Saturday 19 January 2013

Best SciFi Theme Music

Never mind the quality of the programme, these are my favourite theme tunes from TV SciFi progs
Click on programme names to bring up the theme tune on YouTube

1: 28 Days Later So atmospheric of that London emptied of people opening shot. The slow gathering menace as the arrangement builds. Now used for a cider advert, so it must be good!
2: Twilight Zone Come on admit it, when you're having a conversation and you make a remark that something spooky is like an event on The Twilight Zone, you accentuate it by singing the music!
3: Stingray  I love the urgent tempo of this. I wonder if it was ever so slightly speeded up? The drum intro is wonderful, its tone is on the verge of announcing something camp nightclubby, you know like a dancer in a hula dress or something!
4: Joe 90 Love all the FX in the intro to this, what we all imagined futuristic technology would sound like, then lurches over into a very 60s Surfer melody!
5: The Prisoner Just oozes class from the first tom tom beat and the changes in the music suggest the narrative of those opening titles wonderfully well. 3 & 1/2 minutes of opening titles, you couldn't get away with that on TV today
6: X-Files Evocative, that synth whistling refrain is shaped like a question itself. But yes, synth heavy beloved of the 1990s
7: Bladerunner Vangelis, so it's pucker music right! Funnily enough its synth opening chords remind me of "Apocalypse Now", the bits that got left out of the original movie & reappeared in the "Redux" version. But once the tempo of this steps up, you know you're in for a thriller chase in the rain type of movie
8: Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea Just love how they weave in the sonar blips into a classical music strings arrangement
9: Attack The Block And finally we reach the 21st Century with this unnerving, sound affect heavy piece of dubstep. Vocals buried in the mix and muffled, the sound of an urban community under siege crying for help and no one's listening. If you've seen the movie you'll know it fits perfectly, like a bandana!
10: Spiderman Suitably hammy, narrowly pips Batman for me because I've heard better versions of Batman theme by bands which were never used for the TV series or films.


What are your favs?


Here are a few scifi songs by bands unrelated to TV or films

B52s - "Planet Claire"


Muse - "Supermassive Blackholes"


David Bowie - "Starman"


Pink Floyd - "Interstellar Overdrive"


Afrika Bambaata - "Planet Rock 1982"


Only Ones - "Another Girl, Another Planet"


Parliament - "Mothership Connection"


Grinderman - "Honeybee Let's Fly to Mars"


The Rezillos - "Destination Venus"


Sonic Youth - "Silver Rocket"



Husker Du - "Books About UFOs"


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