Coolest. Soundtrack. EVAR.

[SaffroN]

Great suggestions every one.

I have one to throw in:
The soundtrack from WoW. It makes great instrumental music...
Hey, if we are going to borrow the game mechanics we may as well take the music while we are at it.

link

 

[JediSoth]

Jade Empire has an awesome soundtrack, especially if you're using it for an Asian-inspired game. And if you want that techno-Japanese feel, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 has an awesome soundtrack.

If you can find them...

JediSoth

 

[kenobi65]

Some of this will be repetitive with what's above, but it's what's on my gaming playlist.

- All three Lord of the Rings soundtracks
- Crimson Tide
- Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one; I didn't like the other two soundtracks nearly as well)
- Stargate
- The Mummy Returns
- Henry V
- 10,000 BC (a lot of the early tracks have primitive tones to them, but it still works well)
- The Incredibles (for a modern / spy game)
- Midnight Syndicate's D&D soundtrack
- Gladiator
- Bram Stoker's Dracula (a running joke with one of our groups, since they like to play that soundtrack a *lot*. I warn them that they get to play it once per session; if I hear it a second time, I start killing PCs. )

 

[Enforcer]

-Conan the Barbarian
-Gladiator
-Last of the Mohicans
-Braveheart
-Firefly (sixgun-styled games)
-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Asian-themed games)
-Soundtrack from the computer game Arcanum (Victorian Sword and Sorcery)

The Baldur's Gate and Diablo II soundtracks are also quite mood-evoking.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good soundtracks for a variety of settings & playstyles:

Phillip Glass' Koyaanisqatsi
Peter Gabriel's Last Temptation of Christ
Tangerine Dream/ Brian Ferry/David Gilmour/Guy Pratt Legend
Various Heavy Metal
Eurythmics1984

 

[The_Warlock]

So...many...scores...

I love playing music, especially intrumental music in the background, and have planned some and other times just had happy coincidence start the perfect track for the perfect scene...

Favorites (in no specific order) include:

From movies/shows:
Babylon 5
Blade II
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Conan
Cutthroat Island
Dune
Equilibrium
Gladiator
Hulk
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Red Dragon
13th Warrior
Planet of the Apes (remake)

From games:
Baldur's Gate
City of Heroes
Diablo 2
Fable
Fading Suns
Heavy Gear
Homeworld
Icewind Dale
Planescape Torment
Pool of Radiance-Ruins of Myth Drannor
Starlancer

There are of course more, I maintain a fairly large repository of instrumental music on a file server in my house, so I can pipe the music to my laptop wherever we are playing in the house.

It works great.

 

[Sidereal Knight]

I would add the following:

The soundtracks to the videogames Fable and Planescape: Torment. The TV show Carnivale has some good tracks as well.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Battlestar Galactica.

Also, OCRemix is a great place to get free video game music. Some of the remixes are very well done, and great for anything from background to battle music.

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

I have been playing for twenty years and have been employing music for as long. My soundtrack collection has grown and matured. I have gone through soundtracks like Outland (which took me five years of searching and waiting for a release), Lifeforce, Total Recall, Dark City, The Fifth Element, Alien, and dozens of others. Currently my collection involves the following (I will not praise some of these movies in comparison): (* Definite endorsement)
13th Warrior
300
A.I.
Alexander
Alien 3
Akira
Ghost in the Shell (and all variations)*
Wolf's Rain
Wonderful Days
Baraka (one of the best)*
Batman Begins
Battlestar Galactica *
Beyond Rangoon
Bourne series
Children of Dune *
DaVinci Code *
Gattaca
Gladiator
Hanibel
Hero
Kingdom of Heaven *
Last Samurai *
Lord of the Rings (not often used)
Munich
Narnia
Nativity Story
Passion of Christ *
Pirates of the Caribbean
Red Planet *
Solaris *
Soul of the Ultimate Nation *
Syriana *
Tears of the Sun
The Cell *
The Fountain *
The Thin Red Line
United 93
There are tonnes more but that would get redundent.

 

[Orius]

This thread delivers.

I assure you, if you ever run a Conan game, nothing starts the game better than casually starting the opening theme to the Conan movie. Players, in the middle of pre-game chatter, recognize those quiet drums and Mako's eerie voice, and they quiet down. And then the music kicks in, and the players are ready to grab a man-ape by its throat and hurl it off a cliff to the jagged bones below.

This might sound like heresy, but if you're going to use Mako's VO to open a Conan game, use the one from Conan the Destroyer. It's a shortened version of Howard's own words, so it's actually more authentic. Plus the opening them to Conan the Destroyer is pretty good too.