Soundtrack vs Cast Recording BULL%*$$%- Page 4

[HumATune]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 9:34am

I hate when people get Betamax and VHS mixed up.

[Jon]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 10:59am

Not to mention SelectaVision and LaserDisc.

[keen on kean]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 2:34pm

Not to mention left and right.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 4:05pm

Well, since Soundtracks and Cast Recordings are the same according to the genius who started this thread, I think I'm going to start calling left right and right left, since words have no actual meaning! This thread has tought me so much.


I'm off to watch the Radio and listen to the TV.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 5:48pm

You know what I do?
I just remember the difference. It's so hard at first but soon it becomes a habit.

[Chloe]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 5:50pm

Although they've become standard, I don't think those two terms are actually very good ways of differentiating between theater and film. After all, "soundtrack" recordings in which movie characters sing are just as much "cast recordings" as the ones made by theatrical performers. Also, literally speaking a film's soundtrack includes all the dialog and sound effects as well as the music. Of course, most movies aren't musicals. Their "soundtrack" recordings are of the score, the music which the characters don't "hear" or participate in, plus sometimes songs sung by others. Maybe we need three categories, motion picture score recordings, motion picture cast recordings, and theatrical cast recordings.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 5:52pm

Maybe we need three categories, motion picture score recordings, motion picture cast recordings, and theatrical cast recordings.

Oh god, it's hard enough to get people to differentiate between an alligator and a crocodile. Let's not overestimate the human race...

[Chloe]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 6:12pm

Actually, we could make it five categories and differentiate between score alone, score plus source (music played as if coming though a radio, for instance, usually pop tunes), and source alone. I don't think there are enough of those little dividers in music stores. This way, no one will be able to figure out the correct terms, and we can be entertained by more endless arguments like this one.

[AJ1985]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 8:11pm

Its like calling a motion picture a movie...

No...it's like calling a stage play a movie.

Totally different animals.

If saying "cast recording" offends you so much why not just say "recording" or "cd" and drop the official term.

It's not the end of the world but we are the ones who supposedly care about theatre and we should know what we are talking about.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 11:38pm

Maybe it's from the same minds that thought Contact was really a musical...

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 1/22/07 at 4:23am

It s perfectly all right to call movie soundtracks cast albums...they are, after all, the movie cast of that show.

BUT it is wrong to call cast albums soundtracks.

With that in mind I propose we ban the word "soundtrack" all together.

We will have Broadway cast, London cast, Revival cast and Movie cast recordings.

[HumATune]

Posted: 1/22/07 at 8:22am

It s perfectly all right to call movie soundtracks cast albums...they are, after all, the movie cast of that show.

No, it's the songs (and in some cases part of the score) that play during the movie. A lot of times movie soundtracks won't even feature anyone who was acting in the film.
Updated On: 1/22/07 at 08:22 AM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 1/22/07 at 11:37am

Well yes. You’re talking soundtrack Cd's that are just collections of songs to tie in with the movie.

But for this discussion we mean soundtracks of movie musicals like DREAMGIRLS, RENT, PRODUCERS, and CHICAGO movie versions. These discs feature the movie casts performing the songs: Hence they can be called the film cast (as opposed to Broadway cast) CD's.

Another type of "soundtrack" is the background score. In the 50s and 60s many Hollywood film scores were highly regarded and often re-recorded by classical orchestras. Music by composers Alex North (A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, WHO"S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, Tv's RICH MAN POOR MAN), Miklos Roza (SPELLBOUND), Dmitri Tiomkin (DUEL IN THE SUN) and Max Steiner (GONE WITH THE WIND). When these albums were issued they were often new recordings because in the film many of the orchestra cues were short, and often the music would be re-arranged for home listening creating a unique art form. The most successful film score producer of all tiem has to be John Williams: STAR WARS is perhaps teh most succesful film score album ever released.

Unfortunately, for the rest, the CD's (Lp's)are deleted fairly rapidly once the film finishes a theatrical run and the record is no longer of use as a promotional tool. By the 1970s many of these were highly prized collectors' items. The 10" LP of STREETCAR was at one time valued at $250. ! (It has since been reissued on CD.) Collectors of film scores are an even smaller group than cast album collectors, mainly because it is an art form supplanted by the new stupidity of putting out a so-called "soundtrack" CD for a movie with maybe one or two songs heard in the film (under the end titles) and the rest songs "inspired by" the movie: usually new artists who need to break they material or older artists trying to jump-start a fading career. Of course NONE of this material even comes from the film soundtrack further obscuring an out-dated term.

Updated On: 1/22/07 at 11:37 AM