Tron and Beyond: 10 Films Scored by Your Favourite Musicians

The sucky thing about real life is there's no score. In movies, the music that alerts us to danger, tells us when to cry, and when to go in for that first kiss. Music can make a great movie better, and even a dreadful flick bearable.

Here at Spinner, we've been waiting patiently for the release of 'Tron: Legacy' since we first heard electro kings Daft Punk were in charge of the film's score.

Now the wait is over. But before we don our 3D glasses and dig into a bag of buttery popcorn, we thought we'd share this list of 10 films scored by our favourite bands and solo artists.


10. Chemical Brothers -- 'Hanna'
Joe Wright's action film about a teenage girl groomed by her ex-CIA father to become the perfect assassin won't grace the silver screen until sometime in 2011, but now the Chemical Brothers are following in Daft Punk's footsteps and have signed on to produce the synth-y score. While their songs have been used in countless movies and TVshows, composing the score from scratch means this spy soundtrack should be killer.




9. Johnny Marr -- 'Inception'
Christopher Nolan turned to frequent collaborator Hans Zimmer (whose credits range from 'Gladiator' to 'The Dark Knight') to score the Leonardo DiCaprio blockbuster. But rather than turning in one of his usual compositions, Zimmer invited former Smith's and sometime Modest Mouse guitarist Johnny Marr into the studio and the pair produced a classic symphonic score oozing with indie rock cred.


8. Jonny Greenwood -- 'There Will Be Blood'
When not clocking time with Radiohead, guitarist Jonny Greenwood serves as composer-in-residence for the BBC Concert Orchestra. For his 'There Will Be Blood' score, Greenwood composed a few hours of music before editing the piece down to a sparse 33 minutes. The remaining dissonant string swells and chaotic crescendos perfectly underline Daniel Day Louis' Academy Award-winning performance of a man whose lust for oil tears him apart from the inside in desolate 1920s California.

7. Peter Gabriel -- 'The Last Temptation of Christ'
In the late '80s former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel was best known for the animated 'Sledgehammer' video. But when he signed on to score Martin Scorcese's controversial 1988 film 'The Last Temptation of Christ,' Gabriel forever shed that wacky MTV persona. Enlisting late Pakistani vocalist Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar, Gabriel created a timeless and borderless soundtrack for the thought-provoking film, and won a Grammy for his efforts.


6. Yo La Tengo -- 'Sounds of the Sounds of Science'
Yo La Tengo's 78-minute instrumental score to eight short underwater films by late avant-garde filmmaker Jean Painlevé (think of him as an underground Jacques Cousteau) is probably the coolest soundtrack to a bunch of short films you'll never see. The band debuted the tunes at the 2001 San Francisco Film Festival, and has since accompanied the film with a live performance about 12 times.


5. Neil Young -- 'Dead Man'
To score Jim Jaramusch's 1995 western, Neil Young sequestered himself in a studio outfitted with dozens of video screens and surrounded himself with an arsenal of instruments. As he watched the film, Old Shakey coaxed feedback from a reverb-drenched electric guitar, plunked out melodies on an out-of-tune piano and mindlessly strummed his acoustic guitar. The result is a score as desolate, direct, weird and graceful as the landscape that serves as film's backdrop.



4. Mastodon -- 'Jonah Hex'
Even though the trailers promised ample shots of Megan Fox strutting in a tight-fitting leather corset while gun-wielding Josh Brolin blows away a host of bad guys, this hyper-violent film adaptation of the lesser-known DC Comic was a monumental flop. That said, the heavy metal band Mastodon's brutal score, with its punishing guitar riffary and thunderous beats, adds a razor sharp edge to an otherwise dull film.

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3. Dust Brothers -- 'Fight Club'
Best known for their over-the-top sample-based production work for Beck and Beastie Boys (not to mention inspiring the Chemical Brothers to get into the music business) studio wizards John King and Mike Simpson, aka the Dust Brothers, nailed this subdued score for the film adaption of Chuck Palahniuk's tome against consumerism, capturing the heart of the story and the soul of the '90s.



2. Trent Reznor -- 'The Social Network'
With its simple piano melodies, industrial drones and frenetic beats, Nine Inch Nails maestro (and non-Facebook user) Trent Reznor and long-time collaborator Atticus Ross' Golden Globe-nominated score helped transform the true life tale of a bunch of unlikeable Harvard nerds who develop a surprisingly addictive social networking site into one of 2010's most gripping films.



1. Daft Punk -- 'Tron Legacy'
With the slick 3D treatment and state-of-the-art computer graphics, this sequel to the 1982 classic is sure make the original 'Tron' look as quaint as a game of Pong. To complete the reboot, the film's producers tapped Daft Punk to create the ultra-modern film score. Melding traditional symphonic sounds with electronic blips and thumping beats, the helmeted duo's sequel to synth legend Wendy Carlos' original 'Tron' score is a moody and intense masterpiece that almost makes the movie worth sitting through with your eyes closed.