Favorite series score?

Submitted by coldjoggings t3_zwvfzd in television

Which series has the best score/original soundtrack or your favorite tracks of all time? Hard to narrow down but Maniac by Dan Romer stands out to me. Annie and Owen is my favorite original soundtrack song of all time. Somber but hopeful, reenforcing the absurdism of life. It echoes the tone of the series and is the perfect capstone.

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stexlo t1_j1x0er9 wrote

Avatar: The Last Airbender

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RoShamPoe t1_j1x0h0i wrote

Fringe, hands down. But I am a huge Michael Giacchino fan.

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Jackattack736 t1_j1x0jl5 wrote

Honestly I'm not sure I could narrow it down but a few favorites:

Game of Thrones and Westworld's score both by Ramin Djawadi

Avatar the Last Airbender's and The Legend of Korra's score by Jeremy Zuckerman (I do like Korra's more though, he made some truly beautiful songs like Service and Sacrifice and the finale theme)

Lost's score by Michael Giacchino

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RoShamPoe t1_j1x0rc7 wrote

Replying to Jackattack736 (#1,104,322)

>Michael Giacchino

He's the absolute best. I'm not a musician, but it's really weird how often I'll fall in love with a score and it will be him. I don't get what it is that my brain recognizes in his music.

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Chadlerk t1_j1x0vfd wrote

Patriot

The main character writes folk music that describes all the situations he is in. French Gun episode in Season 2 has a one cut scene that the song narrates as it all goes down and is brilliantly done.

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Tocallaghan95 t1_j1x1otg wrote

Probably between The Fugitive, Twin Peaks or The Prisoner.

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OB1KENOB t1_j1x4gp0 wrote

Cobra Kai has an amazing score, super 80’s and nostalgic

The Rings of Power blew me away with its epic and iconic orchestral score

Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul… as simple and infrequent as the score is, it is badass, chilling, and so fitting whenever it appears

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Annie3705 t1_j1x5z23 wrote

Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Breaking Bad/BCS.

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HaydenScramble t1_j1x7rvr wrote

Anything Bear McCreary does. Black Sails, The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica, Outlander.

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DharmaPT t1_j1x8eqq wrote

Lost. Giacchino is a legend

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sp4r3h t1_j1xa2y3 wrote

Been really impressed with Labrynth for Euphoria

Edit: Mr robot season 1 was an older fav

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FrostyAcanthocephala t1_j1ximih wrote

I like Bear McCreary, especially in BSG, but not the theme song. James Horner was great in the movies.

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bruddatim t1_j1xl2nj wrote

Westworld for me. Almost every player piano tune had an aspect of foreshadowing. Idk how to do the spoiler thing so stop reading right about now if you don’t want spoilers:

There’s a scene where Bernard wakes up from a dream to Debussy’s reverie in the background about 3 episodes before we find out he’s a robot boi. Kinda neat even though all of this was done without original scoring.

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twbrn t1_j1xldpy wrote

Battlestar Galactica. This is not really a competition.

Ramin Djawadi's scores for Game of Thrones and Westworld are an honorable second, but Bear McCreary's BSG soundtrack is the most impressive, most original, and most unorthodox yet appropriate music I've ever seen attached to a TV show. Even McCreary's other work, though impressive, clearly didn't have the level of pure creative freedom he had with BSG.

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shocksmybrain t1_j1xmf68 wrote

Get Shorty (TV Show) has a great score by Antonio Sanchez.

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twbrn t1_j1xnled wrote

Replying to Jmen4Ever (#1,107,390)

Something like that, certainly no more than 24. Working on the BSG miniseries under the previous composer Richard Gibbs was basically his first job out of college. When Gibbs didn't come back for the regular series, he became the main composer.

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phantomkat t1_j1xnvnq wrote

Dark

Listening to the soundtrack just catapults me back to the series. The show is amazing in everything else, but the soundtrack is such an integral part of its identity.

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AJStroup22 t1_j1xp6c6 wrote

game of thrones, westworld, and the hunger games all had beautiful scores. ramin djawadi is a god and james newton howsrd is also incredible.

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Iwoulddiefcftbatk t1_j1xpb8e wrote

Replying to twbrn (#1,107,546)

I do think he set the bar for how television scores are done now. A lot of shows in early the 00’s had recycled music from previous projects; SG1 used music heavily from the movie throughout the series but tried to mix it up from time to time or just a copy paste X theme for every episode, ie most procedurals. Bear really stepped up the composing for each episode and worked on establishing leitmotifs and evolving them as the series went on.

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Beard341 t1_j1xtwip wrote

Lost, and it’s not really that close.

Edit: “Parting Words”, “Moving On” are my two favorites.

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Autumnleaves201 t1_j1xw3nd wrote

I thought the score from 1883 was beautiful. The music from seasons 1 & 2 of The Walking Dead were also really great.

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Regula96 t1_j1y3ram wrote

If you make a list of series all with next level scores and soundtracks, Attack on Titan will still stand out as next level.

I’ve been rewatching it a bit and once again I can’t believe how good it is. There is so much phenomenal music throughout the show.

Listen to ”You See Big Girl”, ”ThanksAT”, ”Apple Seed”, ”Vogel im Käfig”, ”Attack on Titan”. And there are many, many more.

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TheSeventhAnimorph t1_j1y5flu wrote

I really think anyone who asks stuff about a show's score needs to specify "music score" in their titles; these posts always get downvoted for no reason, and all I can think is that people assumed it meant review-type "score" without actually looking at the text of the post.

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productiveslacker73 t1_j1yemif wrote

Here's a reach way back...

Tour of Duty - mid 80s. About Vietnam War. They used several (now classic) era related rock songs throughout each episode. Especially while in combat and in the bunkers.

The theme song was The Rolling Stones 'Paint It Black'

Unfortunately music rights were too expensive so when released on media format like VHS/DVD all the rock music, including the them song, was replaced with general instrumentials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_of_Duty_(TV_series)

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Sayena08 t1_j1yxcvg wrote

Anything Ramin Djawadi does.

His Dark Materials

Rings of Power was epic and nostalgic (shame about the show)

Lookism (Korean webtoon on Netflix)

P.S: Rome

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DROOPY1824 t1_j1zzddg wrote

Replying to OB1KENOB (#1,104,850)

My favorite moment of BB is the end of the second last episode when the camera is panning across the bar as the score builds up in the background before finishing on his glass. Still gives me the chills when i watch it.

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Ok-Blacksmith4364 t1_j20ltf8 wrote

All four seasons of Westworld. Ramin Djawadi never misses but I prefer his WW soundtrack to GOT because there is more variety.

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AvenueRoy t1_j22ra8n wrote

Murdoch Mysteries is a very strange Canadian series that has ran for far too long and gone almost completely off the rails. But the score from Robert Carli is consistently excellent, very underrated.

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borderheeler t1_j27dnje wrote

Person of Interest. Not so much the theme or original music but the use of previously-recorded songs was flawless. Johnny Cash's Hurt during Reese's burn-it-down rage still gives me chills. And there are at least a dozen scenes that I can not only see in memory but also hear.

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