10 Albums Fast X Composer Brian Tyler Thinks Every Music Fan Should Own
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The post 10 Albums Fast X Composer Brian Tyler Thinks Every Music Fan Should Own appeared first on Consequence.
Crate Digging is a recurring feature that finds us taking deep dive into music history to turn up several albums all music fans should know about. In this edition, composer, arranger, and record producer Brian Tyler tells us which of his favorite albums most influenced his own career.
Just this year alone, composer Brian Tyler has credits on three films that will undoubtedly go on to define the 2023 box office. First came Scream IV, the first entry in the franchise to cap $100 million domestically since Scream 2 and the highest-grossing Ghost Face film ever; then there was The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a billion-dollar smash that’s revitalizing video game adaptations and animated adventures; and next comes Fast X, Tyler’s seventh contribution to the blockbuster series.
The guy has created music for Las Vegas shows, video game franchises (F1), studio logo fanfares (Universal Pictures, Marvel Studios), hit TV shows (Yellowstone), and films ranging from Crazy Rich Asians to Iron Man 3 to Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers. No doubt, Tyler has range — so of course we wanted to know what inspired such an accomplished career.
Smack between Super Mario Bros. breaking box office records (and on the day it hits VOD services, no less!) and the hype for Fast X revving up ahead of its May 19th release, we asked Tyler to share with us the 10 film scores that he thought were essential. Perhaps we should have known that someone who always seems to be bouncing between such varied projects wouldn’t be able to narrow his attention on just one topic.
Instead, Tyler came back to us with 10 albums across the musical spectrum that have influenced his own work. Yes, that includes one iconic score, but the list also features RUSH, Billie Eilish, and Run the Jewels. So when you’re gripping the armrest in the theater as Vin Diesel sideswipes Jason Momoa’s car while you’re watching Fast X this weekend, keep an ear open for the music that’s soundtracking the action. Maybe you’ll hear a bit of Brian Tyler’s influence from his favorite albums by Metallica or Depeche Mode sparking through the wreckage.
Bernard Hermann — Vertigo
The score from the Alfred Hitchcock movie is so beautiful and fractured in a way that reflects life. The melody is so amazing, the string writing… It was so influential on my writing. The way Bernard Herrmann understood chords, and also use of string vibrato or non-vibrato at times. And the lead instrument in this score is a viola, which I think is amazing because it is an often overlooked instrument.
But this score is romantic and beautiful and tragic. Brilliant movie too.
Pink Floyd — The Wall
This album influenced me in a way that is hard for me to describe. The journey that is this album as a concept album — being a double album that would take you through a journey that is outside of time and space — it has this beauty to it and melancholy. “Hey, You,” “Vera,” “Comfortably Numb,” “Mother,” “Goodbye Blue Skies” — all of those things just bring into it a world that also uses storytelling from the perspective of spoken dialogue and sound. And there’s a TV set on in the background, and it’s telling this story about us as people being dehumanized and our fight for humanity against that dehumanization, against being another brick in the wall.
I remember first hearing the song “Another Brick in the Wall” and that dark minor scaled melody against this sick, driving, deliberate beat. Instead of using some choir for the big chorus, they used school kids, angry with their middle finger to the system because they, like all of us, have been wronged in life. That power of the record to makes you feel like you’re fighting back and that you’re not alone is incredible. And I love how the album ends with a question mark, much like Abby Road, The Beatles, ends in terms of a statement.
RUSH — Power Windows
They’re most known for Moving Pictures, and I love RUSH from top to bottom, highly influential. The idea of a band that knew how to tell a story that every musician supports each other – musically, if there was a solo, it became part of the fabric of what the other two were doing. Absolutely stunning record and it incorporates the powerful, awe inspiring emotion that they developed at this point in their career. Also their embracing of electronics and the musicianship is insane. It is stunning.
“Territories” is a masterclass in just writing, and the sadness of “Middletown Dreams” and the fear of the fact that we only have so much time in life is one of the most beautiful lyrical songs. Neil Peart as a drummer influenced me so much – rest in peace – and the fact that the drummer is the lyricist, and these lyrics are brilliant. They’re not only incisive in what they tell us about the world, but they’re euphonious – the words sound beautiful.
Radiohead — In Rainbows
I love the way this record makes you feel like you are on a journey in life and you are looking forward and back at the same time. The musicianship is amazing. I love the production on it. I love the use of instruments doing things that they normally wouldn’t do, like the Rhodes playing the bass. “You’re All I Need” is one of my favorite songs of all time; it brings a tear to my eye. As does “Videotape.” Amazing.
Depeche Mode — Black Celebration
This is way up on my list. Depeche Mode absolutely influenced me musically and sonically in ways that I cannot quantify. I could not pick a single record, so Black Celebration, to me, is such a testament to who they are as a band. When they started, people snubbed their noses at them as being electronic, so not being emotional, and I would say it is the most emotionally resonant band. For me, as an experience, the peering into the dark side, but the beauty of being alive, and the production and the lyrics and the vocals is so emotional and so incredible. To people that only know maybe the hits of Depeche Mode, I would implore you to do a deep dive, to listen more closely. To me, they strike an emotion that no one else has done.
This is what Depeche Mode is to me: There’s seven minutes left on Earth, and you’re staring into the eyes of the love of your life and you’re making love as a comet is about to hit the Earth. And you know there’s no more time and you are trying to make the absolute most and looking at each other saying, “It’s okay. I love you, even though time is finite.” That’s what Depeche Mode feels like to me.
Run the Jewels — Run the Jewels
I love Run the Jewels’ albums. I’m just picking their first one because they’re all great. A disclaimer: I’m friends with El-P, who is amazing. I love the way El-P has his production and how it works with his rapping and Killer Mike’s rapping. Their lyrics are so dope, and the beats go so hard. Consistently, they do things that are just ridiculous and just so sick. The use of lo-fi is done in a way that sounds hi-fi.
I love me some Run the Jewels. Hip-hop is maybe my favorite style of music. So many artists I didn’t include, but they, to me, kind of capture the essence across all styles of music coming into one, which really hip-hop is all about.
Metallica — Master of Puppets
I love metal; I’m a drummer and a guitarist and a bass player. That record is so slamming. I mean, the song “Master of Puppets” with its weird, rad breakdown and the chug part with that strange hiccup in the meter is so sick. Also, the vocals – “[Welcome Home] Sanitarium” is epic. So many on that album, it is just slamming and it paved the way for generations and metal to come.
It was cool ‘cause at the time that record came out, metal had gone kind of glam, which is all fine, but they were almost like the punk version of metal and thrash, and all that was an influence. It’s just amazing.
Billie Eilish — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Game changer. The writing and the production on this album, it can have impact for years. People will still be trying to figure out what happened. So talented, her and her brother, making this record so captivating. Mad, mad love for this album.
Thomas Dolby — The Flat Earth
One of the most influential artists in my life. Super underrated. He’s known for a song that was a pop hit that honestly doesn’t reflect at all what this artist is [“She Blinded Me with Science”]. The scale and the power, and the beauty and the production and the writing and the vocals and the lyrics on The Flat Earth are mesmerizing – everything from the song “The Flat Earth” to “Screen Kiss.” How these songs end often in a dissonance that is gorgeous and strange and otherworldly. “Dissidents” is another song that is incredible – I mean, there’s so many on that record. It is absolutely mesmerizing.
Put on headphones when you listen to that. There is no record that sounds like that. It sounds ridiculous in terms of just the sonics and the power of having a piano with electronics and combining elements that you would never normally think would belong together.
Rage Against the Machine — Rage Against the Machine
Also disclaimer: I also worked with and am friends with Tom Morello, who’s amazing. But I was a fan before I knew Tom, just like El-P.
This record is so assertive. It has the coolest, most stank beats on it from the drummer and the bass player, and then the riffs are so heavy, even though the guitar sound isn’t saturated and distorted as much as like, a metal record. Zack de la Rocha, his consternation at the idiocy of power and being a voice for the voiceless is done in a way that speaks to me deeply. “Freedom” is one of the greatest songs of all time.
In a time like right now when you have trash like Donald Trump in the limelight that use power to hurt the vulnerable, I feel like Rage Against the Machine is that thing – and this album and the name Rage Against the Machine – that is an answer to the dehumanization that evil and callousness and coarseness try to subvert. That spirit that we can rage against the machine and attempt to right what is wrong is an endeavor worth having, and this music speaks to that.
10 Albums Fast X Composer Brian Tyler Thinks Every Music Fan Should Own
Ben Kaye
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