Ry Cooder's Mood Indigo Meditations: Paris, Texas

SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS – the genuine article, not song collections assembled in executive suites with an eye for tapping the teen demographic – are inherently strange beasts. A film score's primary function is supportive, to enhance and accentuate the emotional atmosphere of the dramatic narrative, and thrusting it into the foreground stripped of visual context usually makes for instantly disposable mood music. I can't recall more than half-a-dozen instances where movie music truly gripped me but Ry Cooder has had a hand in fully half of them.