don't think that movie track belongs there at all. It doesn't age well, as my nephew watched it and goes what heck with this cheesy music. Star wars on other hand is timeless, 86 TF is frozen in the 80s, unless you like hair metal, you won't like it. Theres a reason Stan Bush isn't on the new movies sound tracks.

I think the Bay films sound tracks blow away the 86 film. Arrival to earth and scorpnok were just amazing. The music when prime fights in forest is perfect, I often just listen to tracks, as they stir images in my head.

The tracks in 86 aren't bad since I like 80s music, but I dont feel deserves be seen as top sci fi by any stretch. In general outside the Lion intro being probably the best version of the transformers theme, I don't like much of the 86 film as it's a black mark on the franchise in my mind that should never happened. It bombed for a reason.

Ugh.

Convotron wrote:I love the soundtrack for the movie! White Lion's version of the Transformers theme and Instruments of Destruction are often on my playlists.

No no no! The theme was performed by an obscure band called 'Lion'. Although they sounded kinda similar, and a similar name, and had similar haircuts, 'White Lion' and 'Lion' are completely unrelated.

Also on a note of trivia, 'Hunger' was a cover of a song by 'King Cobra', from their brilliant 'Ready to Strike' album, whilst 'Nothing's Gonna Stand In Our Way' was originally by John Farnham, from the 'Savage Streets OST'.

'Spectre General' were the rock group 'Kick Axe' under a different name (for legal reasons, they were signed to another label at the time), and Weird Al's inclusion was because he was already under contract to Scotti Brothers records, and as such was a cheap catch - other than his standard royalties, he commanded no extra fee for his song being used.

Of course, the most famous music track ever featured in a 'Transformers' cartoon was NOT in the movie, but in the Japanese Headmasters episode 'Explosion of Mars! Maximus is in Danger!", where the TARDIS take-off sound from the TV show 'Doctor Who' (known to millions of fans worldwide and officially designated as a piece of music, rather than a sound effect) was used without permission by the copyright holders!

This of course followed the use of the TARDIS Door Opening noise in the Transformers Movie, which can be heard as Soundwave plugs himself into the computer in the film's third scene.

Oh, and while I'm at it, it amazes me to this day that the score for 'Star Wars' is so highly regarded. Here we have a movie, set in an entirely different universe, which broke all the rules of science fiction and was truly groundbreaking. So what music did they use?

A bog-standard orchestral score, that's what.

Now, I fully understand that John Williams was a great composer, and that his scores for the Star Wars films were all brilliant pieces of music... but the problem was, they just didn't mesh with the films at all, in my view. Surely in a groundbreaking film set on alien planets, they should have used music that was similarly groundbreaking and alien? But no, they spoiled it all by going with a full orchestra score - the only cliché in a film which went all-out to break the mould!

Which is why the Transformers soundtrack is so great, because it 'fits' the film like Star Wars doesn't. In a film about robots and high-octane action, we get a high-tempo score, performed largely on synthesizers and drum machines, which dovetails perfectly with the essence of these synthetic, robotic life forms.

Here's a good example: at the end of 'Death of Optimus Prime', the music and the beeping sound of the heart-rate monitor blend together so well and so beautifully, it's a terrific combination of heartfelt music and steady machinery, which is what 'Transformers' is all about, really.

Another example: the ending of the short track 'Witness to a Funeral'. Is it a final, out-of-tune chord that's being played there, or is it Unicron's scream when he realises that the Matrix was being passed on to Ultra Magnus? Until I bought the instrumental soundtrack album (at one of the BotCons, I think), I honestly did not realise that it was, in fact, part of the music, rather than one of Orson Welles' vocalisations. That's how it should be - the music bleeding in with the rest of the film so well that you can't even tell which is which.

Look at what other films do: In 'The Last Temptation of Christ' the reason Peter Gabriel's music worked so well was because it suited the film perfectly, eschewing the clicheéd orchestral score for more authentic Middle-Eastern instruments.

Another great example is the soundtrack of the 80s Matthew Broderick film 'War Games' (this was on TV in the UK a few days ago), which used a perfect juxtaposition of bombastic military marches for the army base scenes and 80s synthesizers for the all the computer hacking scenes. This resulting in a cracking final theme, where Broderick's computer hacker was actually in the army base, and you got a peice of music that combined the military drum rolls and brass with the synthesizers and vocoders.

Apologies for the rant, but anyway, to cut a long story short - music should fit the film. Transformers does it, Star Wars does not (with the exception of the Cantina Band Song).

So there!

Have to agree about the Star Wars music being overrated though Williams' talent is unquestioned.

Love the Flash Gordon sountrack. Only recently got it after years of searching.

Stumbled across the 86 TF extended soundtrack recently for a fiver and it is great. Got the Unicron music in there too.

As a pevious poster said, the Bay Movie music is amazing. The first time I heard the music for the Autobots' arrival, I was blown away. Just so hauntingly heroic, I almost cried. A truly amazing piece of music. Slag it, I'm going to turn it on now.

This soundtrack is one of my favorites of all time. I listen to it t least twice a week.

starfish wrote:Oh, and while I'm at it, it amazes me to this day that the score for 'Star Wars' is so highly regarded. Here we have a movie, set in an entirely different universe, which broke all the rules of science fiction and was truly groundbreaking. So what music did they use?

A bog-standard orchestral score, that's what.

Now, I fully understand that John Williams was a great composer, and that his scores for the Star Wars films were all brilliant pieces of music... but the problem was, they just didn't mesh with the films at all, in my view. Surely in a groundbreaking film set on alien planets, they should have used music that was similarly groundbreaking and alien? But no, they spoiled it all by going with a full orchestra score - the only cliché in a film which went all-out to break the mould!

Which is why the Transformers soundtrack is so great, because it 'fits' the film like Star Wars doesn't. In a film about robots and high-octane action, we get a high-tempo score, performed largely on synthesizers and drum machines, which dovetails perfectly with the essence of these synthetic, robotic life forms.

Here's a good example: at the end of 'Death of Optimus Prime', the music and the beeping sound of the heart-rate monitor blend together so well and so beautifully, it's a terrific combination of heartfelt music and steady machinery, which is what 'Transformers' is all about, really.

Another example: the ending of the short track 'Witness to a Funeral'. Is it a final, out-of-tune chord that's being played there, or is it Unicron's scream when he realises that the Matrix was being passed on to Ultra Magnus? Until I bought the instrumental soundtrack album (at one of the BotCons, I think), I honestly did not realise that it was, in fact, part of the music, rather than one of Orson Welles' vocalisations. That's how it should be - the music bleeding in with the rest of the film so well that you can't even tell which is which.

Look at what other films do: In 'The Last Temptation of Christ' the reason Peter Gabriel's music worked so well was because it suited the film perfectly, eschewing the clicheéd orchestral score for more authentic Middle-Eastern instruments.

Another great example is the soundtrack of the 80s Matthew Broderick film 'War Games' (this was on TV in the UK a few days ago), which used a perfect juxtaposition of bombastic military marches for the army base scenes and 80s synthesizers for the all the computer hacking scenes. This resulting in a cracking final theme, where Broderick's computer hacker was actually in the army base, and you got a peice of music that combined the military drum rolls and brass with the synthesizers and vocoders.

Apologies for the rant, but anyway, to cut a long story short - music should fit the film. Transformers does it, Star Wars does not (with the exception of the Cantina Band Song).

So there!

Are you serious? You know that John Williams and Star Wars were the first movie then to NOT have a song in their soundtrack? All the other movies during that time were singing movies, John Williams broke the mold by USING a complete orchestra.

How does the soundtrack not fit the movies? Have you ever listened intently to it? Such as "Here They Come!" and "Battle of Yavin". How do those pieces not fit the movies? High octane action in music at it's best. The Trench Run part still gets my heart beating. The "Jawa Theme" fits the Jawas.

Bloodlust wrote:Are you serious? You know that John Williams and Star Wars were the first movie then to NOT have a song in their soundtrack? All the other movies during that time were singing movies, John Williams broke the mold by USING a complete orchestra.

Admittedly the genre of film musicals was at its peak in the late 1970s (I assume you're referring to the likes of Grease and Saturday Night Fever), but most other films did in fact use orchestras. All the James Bond films, for example, used standard orchestral scores.

Bloodlust wrote:How does the soundtrack not fit the movies? Have you ever listened intently to it? Such as "Here They Come!" and "Battle of Yavin". How do those pieces not fit the movies? High octane action in music at it's best. The Trench Run part still gets my heart beating. The "Jawa Theme" fits the Jawas.

As I say (and this is just my opinion), I find a faux-classical, orchestral score to be a very Earthly, Human thing. And, to me, it feels out of place in a film that's neither set on Earth or involves humans.

Of course, I freely agree that John Williams is a great composer. Listened to on CD, out of context and seperate from the visuals, the Star Wars score is utterly fantastic.

Of course, everybody is entitled to their opinion - all viewpoints are as valid as each other. However, it's probably worth bearing in mind that your first line: "Are you serious?" is not the most polite way to begin putting across an alternative view. Hopefully I've treated your own views with more respect that you have mine.

Love,

Starfish.

Yeah, about that,

My bad, I'm just really passionate about Star Wars.

However, the James Bond Soundtracks all start with a theme song

I do respect your opinions, I just went a little overboard, bad day at work....so I apologize if I came off a little rude.

Hey, no worries, we all get days like that. Indeed, reading back, my original post comes across as more than a tad belligerent also.