Jaws: Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [SOUNDTRACK]

John Williams (Composer)

Product Details

• Composer: John Williams
• Audio CD (April 21, 1992)
• SPARS Code: AAD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B000002NZU
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #125,089 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Soundtracks > By Decade > 1970s

Track Listings

1. Main Title and First Victim

2. Empty Raft

3. Pier Incident

4. Shark Cage Fugue

5. Shark Attack

6. Ben Gardner's Boat

7. Montage

8. Father and Son

9. Into the Estuary

10. Out to Sea

11. Man Against Beast

12. Quint's Tale

13. Brody Panics

14. Barrel off Starboard

15. Great Shark Chase

16. Three Barrels Under

17. Between Attacks

18. Shark Approaches

19. Blown to Bits

20. End Titles

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording

John Williams's second collaboration with then-wunderkind director Steven Spielberg not only gave Hollywood one of its most indelible musical motifs--the rampaging shark's rhythmic, swelling two-note figure that's long since become a sonic archetype for terror--it won the composer his first scoring Oscar (he'd previously won for adapting Fiddler on the Roof) and arguably made him a film music superstar. Williams's oft-brooding score is one of the key elements of the film's gut-wrenching success, a shrewdly manipulative orchestral underpinning that evokes the idyll of a beach resort one bar, the horrors of being eaten alive the next. There are more motifs than melodies here, but as with Bernard Herrmann they evoke almost subliminal emotional responses, creating a masterfully menacing, brass-heavy concerto of surprising depth. Music for fly-fishing it isn't! --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Watch It! Here Comes The Shark!, May 26, 2000

By	Luis M. Ramos "Soundtrack and Film Freak" (Caracas, Venezuela) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The leitmotive for "Jaws" keeps you scared. Every time you hear it, you know that the shark is coming. John Williams' music keeps the listener in constant suspense. The main title is chilling. The chase cues ("Sea Attack Number One" and "One Barrel Chase") are propulsive and exciting. You can feel the real fright as you hear "Night Search" and "The Indianapolis Story". All in all, this is one of Williams' most exciting scores. Dare go into the water, anyone?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jaws...A great soundtrack the fits the movie perfectly!, May 20, 2000

By	Joseph Payne (Chattanooga, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

Jaws...A fantastic score! As with many soundtracks, this score isn't the best when it comes to just plain listening to a soundtrack, but as Steven Spielburg has said, their probably hasn't been a movie as good as Jaws that the music goes along so well with! Jaws was orginally written in 1975, and is deffinately one of the main soundtracks that made John Williams popular. It is often rare to find music on Jaws that is not tense...This soundtrack is all about tense music! The music gives you a clear picture of just what is going on during the movie, and you can always picture "the shark" coming towards you with the deep strings in the background going up and down the scales. The main title from Jaws starts with that same deep sound of strings in the background, and adventually, brass join in to give you a picture of "that same old shark." Even though Jaws is a tense score, tracks such as "Out to sea" or very inspirational, and believe it or not, it even reminds me of the soundtrack to E.T. in many ways. Another track that isn't quite so tense is 7, "One Barrel Chase", which has much the same style as "Out to Sea." (Although it does start with Jaws' theme) The music of this soundtrack brings out the movie so incredibly well that listening to Jaws is basically watching the movie in a different way. If you like tense, sea-sounding music, this soundtrack is for you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John is a great composer in all of his films, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

I love all John Williams music, and he does a fantastic job composing and making the movie even more interesting and exciting.