Pulp Music

[Sinewgrab]

There was a thread a few months back that I can't seem to find, naming off songs that would be appropriate and timely background music for Pulp games. Anyone know what it was called?

[Wirelizard]

There's this Music While Gaming thread in Open Talk (link) from October 2008 - is that the one you're thinking of?

[Schweizer]

There are a lot of good soundtracks.  John Debney has a couple - Zathura has a nice bombastic quality to it, and depending on the scene, Cutthroat Island has some tracks that would be appropriate.

For regional exotic music, you really can't beat Jerry Goldsmith.  For Asia, you can use a number of tracks from the Sand Pebbles soundtrack as well as the extended core from Disney's Mulan.  He's got quite a few good African ones, as well - Congo, King Solomon's Mines, & The Ghost and the Darkness spring to mind.  And there is no better pulpy Arabian music than his score for the Mummy, with his Wind and the Lion score being good for Morocco or Algeria.  The Shadow, surprisingly enough, is one of the weakest scores for pulp, in my opinion.

Michael Giacchino has some great pulpy scores.  If you can find it, the score to the video game of Jurassic Park: the Lost World has catchy fanfare trumpets that sound straight out of a serial.  He also did two Medal of Honor soundtracks, one of which (Underground) sounds like an alternative Indiana Jones score.  A couple of tracks from the Incredibles score would be great for maniacal villain lairs.  As would...

Trevor Jones' League of Extraordinary Gentlemen score.  Yeah, the movie is beyond horrible, but it has LOTS of good villain tracks, especially.  Also, his score to Around the World in 80 Days also has a lot of exciting music good for particular locales.  He did Flyboys, too, but it's kind of bleh, playing off that military march motif used in Band of Brothers.  Not very pulpy.

For South America stuff, the score to Apocalypto is suitable, though not exciting (more mood-creating).  A better on might be the score to the video game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

The scores (NOT soundtracks) for a number of animated films are usually really good.  I mentioned Mulan, but Mark Mancina's Tarzan score is great once you're rid of the influence of Phil Collins, and Atlantis has some good tracks.  So does Brother Bear, and Kung Fu Panda. 

Lastly, the tracks to the Justice League: New Frontier are pretty good for pulp, and the Shearmur's Sky Captain is flat out great.  Oh, and Danny Newman's The Phantom is really good too, as is the opening track of Dick Tracy, but the rest are pretty humdrum.

Hope this wasn't too much in one sitting - I collect scores that might be of use.  I try to listen to stuff that sets the mood for the subject matter that I'm working on.

[Sinewgrab]

Too much in one setting? No, I spent more time trying to catalog the ones I had missed. Thank you.

To add to your list, much of the material from the composer Kitaro works well, as well as Vangelis. And I adore the score from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, as well as the first Conan. Basil Poledouris is awesome.

[Doc Twilight]

If you go on I Tunes and simply enter a year, say, '1936', you'll find a lot of useful period music. For example, they have (or had, anyway) the old "Battle of the Bands" collections from the 30s, where you'd have a number of the hits of the day performed by different big bands and vocalists, sometimes the same songs on the album, and it's interesting to compare how two of the singers of the day interpret a song. But, anyway, lots of good period stuff on I-Tunes. Just need to know where to look.

-Doc

[argsilverson]

Also I need to remind you that the actual pulp years [late 1920's] were dominated by the presence of russian emigres in most of european towns and few in other continents.
They brought with them their music. so, russian music, balalaikas, blackeyes etc became very popular at that time.

[flooglestreet]

Or you can take movie serial music. Varese Sarabande VSD 5658 is Cliffhangers! Music from the Classic Republic Serials, and is available online from Monsters in Motion, in their Flash Gordon Buck Rogers Serial collection.