THE GRADUATE soundtrack.
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Giant Soundtrack Poll Selects Graduate As Best And Ignores Film Scoring with the Rest

Featuring such acclaimed pop hits as "Mrs Robinson" and "The Sound Of Silence," The Graduate's soundtrack weighed in above Albert Magnoli's 1984 film PURPLE RAIN, starring former pop star Prince. The soundtrack for Quentin Tarantino's PULP FICTION, featuring Al Green's "Lets Stay Together," Dusty Springfield's "Son Of A Preacher Man," and Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon," came in third.

Seventies reggae movie THE HARDER THEY COME was voted as having the fourth best soundtrack, written by reggae songsmith Jimmy Cliff, 1998 film RUSHMORE came in fifth and Beatles classic HELP! was named sixth.

Danny Boyle's fast-paced Brit flick TRAINSPOTTING scooped the seventh place, LOST IN TRANSLATION was eighth and Robin Gibbs' SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER score came in ninth.

And Bernard Hermann, arguably the greatest ever film score composer, according to Giant, took tenth place for his efforts with the soundtrack of Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1959 thriller NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

As is typically the case with mass-media magazines like Giant, true film scores have been pretty much ignored in favor of song-oriented soundtracks. For example, Simon & Garfunkel's GRADUATE music is not a film score, per se, since it compiles songs into background music for the film. Excellent as it was in serving the film's purpose (as were those other song soundtracks cited by Giant), songs do not equate to score. Giant's top ten list typically cited films in which the songs were the only soundtrack music (one exception including HELP!, which featured limited underscore by George Martin). Herrmann is given lip-service but, aside from him, Giant's Top Ten is hardly a fair or accurate assessment of film music, per se. But it does reflect the public's perception (and, consequently, that of the record-buying majority) that songs are soundtracks and soundtracks are songs. Pity.

- www.giantmag.com