Recommend some ridiculously epic music

Millions,

A friend of mine works at this corporate team building event company and is working on a list of songs for when their clients make phony Gladiator/Braveheart-esque movies. She asked for help soliciting music that is, well, really epic. I pointed her towards “Promentory” from the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack, which is my personal gold standard, and she loved it. We’ve found plenty of others, but that’s basically spot on what she’s looking for. Care to share a few of your favorites? Can be from soundtracks, with lyrics, without, even a little tongue in cheek.

Thanks, as usual.

Ride of the Valkyries.

Perfect for coming in low over the beach to machine gun the locals…er…uh…show groups of people working together and stuff.

Try the soundtrack from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Pompeii by E.S. Posthumous

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The more “march”-like music from Conan the Barbarian, and to a lesser degree Lord of the Rings*. Both influenced by O Fortuna from Carmina Burana, which would come to think of it be a good choice itself.

*Because while it’s epic, it isn’t really over the top epic like the faster bits of the Conan music.

My personal go-to epic music is either Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky) or Knights of Cydonia from Muse (sounds like Ennio Morricone composed a Queen song).

And I agree with Oakminster - you can never go wrong with Wagner for flat out epic-osity.

The theme from 2001…has another name that I can’t quite remember or spell, something like Also Spach Zarrustra. Used by Ric Flair as his entrance music, good for introducing big wigs/award winners/new products…

Also sprach Zarathustra.

Also, in the word of rock, well, I don’t know any power metal so I can’t make the perfect recommendation :), but some stuff by Coheed and Cambria works. For what it looks like you are looking for, The Final Cut by Co+Ca has some instrumental parts that sound like a mixture of Pink Floyd and a cheesy 80s film guitar soundtrack (IOW perfect for pomposity)

Dance of the Knights by Prokofiev
Dies Irae from Verdi’s Requiem
In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg

Also take a look at the soundtrack for Kenneth Branagh’s Othello. The intro theme is epic in a romantic way (you can pretty much hear Laurence Fishburne swooping by in tight pants)

The Empire theme from Star Wars is pretty epic. I’m also a fan of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” and Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War.”

I’d avoid Fucik’s “Entry of the Gladiators,” though. Despite the epic-sounding name, it’s not epic.

Spongebob “Sweet Victory”

Vangelis - “Conquest of Paradise” from the 1492 soundtrack

Ridiculously epic? Swedish Power Metal is the way to go:
Stratovarius Infinite (song starts ~20 seconds in)

Money for Nothing

Stratovarious! Haven’t thought about then in probably 8 years. Nice call.

Actually, these are all fantastic. “The Final Countdown,” by the way, is worth putting in the discussion. Hammy but epic.

NFL Films has commissioned a ton of music for use in various football highlight films; you hear quite a bit of it on TV commercials, as well.

There’s at least one album of it available on iTunes, called something like “Autumn Thunder”. Some of the tracks (particularly “Heroes of War”) may have that over-the-top epic feel you’re looking for.

I will second Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War”.

When I read the title at first I thought the OP was asking for ridiculously long epic music, like Rush or Yes.

Dark Magus - by Hallucinogen

That made me think, one form of Epic Rock Song that has thankfully fallen out of favor is sort of over the top pompostic enough to nominate in this thread: the type that start off with a verse and/or theme, then have up to 10 minutes or more of musical noodling, then a reprise of the theme.

Rush has two I can think of, YYZ and the Trees.
Led Zeppelins Moby Dick counts.
As does the Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive and Echoes.
(And who can forget, like I almost did, Innagaddadavita?)