“The movies are back, baby!” went the refrain this summer, up to, during, and continuously after the heavenly 10-day stretch around June where everything looked like it might really go back to normal, actual normal and not “new” normal; “new” normal is in no way preferable to “normal” normal, just like “new recipe” Butterfingers are trash compared to the genuine article. Be that as it may, enough folks insisted on the pandemic’s subsiding that the movies did indeed come back, and they brought with them another detail missing and longed-for in the sacred big-screen experience: Soundtracks. If a movie is best presented in a theater, then the same holds for their soundtracks, too, and 2021’s soundtracks offer an embarrassment of riches for anyone with the bandwidth to treat themselves to theatrical screenings once again.
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There isn’t a clear common thread running through the best soundtracks on 2021’s best films, and this is fine. They are, in turn, haunting, overwhelming, and punk as hell; they upend expectations of their make and model by introducing new sounds into long-established blueprints. Given that these movies push boundaries themselves through form as well as content, it fits for their soundtracks to follow suit. But even a soundtrack that just sounds great divorced from its movie, or which justifies the movie’s existence in the first place, is worth listening to – so here are the ones we liked most of all (in no particular order):
READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2021
“Annette”
Movies don’t usually give us the courtesy of asking permission, but Leos Carax starts out his latest meta character study, “Annette,” doing just that: With Ron and Russell Mael, the brothers formally known as Sparks, leading the cast – Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, Simon Helberg – in a rousing rock ‘n roll opener, “So May We Start.” It’s very much a Carax song and very much a Sparks song, and an intentionally disarming introduction to a story of romance, jealous, the cost of ambition, and yes, murder most foul, where the pop rock dissolves into a smorgasbord of varied styles and sounds, a’la spooky glam rock, synth and snares, chamber folk, and swelling, tragic ballads. “Annette,” the movie, refuses to compromise on vision, and that stubbornness is the dividing line that separates folks who like it from folks who hate it. What everyone can surely agree on is that Sparks and Carax do superb work with the film’s musical side. – Andrew Crump
“Dune”
“Hans Zimmer,” the name and not simply the man, acts like a trigger phrase on anyone who hears it. Spoken together, those three syllables recall a career of thrums, booms, and bwaaas, big, beefy sounds designed for shaking multiplex walls and bleeding into screenings with gentler soundtracks. “Dune” won’t disappoint audiences who are into that sort of thing. It might, however, scare the crap out of them. Zimmer did not come to screw around on “Dune.” What he supplies Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s massively influential 1965 sci-fi novel is made up of his usual bag of tricks – the booms and bwaaas – but with an influx of otherworldly choral elements and creepy plucking string notes apparently intended to make viewers’ skin crawl. Enough can’t be said of how Villeneuve filters Herbert’s vision through his own. More should be said of Zimmer’s aural impact on that vision, and how he alone changes the way the film operates. – AC
“Cruella”
The best soundtrack for the worst movie. Look: We’re not highlighting the movies themselves, here! We’re just talking about the soundtracks. In the case of “Cruella,” one of 2021’s most disheartening releases, the soundtrack saves the production from wholesale failure, because how could any movie stacked with songs by Queen, Blondie, The Clash, Nina Simone, Supertramp, Iggy Pop, Florence and the Machine, and Bee Gees, tied together with Nicholas Britell’s excellent score, be a complete trainwreck? Craig Gillespie uses these precious gifts with the subtle power of a buzzing Craftsman chainsaw ripping through felled oaks; the race to the top of the “worst needle drops, 2021” category is steep, but Gillespie takes “Cruella” there. Still, the music itself isn’t to blame for its director’s bad judgment. It simply rocks too hard. – AC
“Spencer”
Pipe organs segueing into strings: That’s the expected path for a soundtrack to the untold story of Princess Diana’s break from the royal family. Pablo Larrain, our best chronicler of powerful women blistering beneath the heat of a public spotlight, does not take expected paths, and neither does his scorer, Jonny Greenwood, technically last heard from on Lynne Ramsey’s masterpiece “You Were Never Really Here,” but also technically last heard from on Jane Campion’s new film, “The Power of the Dog,” because that’s COVID production delays do. Greenwood chooses a disorienting tack for most of “Spencer’s” songs: He starts with the sounds we typically associate with important biopics about refined, dignified figures, then shifts into trumpet-forward jazz improv, as on “The Arrival” or “Calling the Whipper In.” The effect reads like call-and-response between a vastly different selection of instruments, echoing the tug-of-war Diana (Kristen Stewart) finds herself caught in with her two sons, her self-determination, and of course her husband and his wretched in-laws, all of whom, put in terms polite society will understand, suck. Watching Stewart engage with Diana’s fears, neuroses, and anger is enthralling enough on its own, but to hear that struggle reflected in Greenwood’s work brings the performance, and the film, to entirely new places. – AC
“Zola”
Put your eyes on the poster for Janicza Bravo’s sophomore feature. Read the logline. Click reviews comparing the movie to “Spring Breakers” and “American Honey.” Since “Zola” exists in a similar vein as these pictures, it follows that Bravo would have required a similar vibe from her soundtrack, hyphy and trap, country and indie rock, electric and grungy and twangy and completely unmoored by nature. None of these comprise “Zola’s” sonic makeup. Mica Levi takes an unexpected direction with their soundtrack, building a cheery, chipper, incongruously angelic character for Bravo’s movie using unassuming instruments: Bells, pianos, a glockenspiel, a fucking harp. The dings and chimes happily trilling over the narrative – a road trip gone wild, where “wild” means “crime” and leads to “punishment” – figuratively clang against what cringe-comic horrors we see unfold from one scene to the next, but the mismatching works. It’s innocent, and the innocence is discomfiting, and if there is one thing we should be watching a movie like “Zola,” it’s uncomfortable. – AC
