The Greatest Music Ever Made

To commence, a simple logic equation:

(1) Wendy Carlos composed the soundtrack for the motion picture Tron

AND

(2) Tron is the greatest motion picture ever made

THEREFORE

(3) Wendy Carlos composed the greatest music ever made

Like I said, simple. I think you’ll find we’re all in agreement, and for those that aren’t, have a bit of this.



Wendy Carlos – Tower Music – Let Us Pray


But it doesn’t end there. In fact, it doesn’t even start there.

Then Walter Carlos, in 1968 he created and released Switched On Bach, which is sometimes thought to be the first recording in the history of the world ever to use synthesizers as a genuine musical instrument. Such was the human populace’s shock at this sudden shift into the future, it sold more than half a million mind bending copies, and became the biggest selling classical record in the world ever in the process.

This was followed by a couple more variations on the similar theme, before the fates brought him (still) and that most treasured of filmic nutters Stanley Kubrick together under the united banner of Clockwork Orange in 1971.

Although Alex DeLarge’s obsession with Beethoven and the futuristic setting of his existence would seem to feed directly into Switched On territory, Carlos started the collaboration whilst working on some new music that he thought was right up Kubrick’s dystopian alley.

The legend has it that Carlos was about three and a half minutes into this new work when inspiration struck with the news that Kubrick’s long planned project was underway – and this is clearly borne out in the resulting Time Steps, when at 3 minutes and 17 seconds the first classical, recurring motif drops into what has previously been a ponderously abstract wander.

Who knows where Carlos was going, or even if he’d even truly started at that point, but with the re-focus of Anthony Burgess’s narrative, Time Steps becomes invigorated and purposeful. The remaining ten or so minutes take us on a journey through our existence, and into the themes of the story – via the classical reference we glance upon a time of high intellectualism tragically anchored in the mire by the unchecked debauchery of base savages. The occasional shoe-horned ticking clock leaves us in no doubt that time is passing, and yet the future and the past are shackled together without any opportunity of escape, destined only to orbit each other, history repeating itself time and time again.

In traditional Kubrick non-confrontational style, a lot of the soundtrack put together by Carlos hardly features in the released film, and Time Steps suffers accordingly. But it needs to be heard in it’s full form so we can take part in the entire journey, and realise the error of Kubrick’s judgment at spurning work that can truly be called great.



Wendy Carlos – Time Steps


You can pick up the soundtrack for Tron for next to nothing from here. Clockwork Orange is normally a bit more expensive, but you should get it all the same from here.

Finally, as an excellent aside, as well as being the greatest composer in the world, Wendy Carlos also likes taking pictures of solar eclipses. So wonder at our place in the vast universe as heavenly bodies entwine around us here.


Tiny Dancer


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