With the show plowing towards the conclusion of the first leg of its final season (and the inevitable holy goddamn animals cliffhanger), Breaking Bad is definitely hitting a peak in buzz, and audience excitement. Smartly taking advantage of the moment, AMC and Madison Gate Records have put out the show’s newest soundtrack of the show’s score. Pulling from a variety of seasons and episodes, the 20 tracks include a slightly extended version of the Main Theme, as well as tracks like “Smoking Jesse’s Pot,” “Baby’s Coming,” “Crawl Space,” and “Heisenberg’s Theme”
You can grab the soundtrack physically here from Amazon or grab it on MP3 (both help us out!), or go the iTunes route right here. This joins the soundtrack they put out last year.
In conjunction with the new release, composer David Porter has given a great interview to WIRED and spoke on scoring for such a wide variety of tones, handling cliffhangers, and what his favorite show moment’s have been to film. Obviously this entails some spoilers, if you’re not caught up. If you’re a fan of the show though, you should definitely give it a quick read.
Porter: Although the instrumentation isn’t Western — aside from the resonator guitar used in the show’s main title theme — there is definitely a shared aesthetic with many classic Western scores. Particularly early on in the series, Vince Gilligan would occasionally reference the use of sound in films like Once Upon a Time in the West. Elements found in those soundtracks such as sparseness in orchestration, short solo motifs and very deliberate tempos just seem to work well in conjunction with the desert landscape.
I’m already enjoying digging through the tracks and reliving some of the show’s most intense moments through the music, which I have not admittedly given much thought to as I’ve gone through the show. I’ll definitely be keeping my ears better tweaked for Porter’s work as thing spiral towards whatever conclusion Gilligan has in store…
