Rare ’70s Electronic Music Is Hidden in The Hunger Games

  Quote

While recording “Sediment” in her tenement apartment in Manhattan, Spiegel used a semi-modular Electrocomp 200. She recalled having to turn her refrigerator off to keep the analog synthesizer in tune.

 

“It was a five-room apartment running on a single 15-amp fuse,” she said. “When the refrigerator went on, half the oscillators dropped by a quarter tone…. I had to turn the refrigerator off, or it would ruin the take.”

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/03/rare-electronic-music-hunger-games/

I just read this myself, and I do remember noticing the music in the film. Pretty neat imo. I don't know what motivated the producers to use this; maybe it was cheaper than hiring someone to make similar background music. I'd actually applaud any trend to start doing this kind of thing in Hollywood more often. So much overlooked electronic music out there, why not use it? It's a lot more interesting than recycling plots and making sequels.

Hmm, so is the soundtrack mostly stuff like this? Do they avoid all of the usual string swells and whatnot?

  On 3/29/2012 at 8:27 PM, patternoverlap said:

Hmm, so is the soundtrack mostly stuff like this? Do they avoid all of the usual string swells and whatnot?

Yes and no. Spiegel's work was used in scenes of violence and tension. The movie isn't far off from your typical 70s dystopian film actually, even the guards look THX1138-ish. I thought the music was rather subdued. Some "folksy" guitar motifs, but yeah it does mostly avoid cliche string swells and such, with the exception of some over-the-top scenes where it's warranted - i.e. when the parade the game contestants around in a surreal manner. The book has a simple tune some of the characters whistle and sing as a central theme, so it revolves around that. The soundtrack has a ton of indie artist songs that aren't in the movie at all.