Joel McNeely / Original Soundtrack - Psycho Soundtrack CD

 THE GREATEST THRILLER SOUNDSCORE IN HISTORY!!!
YOU CANNOT BEAT PSYCHO THE MOVIE OR IT'S SOUNDSCORE WHEN IT COMES TO SUSPENSEFUL THRILLING CHILLING HORRIFIC FLICKS AND THEIR THEME SCORES! PSYCHO IS TOTALLY UNBEATABLE AND ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS FILMS AROUND! THE MUSIC IS INCREDIBLY SUSPENSEFUL AND SPOOKY! THE BEST SOUND SCORE FOR A HORROR FLICK EVER! JENNIFER MARUS PSYCHO FANATIC
Submitted by thefabfour (ASTORIA, NY) 
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 Top of his game
From arguably Hitchcock's best film is Bernard Herrmann's amazing soundtrack of strings. Hitchcock and Herrmann were like Tim Burton and Danny Elfman, or Spielberg and John Williams. The perfect union of director and composer. This is my favoite soundtrack! When it is sweet it is very sweet, and when it is tense it is very tense, and when there's murder in the air, well you know how that sounds. Like a hundred ice picks being imbedded in your skull over and over. If you own one soundtrack this should be the one!
Submitted by a reviewer (Santa Monica, CA) 
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 An innovative and influential masterwork.
Probably the most important music contribution to a film in motion picture history, "Psycho" is a work that film composers dedicated to their profession can use for a textbook. I'm still amazed that this score wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award (the nominees that year [1960] were "The Alamo", "Elmer Gantry", "The Magnificent Seven", "Spartacus", the winner being "Exodus"). In fact, Bernard Herrmann would have to wait another sixteen years to be recognized by the Academy ("Obsession" and "Taxi Driver", both nominated for music score in 1976). But by that time, he had passed away the previous Christmas Eve 1975. The team of director Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann was similarly innovative and influential in the early 1960s. Herrmann was no Hollywood newcomer, having started his career in movie scoring with "Citizen Kane" (1941). Nonetheless, in 1960 the veteran Herrmann proved ready and willing to embrace innovation and to strike out in new directions. He composed a chilling and haunting score for "Psycho" that was performed solely by an orchestral string section. Indeed, Herrmann's scoring choice prevailed over Hitchcock's instinct about the film's music. Because of Herrmann, "Psycho" left a legacy that guided the composing of music for movie thrillers for decades to come. In its overall influence on the American feature film industry, the impact of the veteran Herrmann's creativeness in scoring "Psycho" very much paralleled the impact of the editing work by the veteran George Tomasini in the same film. I personally rate "Psycho" as the best film ever made but I wonder how I (and others) would rate it if Hitchcock has gone with a jazz score as he originally intended (probably inspired by "Touch of Evil"). I shudder to think! Thank heaven that the score is available on CD in multiple versions (including the actual recorded score lifted from the film's soundtrack). I'll always commend Jerry Goldsmith for his originality in scoring "Psycho II" and not trying to duplicate Herrmann (as so many others have done). I only wish Herrmann had lived to score the sequel.
Submitted by filmfactsman (Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
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 Re-live Psycho
Listen to the music while reading the booklet was a GREAT new expeience for me even though I have seen this movie recently. The booklet takes you step by step through the scenes musically. The sound was crips and clear. The only thing I would have liked is if they used reverb on the violins in the shower scene like Hitchcock did. Otherwise it is exact. And you will not know the very slight difference in the shower scene if they did not tell you that they went by the music written. It still was powerful and exact. Also wonderful pieces of information are given such as The Psycho House was develpoed from Edward Hoppers 1925 painting House by a Railroad. I looked it up and WOW ..see for your self. Buy it for yourself or as a sure thing for a gift.
Submitted by vincent (florida)
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