nintendude794's Top 5: Hollywood Composers

As of last summer, my fascination with music has grown uncontrollably to become a career possibility; it's currently my second occupation choice, number one being a job in the video game or computer industry. This is due in part to my discovery of how awesome the music in movies and TV Shows can be, and I've began studying Hollywood composers and their movie music; I've began memorizing who scored what as far as about a dozen composers. The purpose of this post is to list my top 5 favorite cinema musicians , and they are:

5. Klaus Badelt - I pick this guy because he laid an amazing foundation for the action of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy's themes. He's a student/apprentice of Hans Zimmer's, who scored Pirates 2 & 3 after Klaus composed the music for Pirates 1. One of my favorite movie soundtracks of all time is that of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl".

4. John Williams - The absolute most famous Hollywood musician of all time, who wrote a piece for Obama's inauguration since Obama picked him as the one to do so. He's known for scoring all but three of Steven Spielberg's films, including Indiana Jones, Jaws, Jurassic Park, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and many more; films not involving Spielberg include Star Wars, Harry Potter, Richard Donner's Superman movie (the old one), and several, perhaps dozens, others. Some of my favorite movie themes of all time are from Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars.

3. Hans Zimmer - I know him for scoring Christopher Nolan's "Batman" saga reboot (Batman Begins & The Dark Knight) alongside James Newton Howard, the second two Pirates of the Caribbean films, Broken Arrow, Ron Howard's Da Vinci Code movies, The Lion King, Gladiator, and Pearl Harbor. He's a very humble and talented German composer who's known for combining electronics and orchestra for most of his soundtracks. One of my favorite movie soundtracks of all time is that of The Dark Knight.

2. Michael Giacchino - Giacchino actually started out scoring video games, something I might want to take part in as a career. I mentioned him in the J.J. Abrams post for scoring most of J.J.'s work, including the movies Cloverfield, Star Trek (2009), and Mission: Impossible 3, as well as the TV Shows LOST, Alias, and Fringe. He's also scored numerous Disney animated films, including The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and the upcoming project Up, which releases this summer. He conducted the orchestra at the latest Oscar Awards Show, and is probably best known for his LOST music, which uses pieces of an airplane for percussion and has become famous for obnoxious downward trombone glissandos for LOST's many cliffhangers. Some of my favorite music to come out of Hollywood is LOST's vast array of many cool themes.

1. James Horner - Although a controversial composer who's been accused of steal musical ideas and passages from other people as well as his own work (I can prove he's reused elements of his own music, but I like it and think it's a cool concept), James Horner is an amazing musician. He's scored many of Ron Howard's films, such as Cocoon, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, and Willow; otherwise, he's scored the movies Radio, Titanic, Jumanji, Casper, Braveheart, Legends of the Fall, Clear and Present Danger, Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Pelican Brief, Field of Dreams, Glory, The Land Before Time, Aliens, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. I haven't exactly seen all of these movies, although I've seen several of them. My absolute favorite movie soundtrack of all time is... the soundtrack of A Beautiful Mind.

And those are my top 5 favorite Hollywood composers. I'm still updating this post with links, and when I'm done, this sentence will be gone.

nintendude794