Well. We've all been having a bit of a time, haven't we?
And in spite of it, movies are still being and stories are still being told. And hey, after the garbage fire that was 2020, 2021 turned out to be a pretty great year at the movies! Before getting to THE list, though (and it's coming soon), let's do something that I just didn't have the energy to do in 2020. Yes, it's finally time to get back to talking about music. Specifically, the best in film scores and/or soundtracks.
Since 2021 featured an unusually high number of film adaptations of musicals, I am focusing for the purposes of this list on only music or songs written specifically for a 2021 film. Meaning, films like In The Heights or the new West Side Story or Tick, Tick...Boom! were not considered, though those were all excellent.
Welcome back!
Honorable Mentions: Luca (Dan Romer), Encanto (score by Germain Franco, songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Joel P. West)
5. The Green Knight (Daniel Hart)
The Green Knight just might take home the trophy of Oddest Film of 2021, as it grasps hold of the inherent weirdness in much Arthurian legend with both hands and refuses to let go. Daniel Hart's score, committed to sounding (as far as we know) like what Arthur and his knights might have had played for them at the Round Table, perfectly enhances the bleak and dreary atmosphere the camera drenches itself in. It brings us perfectly into place, and then, like the cinematography, keeps us bound in a state of perpetual anxiety over what will happen next.
4. The Matrix Resurrections (Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer)
Don Davis' iconic work in the original Matrix trilogy remains, in my view, criminally underappreciated. As such, though there were many aspects of Resurrections that did an incredible job of expanding on the best of the original films, I took particular pleasure in seeing the themes and motifs from Davis' scores reworked into this reboot that most certainly didn't need to happen, but at the very least more than earned its keep.
3. Spencer (Jonny Greenwood)
Given how singularly effective pretty much every film score Greenwood produces ends up being, it staggered me to learn that it took until Phantom Thread for him to get an actual Oscar nomination. Well, between his work in this movie and The Power of the Dog, he should definitely get his second nod within the next week of this writing. Spencer feels like someone took the saucy royal drama of The Crown and filtered it through several funhouse mirrors to produce an effect of pure psychological horror, and the relentlessly off-kilter sound of Greenwood's music hits all the right extra notes (pun intended).
2. Bo Burnham: Inside (Bo Burnham)
This time capsule into what it felt like being an internet-oriented millenial in the first year of the pandemic is half sketch-comedy, half musical, and the songs are almost all solid bangers. The first few skew more light-hearted- „Content“ is the perfect opener, and songs about being a problematic YouTuber or the frustrations of helping family members get the hang of new things like Zoom Calls get plenty of laughs. But as the film progresses the songs turn darker, meaner, more hopeless. „Welcome to the Internet“ is, of course, an instant classic, and as someone who himself turned 30 right as the pandemic was breaking in Europe and the US, uh, yeah, you better believe „30“ hit me like a none-socially-distanced freight train.
When you get down to real talk, though,. I think the hardest truths are to be found in „All Eyes On Me,“ which functions both musically and visually as a descent into the Dantean Hell that is modern internet celebrity and the toxicity of most of its fandoms, something I have had to grapple with on a very personal level over the past 4 years. It's a state of being that, for the moment, seems pretty devoid of hope, where the only place left to go is even further down.
1. Dune (Hans Zimmer)
Ah, Hans. I've missed you. Even during the fallow period following Inception and the Dark Knight Trilogy, when people seemed ready to lay every over-used trend in modern film music at your feet, you kept chugging along, while I stayed on board the choo-choo.
And even still, though you were still producing great stuff (like the Interstellar score, which far outstrips the movie itself), I couldn't help but feel that ít had been awhile since we'd gotten a really great, instantly classic original work from you. Lo and behold, not only did Denise and his crew do the unthinkable and actually make a great Dune movie, you were there as well with what is easily your best stuff in years.
Welcome back, my friend. Welcome back.
-Noah Franc
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