What's the score here? (PUN!)

I was thinking more about the complaints I had about the score to "Let Me In" and how it was such cliche "OMGSCARY!" music that could have been in any horror movie. Got me thinking about what makes a film score good or bad and whether a good score can be used poorly etc. I thought I might do a top 5 film scores post here but it occurred to me that my list would be somewhat uninspired as I have done no preparation or research and would probably just end up throwing things on the list just so I'd have something there. Rather than doing that I'm just going to talk about one. It's one of my all-time favorites.


Spirited Away - Score by Joe Hisaishi


This is one of the greatest film scores I've ever heard, which is appropriate since it's also one of the greatest films of all time. I'd put it in my all-time top 5 without any hesitation. The music is at times energetic and celebratory, dark and sinister and always haunting beautiful, just like the film. For me the best film scores also work because when you listen to them they conjure up the memory of scene from the film they're used in. The images improve the music and certainly vice versa. There are times when I find the music in a lot of films pretty cliche and generic, like they could have been pumped out for any film. There's nothing generic about any of the music from Spirited Away (or indeed any of the other films Hisaishi has scored.) Every note is adds so much to the style and tone of the film.