Listen Up — Soundtrack Podcasts

I've lately come across several podcasts which celebrate  movie soundtracks. In one sense they're a lot alike. They all take in-depth looks at how the score serves the story, what makes it tick, and how the composer pulls it off in their own unique way. However, each has a different enough focus and hosts that I like them all. In each case I come away marveling at what the music was "saying" that I didn't know enough to hear. It's really fun.

I haven't listened to every episode on any of these podcasts but I've sampled plenty — certainly enough to want to share them with you.

 I found all these via iTunes but I'll include the website links for each.

 

This is the first soundtrack podcast I discovered. Listening to David Collins' polished yet enthusiastic two-part presentation about Jaws hooked me. And that's quite a feat, considering that I don't like the movie that much.  

He has a real love of John Williams and, in fact, I think he had an entire podcast devoted to him before this one. Luckily, he looks at movies scored by other composers too, although this podcast is heavily weighted toward Williams. Ranging from Morricone's music for spaghetti westerns to Casablanca to features about Max Steiner and Wagner as the first Lord of the Ring, there's a lot of variety to choose from. He does all this in terms that anyone can understand.

Episodes are usually half an hour although they occasionally run longer and there are often 3-4 part series of episodes about one movie. The Soundtrack Show website is here.

These three Australians (Andrew Pogson, Dan Golding and Nicholas Buc) crack me up. They are clearly good friends and just as clearly love music and movies. They know lots about the mechanics of music but when they go deep they manage to do it without making it mind-numbing, which is no small accomplishment. I also enjoy how often they find a piece of music  reflecting elements from other pieces in completely different films, which they'll then play for comparative listening. They'll review music form TV  (don't miss the Star Trek episode) and video games as well.

This is probably my favorite of these four podcasts. I find it hard to stop listening to these guys.

Episodes are usually 1-1/2 to 2 hours long with a fairly even mixture of single episodes and two-part series. The Art of the Score website is here.

 

Jon and Andy began their look at film scores by tackling the AFI's list of the 25 greatest film scores. They've since gone on to whatever catches their ear, ranging from new (Interstellar) to old (Spartacus).  I like the later shows better since at the beginning they tended to get a little bogged down in whether they liked the movie that went along with the AFI score.  Regardless, they have good chemistry and cover the music very interestingly.

They don't get too bogged down in what I call "music speak" which leaves the average non-music literate (like me) in the dark. They're also the only one of these podcasts that haven't geeked out over John Williams yet. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I leave to your judgment.

Films are covered in single episodes, just over an hour long. Settling the Score website is here.

 

Hosted by brothers Marty & Will Brueggemann, UnderScore is a podcast dedicated to celebrating the rich tradition of movie music one film at a time.

And when they say "rich tradition" that means these two are doing a very deep dive into every film. Each movie is covered in four episodes which cover, in turn, main theme, additional themes or songs, cues, and spotting (or commentary) of the full film. They also will discuss music very technically sometimes. I love their enthusiasm during those moments as each one's interest feeds the other's excitement. "I know! That chord structure would be ruined in thirds!" (Or something like that.) I just let it wash over me and, to be fair, they do explain what they are talking about. I'm just not as interested on a technical level, which is why I generally listen to the first two of each series. That said, those discussions are fascinating and I love the brothers' musical camaraderie. If you want a good sample, listen to their most recent episode about The Wizard of Oz. Really wonderful stuff.

Episodes usually run half an hour to an hour long. This podcast has been in hiatus since mid-2019 but there is plenty there to enjoy. The UnderScore website is here.