Search - David Castle, Chris Bennett :: Midnight Express: Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Horrible

M. Meszaros | Pennsylvania | 02/14/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Loved this movie, but the music was horrible. I had to laugh when I saw there was actually a buyable soundtrack. Like a lot of rotten soundtracks from 1970's movies (the Charles Bronson Death Wish series comes to mind), this was overly synthesized to the point of sound effects...camera pan-out...sound: OOOWWAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhh, pan in: WWEEEEeeeeeee. Silence would have been better."

Moroder's EXPRESS

Erik North | San Gabriel, CA USA | 03/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although he can be at least partly to blame for pop music becoming more drenched in electronic glop from the 1980s to the present day, Giorgio Moroder did a great deal to bring electronic music and synthesizers into the mainstream; and before such instruments became a cliche, they could be used for very haunting moments and used in very orchestral ways (as Walter Carlos had done for Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE in 1971). The best example for this in Moroder's case is the score he composed for director Alan Parker's ultra-disturbing, based-on-a-true-story 1978 film MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, about the horror that a young American named Billy Hayes faced while jailed in Turkey on a drug possession chage.



Apart from the vocal tracks by David Castle ("Istanbul Blues") and Chris Bennett (the vocal version of the "Midnight Express" theme), it is entirely Moroder's show; and his inventive use of keyboards and synthesizers ingeniously straddles the line between pop, electronic, and orchestral music. The epic eight and a half minute opener "Chase" became a minor pop hit in March 1979, and a permanent favorite with the disco and dance crowds from that point on. Moroder's score got MIDNIGHT EXPRESS one of its two Oscars (the other going to Oliver Stone for his screenplay adaptation of Billy Hayes' book), incredibly beating out John Williams' score for SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, which was pretty hard to do given Williams' already imposing standing. This is well worth picking up as a great example of electronic movie music that takes on a classic orchestral quality."