Earlier this year, I posted a new list of great albums that are still missing from the various DSPs out there (Spotify being the main one), and while I am still hoping that some of those get digital releases soon, there are plenty of other well-known and lesser-known albums out there at risk of being forgotten because of their absence from streamers.
For this new list, I wanted to focus specifically on some movie soundtracks/scores that for some reason are not available currently for streaming and which really should be. The first big one is…
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
IMO, one of the funniest, most brilliant films of all time, and a huge reason for this is the incredible, brilliant songs in the movie. There’s of course the Oscar-nominated “Blame Canada”, the thrilling “What Would Brian Boitano Do?”, and the evergreen “Uncle Fucker” – so much hilarious brilliance that should be parts of car sing-alongs, and yet for whatever reason the album is not available to stream. While one can hear live versions of some of these classics thanks to the South Park 25th Anniversary Concert album, it’s not the same as this near-perfect musical soundtrack. Whomever is responsible for the rights to this – fix this mistake immediately. The genius of Matt Stone and Trey Parker needs to be shared everywhere, as it’s also on full display in…
2. Team America
Matt and Trey’s film follow-up to South Park was this raunchy puppet action film. A parody of every over-the-top 80’s shoot-em-up, blow-em-up film, the movie continued the duo’s trend of writing hilarious songs such as the epic “America, Fuck Yeah” or the wickedly offensive “I’m So Ronery” (as sung by the late Kim Jong Un). These songs would be all over various playlists if the soundtrack album were to be put onto DSPs, so it’s a mystery why whoever controls the rights to this wants to miss out on the revenue.
3. Elizabethtown (score)
One of my favorite scores of all time, Heart‘s Nancy Wilson really outdid herself here, creating this heart-rending, mostly acoustic guitar-driven score to her (now) ex-husband Cameron Crowe’s sadly underwhelming film. The folksy score is the perfect accompaniment for long drives down scenic highways, or just chilling on the porch on a sunny day. While I thankfully still own the CD, it would be much easier to stream the gorgeous score considering my car doesn’t even have a CD player.
4. Killing Bono
Inspired by the memoire of music critic Neil McCormick, the film Killing Bono came and went pretty under-the-radar, despite the talents of Ben Barnes, Krysten Ritter and Robert Sheehan. While the story of an also-ran band attempting to compete with their friends U2, as that band soars to new heights, was not a masterpiece, the original songs written for the soundtrack, many of which were sung by Barnes (who has released some of his own solo music), are excellent and deserve to be heard by a wider audience.
5. The Straight Story (score)
I will never pretend to understand or really enjoy most of David Lynch’s work, but his one attempt at writing/directing a non-abstract narrative was a quiet, moving tale, and its wistful score by late composer Angelo Badalamenti was integral to the film’s heart. Filled with mournful fiddles and rustic instrumentation, the score is like the nighttime anti-thesis of Nancy Wilson‘s Elizabethtown score. While there is one piece of it up on Spotify, I won’t be satisfied until the entire score is made available for streaming.
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As my guess is that the film studios that released these films likely have control over what happens with the soundtracks and scores, my hope is that any of the filmmakers behind these films will read this (or perhaps some of those executives) and realize there is a streaming audience for them, and will pass along this campaign to the appropriate parties.
One can dream, right?
The Indy Review 