Revolutionary Road (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

In 2001, veteran composer and pianist Thomas Newman won a GRAMMY Award for the music he wrote for American Beauty, a drama directed by Sam Mendes. Newman and Mendes went on to team up for Road to Perdition, Jarhead, and an adaptation of the Richard Yates novel, Revolutionary Road. The film’s score is centered on piano and strings, but guitar, flute, and percussion also appear. The opening track, “Route 12,” introduces the main theme on piano, as yearning strings surge above. On “The Bright Young Man” an eerie keyboard part is gently propelled by subtle percussion. “Unrealistic” starts off with a tense bed of strings before the piano joins in with the central theme, while the brief “Simple Clean Lines” features the string section handling that musical figure. The album’s longest cut, the meditative “April,” finds Newman successfully developing his musical material over a longer stretch of time as flute and other quiet elements add color to the moody track. The album also includes The Ink Spots performing their 1946 hit, “Gypsy,” as well as a couple of doo-wop classics: The Ravens’ “Count Every Star” and The Orioles’ “Crying In the Chapel.”