Music has been an important part of movies since it began. Back in the early 1900s, when motion pictures were in its infancy, the technology did not exist to connect sound with the images. Rather than leave the audience in silence, theater owners would hire a pianist, organist, or even a full orchestra to play music that fit the mood of the film. This trend quickly caught on and, by the 1920s, films came with sheet music. Some films even came with complete film scores.
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Two of the most important technological advances in film came in the 1920s: color and sound. The first feature-length movie originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. It seems only fitting that the movie would be a musical.
While the organist and pianist lost their jobs, the composers in Hollywood did not. Music had become so connected with movies that two would remain connected.
Music in television has a similar history as it has its roots in its predecessor: radio. Radio shows used music to establish a mood for the show as well as an audible cue that the show was beginning. Often times, lyrics of the song would provide any necessary exposition, or back story, necessary to understand the show. These trends continued when many radio shows moved onto the television screens.
Theme music has been in a decline since the early 1990s. Many shows have begun to reduce the length of their opening sequence while cutting out the ending sequence all together in order to run promos for upcoming shows. A prime example of this is Law & Order. The opening theme is now only 1/3 the length it had been originally.
Then in 2005, shows such as Threshold and Lost began to air without any opening theme music. Luckily, music during episodes of shows has been increasing as of late.
We here at The Best Songs.net have compiled some of the best movie and television songs available. We have divided them into two major categories, Movie and Television, before subdividing them down into small categories based on theme.
For your convenience, we have included links to the sheet music on Sheetmusicplus.com as well as the CD on Amazon.com whenever available. If you are looking to purchase the mp3 or would like to listen to a sample, then click on the Amazon, Rhapsody, or iTunes links.
Rhapsody provides both music subscriptions as well as individual mp3s for sale in WMA format and iTunes only provides MPEG-4 audio files for sale. However, Amazon does offer mp3s that are compatible with both Windows Media Player and iTunes. For more information about where to purchase music online, we provide it on our Music Downloads page or our Music Subscriptions page.
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