Before opening this thread, I made a small wager with myself that “Carmina Burana” would show up by the third post. Self, you owe me lunch tomorrow.
Ellen, the scary-sounding piece you’re describing is Orff’s Carmina Burana. And yes, it is in almost every trailer.
Also popular is Aaron Copeland–during the 80s it was Fanfare for the Common Man and lately it’s been Appalacian Spring.
The little string tag from Wagner’s Ring is also often used in trailers to indicate tension. I guess people who make movie trailers are big fans of John Boorman’s Excalibur, which used both Wagner and Orff for the score.
Parts of Passion, Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ seem to pop up everywhere. Which is kind of a shame, because I LOVE that record. It came out while I was in college, and everyone immediately used it as make out music. My joke about it at the time:
Q: Why did Peter Gabriel call this soundtrack “Passion”?
A: Because he couldn’t call it “Play this while you’re f**king”
And by the way, the name of the Talking Heads song is “Once In A Lifetime”, not “Same As It Ever Was”.
I hate when movies use songs that are anachronistically out of place. Example: Gladiator and “Bawitdaba” and A Knight’s Tale and “We Will Rock You”.
BTW, that Rob Zombie song is called Dragula and was also in Gran Turismo 2. I think it’s the reason you can program which songs you do and do not want to hear in Gran Turismo 3.
A Knight’s Tale was purposely anachronistic, and I thought it was amusing.
They actualy used a song by that fuckstick, mediocre dirtball in a Gladiator trailer? There should be an international law against Kid Rock.
I’m amazed noone has mentioned the Dies Irae from Mozart’s Requiem yet!
You know, while I don’t listen to Enya regularly, a lot of her stuff is quite good…
…except for that God-awful piece of crap “Only Time.” I swear that this is easily the worst song she ever did. It has no content.
Her other stuff is really good to meditate to.
Oh, and that “Kiss Me” song. It’s in trailers, and in like every teen movie. Not that I’m a teenie bopper, but I love movies and i’ll see anything once. And I hate that song. Puts my teeth on edge…
Tenebras