Super 8 (Music From the Motion Picture)

Director J.J. Abrams wasn’t shy about calling Super 8, his 2011 coming-of-age sci-fi film, a love letter to Steven Spielberg, so it only makes sense that composer Michael Giacchino would craft a score that echoes the glory days of Spielberg's partner in crime, John Williams. For this movie set in the summer of 1979, Giacchino manages to capture the nostalgic patina of the American Midwest without shoving it down the listener's throat, serving up a heady combination of wistful sunset motifs and bombastic yet whimsical action cues that clock in at under a minute and a half, before majestically sewing it all together near the soundtrack’s end with the splendid “Super 8 Suite.” Spielberg and Williams' iconic themes may never find their match, but Abrams is wise to keep Giacchino as his right-hand man, as with each new collaboration, the pair inches closer and closer to greatness.