Carrie: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack [Enhanced CD]

Edition: Audio CD

Genre:  Pop  Soundtracks & Film Scores  Film Music  Original Score  Soundtracks  Soundtrack Artists:  Pino Donaggio  Piper Laurie  Amy Irving  William Katt  Betty Buckley  Nancy Allen  John Travolta  P.J. Soles  Priscilla Pointer  Sydney Lassick

Play all track samples  —  Stop Tracks: 1. Theme From 'Carrie' 2. I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me 3. Telekinesis (Incidental Dialogue From The Film) 4. And God Made Eve 5. The Raven Was Called Sin (Incidental Dialogue From The Film) 6. At The Prom 7. Contest Winners 8. Born To Have It All 9. Bucket Of Blood 10. They're All Going To Laugh At You (Incidental Dialogue From The Film) 11. School In Flames 12. Mother At The Top Of The Stairs 13. For The Last Time We'll Pray 14. The Devil Has Come Home (Incidental Dialogue From The Film) 15. Collapse Of Carrie's Home 16. Sue's Dream 17. Powers (Incidental Dialogue From The Film) 18. Theme From 'Carrie'

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Editorial review:

In 1976, Carrie made a star of Sissy Spacek, a bankable first-tier director of Brian DePalma, and a household name of horror writer Stephen King (on whose first novel the film was based). Newcomers John Travolta, Amy Irving, and Nancy Allen didn't do so bad for themselves either.

But like the solid efforts of many film composers, Pino Donaggio's work went largely unheralded at the time, though DePalma would reward him with no less than five more scoring assignments in the years to come. Ironically, Donaggio was the director's second choice; the first, Bernard Herrmann, died just hours after the final recording session for Scorsese's Taxi Driver in December, 1975.

For the Carrie, score, Donaggio descends from the breezy string and flute arrangements that introduce the innocence of the title character into a darkening orchestral maelstrom as the troubled telekinetic Carrie suffers increasingly harsh indignities at the hands of her schoolmates and madly fundamentalist mother. Like his peers Morricone and Rota, Donaggio often understates the most dramatic scenes of his projects; the famed school prom hell storm scene is accompanied merely by rumbling sustained chords from the strings beneath subtly disquieting electronic effects. Ryko's interspersing of dialogue clips is especially effective here, particularly the chilling rantings of Piper Laurie as Carrie's mother. --Jerry McCulley

Customer reviews:

What's there and what's not...

The producers of this soundtrack seemed to omit everything that wasn't done by Pino Donaggio. What IS there is excellent, especially the Theme from "Carrie" and "Mother At the Top of the Stairs," which is a brillant homage to those 200+ year old hymns found in church songbooks around the world. One song is only partially included; "I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Soneone Like Me." In the movie, there's an instrumental break where Tommy and Carrie talk about why he asked her to the prom. The version on this soundtrack omits this break, making the song shorter and, to me, not as enjoyable.

As others have mentioned, there are several pieces that are outright missing. The most notable one is that great song that's playing when Carrie and friends enter the gym; a song called "Education Blues" by Vance Or Towers. It's a party rock tune that foreshadowed the New Wave revolution that would come in the '80s, and slightly different in the movie than on their obscure 1975 LP. BIG oversight.

Also as some have previously mentioned, the Moog-style music when the guys are shopping for tuxedos and the girls are in detention are gone, presumably because they weren't the classical string arrangements that Donaggio seems to prefer. So the comic relief is also missing.

Due to the high cost of music licensure, I can understand why Martha & The Vandella's "Heat Wave" is missing, yet it was the backdrop for one of the movie's most memorable scenes with Nancy Allen and John Travolta. Still, this song is widely available. What is NOT, and is missing from this soundtrack, is the song playing in the background of that "other" Travolta / Allen scene, the notorious parking scene. In the background is a song that might be called "Pretty Lady" or "Pretty Baby," and is uncredited on the DVD of the movie. I've been trying to figure out what it is for years. If you happen to know, your e-mail would answer a now 30 year-old question.

With the running time that today's CDs afford, the omissions of these tracks is inexcusable, and I would have preferred them to the added dialogue snippets that differentiate this CD from the original vinyl product. Still, what IS present has never sounded better. Donaggio's brilliant, complimentary score demonstrates why he is one of the all-time great film composers!

The first 90 seconds are absolutely breathtaking

I can easily understand why some people hate Donaggio. Let's face it--he's a throbbing cliche of an Italian composer. From the 101-strings school of Italianate melodicism. There's too much of those soaring strings and not enough instrumental variety.

The first 90 seconds on this record is the most achingly scrumptious piece of music ever written. Unfortunately, it doesn't have its own name. It's subsumed under the title THEME FROM CARRIE. I refer to it as INTRO TO THE THEME FROM CARRIE.

Regarding I NEVER DREAMED. Sung by the breathadelic Katie Irving. Her vocal high-point is when she sings "I'm the girl with the strawberry hair in the photograph". Katie might have a technically wimpy voice (it's the exact opposite of an operatic voice), but I value her wimpfest more than anything ever sung by an opera singer.

MOTHER AT THE TOP is Herrmannesque to a fault. And as much as I begrudge CONTEST WINNERS for being a repetition of THEME FROM CARRIE, it really redeems itself at the end with a really sweet passage. FOR THE LAST TIME has that fab sinister motif. There's one dud track and it's a ham-fisted thing called COLLAPSE OF CARRIE'S HOUSE.

carrie

i am looking for names of other songs in the movie carrie