2018 also the year of the movie soundtrack

It started in 2017. The soundtrack of The Greatest Showman, although made up of all-new original tunes, remarkably leapt up the charts and stayed there for months. It has now been streamed over three billion times and been certified 2X platinum by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). It is now one of the three biggest-selling albums of the year alongside beerbongs and bentleys by Post Malone and Invasion Of Privacy by Cardi B. To this day, fans are still singing Never Enough, A Million Dreams and all the other inspiring songs with full gusto.

Many thought that the success of The Greatest Showman soundtrack was just a fluke. They were wrong. In fact, the public’s fascination with movie music continued well on to 2018. They have become even more enamored of sounds emanating from the big screen. As a result, the year 2018 will now always be remembered as a time when soundtracks ruled not just the charts but also played a major role in box-office results and the awards race. 

And don’t tell me that this is only happening abroad. Sarah Geronimo found her biggest hits of the year in songs from the movie Miss Granny — Kiss Me Kiss Me and Isang Araw Pa. Di Na Muli, a two-year-old winner of a songwriting competition, became a hit after being used in Sid And Aya. Why they even revived Rey Valera’s classic for Sharon Cuneta in The Story of Us. Plus other instances. 

Here now are the ones that truly upped the film and music connection to high heavens in 2018.

A Star Is Born starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper who also co-wrote and directed set the bar even higher for the use of original music in films. A remake of an old Hollywood tale, it is now in the running for Best Motion Picture Drama at the Golden Globes. Gaga as Best Actress and Cooper as actor and director have also been nominated. 

So has the theme, Shallow, a divine duet that so embodies the heartrending reality of two souls so in love but faced with insurmountable obstacles. It is up for a Globe and several Grammys.  And that is not the end of it, I am sure that A Star Is Born will also be a strong contender at the coming Academy Awards.

Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Chadwick Boseman, is the first solo outing for Marvel’s first black superhero. And it stunned and amazed everybody who could not seem to have enough of Black Panther and his friends, relatives and even enemies. It is expected to end up as the most nominated and winningest film of the year. 

Among its prospects is the Best Picture Drama Globe come next week. The soundtrack album curated by no less than the Pulitzer Prize winning Kendrick Lamar has already won as Top Soundtrack at the American Music Awards and has been nominated at the Grammys. So is the song All The Stars by Lamar and SZA at the Globes and at the Grammys. The music by Ludwig Garramson is in the running for Best Score at the Grammys and at the Globes. 

No awards to expect for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again but it was so much fun with great music so it is in our list. The picture brought back the stellar cast of Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Christine Baranski, Julie Waters, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard and a little bit of Meryl Streep for more ABBA harmonizing. Accompanied by new recruits led by Lily James and Cher, they brought in one of the breeziest, sunniest romps ever. Of course, all that success was thanks to the first Mamma Mia! which was a huge box-office hit.

Thanks, too, to songs like Fernando, Dancing Queen, Super Trooper, Thank You For The Music, Waterloo, SOS and others created and popularized by the Scandinavian foursome ABBA. Everybody so fell in love with the ‘80s hit tunes all over again. And I say Cher more than others, that she decided to record her own album of ABBA songs. What do you know! They all sounded like they were written expressly for her.

Queen music is also getting its turn in the movies with the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. No nominations for the music, which is understandable for not being new and original. But anyway, the original recording of Bohemian Rhapsody has already become the most streamed song of the century and has been downloaded 1.6 billion times. So what to watch out for now is that Best Picture nom at the Globes and maybe a Best Actor trophy for Rami Malek’s performance as Freddie Mercury.

And you have not yet heard the end of this soundtrack binge.  Hereabouts, there will be Indak with a singing and dancing Nadine Lustre. Out there in Hollywood, there is the big-budgeted big screen version of the musical Cats starring Idris Elba and Taylor Swift, the live action The Lion King with Danny Glover and Beyoncé, and the Elton John biopic Rocketman.