The Lord of the Rings (film)/Awesome Music


 * Three from Return of the King: Pippin's song during Faramir's doomed charge, the lighting of the beacons, and Into the West playing over the closing credits. But the music that takes the cake has to be that which plays after Gandalf falls in Fellowship.
 * Allow me to set the scene: The Black Gate has opened. Aragorn, the fellowship (minus Sam and Frodo, of course), and the entire military might of men are surrounded. Everyone's looking freaked out. Then, Aragorn simply says, "For Frodo," and THE MOST EPIC CHOIR RENDITION OF THE FELLOWSHIP THEME KICKS IN as our heroes charge into battle. This troper nearly leapt up cheering in the theater.
 * Pippin's.
 * "Aniron" aka "Aragorn and Arwen", by Enya. If you weren't sucked into Middle-Earth before this came on, you are now. One of the most ethereal songs ever written? Possibly.
 * Very little can beat listening to Isengard Unleashed while driving through a forest on a foggy day.
 * Five words: The End of All Things.
 * Brilliantly repurposed in this Japanese news report about an unfortunate kiwi bird.
 * The Black Gate Opens. Dark and ominous and foreboding and all that, then the short quick wistful Concerning Hobbits when Sam is asking Frodo if he remembers strawberries and it's all so sad, but then! Then the music crescendos and Sam hoists Frodo on his back and it's so very awesome that you can't listen to that track on the bus anymore because it makes you start crying, and bursting into tears isn't something complete strangers know how to deal with.
 * Special mention has to go to the music in The Two Towers when the Elves march to the rescue at Helm's Deep. That ethereal, contemplative theme, reworked into one of the most Badass marches ever? AWESOME. (Starts at 3:02)
 * Also for the music that plays at the climax of the Battle of Helm's Deep - with the cavalry charging down the slope towards the black mass of Orcs. "The sun is rising towards the heaven. A beautiful silver waterfall of men and horses will soon sweep away the darkness. We won't ever see its like again. Not like that."
 * Even his evil themes are awesome. The pounding "Isengard/Uruk-hai" music simply screams Badass, and the raucous theme for Mordor is just plain warped, which makes it perfect.
 * "Concerning Hobbits." That little melody is a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in itself.
 * ""The Breaking of the Fellowship" is a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and a Tear Jerker.
 * Every iteration of the Rohan theme is great, but the one that can get to you the most is the last 30 seconds of "The ride of the Rohirrim". An entire nation of horse-riding Badass warriors, saddling up for the rescue? HELL. YEAH.
 * That glorious music with the old recording of The Professor Himself reading that sequence? A mashup just waiting to happen.
 * The Last March of the Ents would have to count. The version that plays at the Rohirrim's charge in the next movie along with that version of Rohan's theme probably actually tops it, and can be heard in "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields" from the extended ROTK soundtrack.
 * The fanfare that plays as Gandalf reveals the halls of Khazad-dûm. Simultaneously triumphal and desperately sad, what with the glory of the place being long gone.
 * The ominous, pants-wetting build-up to the Balrog's first appearance. Apparently a bunch of Maori rugby players chanting in Khuzdul (Dwarvish) sounds just like The Choirs of Hell.
 * The Requiem for a Tower music (in the second half of the Two Towers trailer), which is SO epic it was copied for half the music videos on YouTube.
 * Requiem for a Tower is a re-recorded version of Lux Aeterna from Requiem for A Dream.
 * The whole trilogy can be considered a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Howard Shore. The man wrote twelve hours of music, much of it involving the entire orchestra, over just three years. And every bit of it was fantastic.
 * The tear jerker Into the West playing at the credits of Return of the King.
 * In addition to the Tear Jerker feeling of "Into the West", it's been cited that Fran Walsh, one of the writers for the song, was inspired to write it by Cameron Duncan, a teenaged amateur filmmaker whom was dying of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) at the time of filming.
 * Shore managed to put one of his most tear-inducing, spine-tinglingly beautiful moments about 23 minutes into the Fellowship of the Ring end credits.
 * Six words: THE LORD OF THE RINGS SYMPHONY. It's a whole Crowning Music of Awesome. In no particular order:
 * Prologue.
 * The Shire.
 * The Black Riders.
 * The Fellowship.
 * Isengard.
 * The Bridge of Khazad-dum.
 * The Breaking of the Fellowship.
 * Lothlorien.
 * Smeagol.
 * Rohan.
 * Shadowfax.
 * The March of the Ents.
 * The Lighting of the Beacons.
 * Anduril.
 * Destruction of the Ring.
 * Return of the King.
 * The Grey Havens.
 * And, for the win, Use Well the Days.
 * "May It Be." That is all.
 * There is a reason why the whole trilogy soundtrack has been released uncut as the Complete Recordings: 10 CDs of pure awesome WIN.
 * Say what you want about the Bakshi Movie, but the main theme is awesome.
 * In the Isengard theme, they hit the open back of an upright piano with huge chains. That itself is epic.
 * The song played during the closing credits of The Two Towers: "Gollum's Song" is an incredibly touching and moving piece about none other than Gollum, originally written for Bjork and sung by Emilliana Torini. If you didn't feel for Gollum's tragic story before, you almost certainly will after hearing this song.
 * The Cut Song "Arwen's Song", by... Liv Tyler(!), repurposed as "Houses of Healing", a song about Eowyn, and she definitely has her father's chops...
 * The song "Twilight and Shadow" by Renee Flemming, which replaced it during Arwen's vision in the forest of her future son, which Figwit so rudely interrupts.
 * In Fellowship, the musical cue that plays when the party first enters Khazad-Dum, found in A Journey In The Dark from 2:05 - 3:20.
 * The Goblin songs from the Rankin-Bass [ films -- every. single. one. Goblins, it seems, inherited their ancestors' natural singing voice.
 * The Hobbit is starting to look like it's going to have some awesome music, too. Just take a listen for yourself.