Three 65, Day 2
Various Artists, A Clockwork Orange: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

I was first turned on to this one in high school, by a good friend named Danny who had also brought Pink Floyd's The Wall to my attention. (And if you don't think we'll be covering The Wall in the next 363 days, you really don't know me at all.)

Say what you want about Stanley Kubrick's movie, but the soundtrack just takes the cake. I'm not a big fan of classical music, which I typically find too quiet and background-y for my tastes, but the selections here slay, especially Gioacchino Rossini's "Thieving Magpie" (used to great effect during the gang battle that comes early on in the film) and Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement." Talk about spectacle! Talk about grandeur! Talk about bombast! The cuts on this soundtrack have all of that.

Also of note are excerpts taken from Wendy Carlos' original score, which is so baroque and alien that it does more to set the futuristic mood of the movie than all of the set pieces combined. Carlos (who started out life as William Carlos, actually) was obsessed with converting classical pieces to more modern counterparts with the use of synthesizers, and the result is some of the finest keyboard work ever done. "Timesteps" alone is worth the price of entry.

The soundtrack isn't perfect by any means - I could do without two different sections of the stately "Pomp And Circumstance," and "I Want To Marry A Lighthouse Keeper" is a bit o' British fluff that could have been left on the cutting room floor - but it's a gem in the rough, that much is sure. Closing with "Singin' In The Rain" - a contribution made chilling by its use in the film - the soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange is Kubrick's finest contribution to recorded music.