Frank Sinatra-FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA & ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM / WATERTOWN (1967 / 1970)

By 1967, bossa nova had become quite popular within jazz and traditional pop audiences, yet Frank Sinatra hadn't attempted any Brazil-influenced material. Sinatra decided to record a full-fledged bossa nova album with the genre's leading composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Arranged by Claus Ogerman and featuring Jobim on guitar and backing vocals, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim concentrated on Jobim's originals, adding three American classics -- "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," "Change Partners," and "I Concentrate on You" -- that were rearranged to suit bossa nova conventions. The result was a subdued, quiet album that used the Latin rhythms as a foundation, not as a focal point. Supported by a relaxed, sympathetic arrangement of muted brass, simmering percussion, soft strings, and Jobim's lilting guitar, Sinatra turns in an especially noteworthy performance; he has never sounded so subtle, underplaying every line he delivers and showcasing vocal techniques that he never had displayed before. Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim doesn't reveal its pleasures immediately; the album is too textured and understated to be fully appreciated within one listen. After a few plays, the album begins to slowly work its way underneath a listener's skin, and it emerges as one of his most rewarding albums of the '60s.

Watertown is Frank Sinatra's most ambitious concept album, as well as his most difficult record. Not only does it tell a full-fledged story, it is his most explicit attempt at rock-oriented pop. Since the main composer of Watertown is Bob Gaudio, the author of the Four Seasons' hits "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," "Walk Like a Man," and "Big Girls Don't Cry," that doesn't come as a surprise. With Jake Holmes, Gaudio created a song cycle concerning a middle-aged, small-town man whose wife had left him with the kids. Constructed as a series of brief lyrical snapshots that read like letters or soliloquies, the culminating effect of the songs is an atmosphere of loneliness, but it is a loneliness without much hope or romance -- it is the sound of a broken man. Producer Charles Calello arranged musical backdrops that conveyed the despair of the lyrics. Weaving together prominent electric guitars, keyboards, drum kits, and light strings, Calello uses pop/rock instrumentations and production techniques, but that doesn't prevent Sinatra from warming to the material. In fact, he turns in a wonderful performance, drawing out every emotion from the lyrics, giving the album's character depth.

-Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

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FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA & ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM (1967)
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WATERTOWN (1970)
mu zs
320kbps

Wendy Carlos-A CLOCKWORK ORANGE OST (1971)

Even before Carlos knew of a film project concerning A Clockwork Orange, the composer had begun work on a composition (Timesteps) based on the book. It's the best piece of music in the score (and one of the most famed in the early history of electronic music), fitting in well next to late-'60s minimalist works by Terry Riley as well as the emerging Tangerine Dream (pre-Phaedra). Carlos also pioneered the effect of synthesized vocals (known as a vocoder), and their eerie nature perfectly complemented scenes from the film. Much of the rest of A Clockwork Orange is filled with rather cloying synthesizer versions of familiar classical pieces (from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Rossini's The Thieving Magpie) similar to Carlos' previous Switched-On Bach recordings. Still, it's worthwhile if only for Timesteps. A Clockwork Orange was originally released as a Warner Bros. soundtrack, containing only film cuts (which edited Timesteps down from 13 minutes to only four).

-John Bush, allmusic.com

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Wendy Carlos-A CLOCKWORK ORANGE OST (1971)
320kbps

Various Artists-THE SHINING OST (1980)

There's some overlap between this and the PENDERECKI comp I uploaded earlier, but this is a great standalone score. You end up realizing how much, even though the film is visually arresting, the music and droning really carries it.

I'm fairly obsessed with THE SHINING, it must be said. On paper, conceptually, it was Kubrick's appeal to a mass audience, his popcorn movie. Consider that as he pulls you into a world darker than Stephen King had even imagined, into something truly primeval, and think about the effect of that on a mainstream movie audience in 1980. You have a more affecting, horrifying existential clusterfuck of a movie experience than anything in all of European Art Cinema/French New Wave, or that Jodorowsky stuff.

Thought this was a good read.

Anyway, this has 15 tracks. I've seen versions of this score with a few as 8 tracks, so there's some compiling from different sources going on I suppose.

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Various Artists-THE SHINING OST (1980)
VBR mostly 256