"When You Believe". Especially the multilanguage version, which features 27 versions of When You Believe from around the world. It really shows how music is the universal language.
"Deliver us! / Send a shepherd to shepherd us / and deliver us / to the Promised Land!" And the Call Back at the very, very end to Ofra Haza's One-Woman Wail of "Deliver us!".
All the songs. But Plagues is especially so. Yahweh is a scary, scary god. There's the part of that song with the Dark Reprise duet between Moses and Rameses. Definitely one of the all-time highlights of animated musicals. The fact that Ralph Fiennes actually sings Rameses' part is awesome! And the choir speaking for God. "I send the swarm / I send the horde / Thus saith the Lord!" The song is so good it actually makes you sympathize with the pharaoh. His brother has turned against him. Now an all-powerful deity rains fire down on his land. The pharaoh's response is to refuse surrender, no matter what the cost. Sure, it hurts everyone involved, but one cannot help but admit that Rameses has got style.
Say what you will of dubbed films, but "The Plagues" in Japanese is pretty awesome too. Especially Japanese!Rameses.
After the 'Through Heaven's Eyes' scene, when Moses walks out of his and Tzipporah's tent to go a-shepherding, the piece of music that accompanies "this is my home" in 'All I Ever Wanted' plays as he looks out at the landscape.
Instrumentally, Goodbye Brother is the most epic piece of music in ages from a movie. The ominous choir and orchestra combo at the beginning, the mournful cello solo, the single woman's voice — it has it all.
"The Mission", the score that plays right after the Burning Bush scene.
"Playing With the Big Boys Now" is a good song, sung by Steve Martin and Martin Short, who seem to have fun with it.
Another instrumental piece, the "Red Sea" is utterly beautiful...before becoming terrifying.
"Through Heaven's Eyes" is so often overlooked. It's encouraging and warm and beautiful, which is nice considering that after this particular song, the movie gets a bit darker...
Fairytale; no matter how irreverent and sarcastic the films may be, its beautiful Bootstrapped Theme still fits and captures the heart and soul of the story.
Tai Lung's Theme, which appears at various points throughout "Tai Lung Escapes", "The Bridge", and "Shifu vs. Tai Lung." (And all the cool kung fu fighting music!)
"Panda Po", "Hero", and "Sacred Pool of Tears" are also legendarilylegendary pieces.
"Kung Fu Fighting" during the credits.
Shrek is just ''brimming to the top with stuff like this. From Jennifer Saunders' heartfelt rendition of "Holding out for a Hero" set against the backdrop of an epic assault on a castle led by fairy-tale misfits, to Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas ' perfectly synchronized duet of "Livin' La Vida Loca", to even the heartwarming montages at the opening of each film.
Sticks and Stones, the song for the credits. Mmm, delicious Icelandic prog-rock performed by the lead of Sigur Ros.
Several tracks have multiple internal moments of awesome, Battling the Green Death has some: Stoick and Gobber initiating their Heroic Sacrifice, The Big Damn Heroes arrival of the Dragonriders of Berk, Stoick saving Hiccup and Toothless, and finally Hiccup and Toothless saving Astrid.
"New Tail" starts out quiet ...then turns into pure EPIC.
Chicken Run has a wonderful soundtrack. Particularly the Main Titles, Flip Flop and Fly, and every piece of music in the movie after and including Rocky, A Fake All Along. One would be surprised how awesome the soundtrack to a film about chickens can get.
The opening track, "Homeland", and its reprise, which becomes the ending song "I Will Always Return". Crosses Crowning Music of Awesome with both Heartwarming and Tear Jerker.
Megamind Even when looking at the choice of regular music (all the way from AC/DC to Guns an' Roses) you can see they knew what they were doing. But the soundtrack itself is also made of awesomeness
Ollo 'Evil Lair' and 'Black Mamba.' And if Rejection In the Rain doesn't at least make you sad... Well, it's a good soundtrack. It was made by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, for gods sake!
'Giant Blue Head' is pretty good.
Sadly, finding the actual soundtrack can be a bit of a hassle...
Most if not all of the music from Titan A.E.. I'm not just talking about the songs in the movie (Over My Head, Cosmic Castaway, It's My Turn to Fly, all awesome); I'm also pointing out the score of the movie, composed by Graeme Revell. In particular, I'd like to point out the music playing during the scenes near the death of Earth and the birth of Planet Bob, which underscore the scenes perfectly, the latter example even bringing tears to my eyes. Unfortunately, the soundtrack was never released. Do we have a name for that trope? Stiffed by the record company?
Say what you will about the sequels, but they certainly had their musical moments. The odd one or two of the musical numbers fall into this (Best examples being "When You're Big", "Very Important Creature" and the magnum opus of LBT songs, "Bestest Friends", sung to Littlefoot by his friends as he faces the choice of staying with his grandparents and friends, or leaving with his long-lost father. Even better, an orchestral reprise of the song plays later in the film during a very heartwarming ending.
"Things Change", as sung by Cera. Granted the lyrics aren't spectacular, but still, it's the only song that Cera gets to herself. And being arguably the best singer in the gang, what we got was a touching lament over how she wishes things could go back to how they used to be.
And to a lesser extent, "Flip Flap and Fly" simply because of the scale. It probably holds the record for most characters singing in one musical number. And that slick piano intro.
"Yer Beautiful, Baby" from Don Bluth's Thumbelina. Yeah, yeah, the movie's a shallow Disney rip-off and it reeks of sweetness, but godammit if that opening bass line isn't awesome. Then the vocals kick in...
Everything from "Aftershock Part 2". Seriously. Just... just listen to it.
There's a gorgeous bit of piano music during the scene in "How Long Is Forever?" where Nightwing calls the Titans on their communicators, and it seems like all three of them are unable to come to his aid. It's just heartbreaking.
Terra's theme (especially the rendition that plays during her run through the obstacle course) is pretty darn awesome.
The scene in "Sisters" where Starfire launches her attack against Blackfire is accompanied by some awesome music.
The music that plays as Raven marches towards her destiny in "The End Part I".
The music for both of the chase scenes involving The Mad Mod (in "Mad Mod" and "Revolution") - respectively a hyperactive Puffy Ami Yumi number and the crazed "(Raining Down On) The Fourth Of July Parade" - definitely qualifies here.
Some of the best TV watching memories were when that Warner Bros. logo faded away, the police headlights came on, and those horns started blaring. One of the best themes to a television show. Ever.
Just to give an idea - this theme was so awesome, that even the staff of the show didn't realize that the title of the show didn't appear during it. Go ahead and rewatch if you don't believe that fact.
A great piece of music plays during the climax of "A Better World", when the tide of battle against the Justice Lords is turned by none other than Lex Luthor. The DVD commentary for the episode recalls the challenge in creating a heroic theme for Superman's most iconic villain. They succeeded.
And another one plays in the episode of the Justice League where Mongul trapped Superman in a fantasy Krypton which he had to see explode to escape. The moment when he heard Wonder Woman getting mauled by Mongul and turned to fight had the most awesome reprise of the theme song ever.
Everything made by that composer, from Pinky and The Brain ("One is a genius, the other's insane!"), to Freakazoid ("He's here to save the nation! So stay tuned to this station!)
Speaking of Tiny Toons, the Around The World version takes the greatness of the original and makes it multilingual.
Speaking of Spielberg creations, how could we ignoreYakko's World. Just writing the thing and making sure everything fit into place is worthy of praise.
"United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean, Greenland, El Salvador too!"
All of Rita's songs in the Rita & Runt shorts fall under this. No surprise, considering Rita is voiced by Broadway actress Bernadette Peters.
In particular is the episode Las Miseranimals. Yes, a parody of Les Misérables. And the songs are awesome!
This list isn't complete without "Powerhouse", the "assembly line" music from the classic Looney Tunes shorts.
Admittedly, Quest for Camelot isn't really... an expectional piece of animation from this studio, but you gotta admit that as much of a Soundtrack Dissonance this song is when shown in the film, the song "Prayer" has a reason why it almost won the best soundtrack song of the year when it first showed up.
Everything from the Grand Finale, particularly the music playing during Zuko and Azula's Agni Kai, appropriately titled "The Last Agni Kai".
The music that plays during the final between Ozai and Aang, after the latter goes into the Avatar State, more specifically the part after Azula's complete breakdown. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any high-quality version (without the background noise) online...
Even the end credits music for the final episode was awesome. Throughout most of the series, the end credits were accompanied by a fairly neutral-mood, tribal-sounding percussion and flute piece. This was replaced for the Grand Finale with a fully orchestrated, epic variation on the show's main theme that really hammered home the fact that yes, it's finally over, and it was good. Now if we they'd only release a soundtrack...
The music that plays as Aang goes into the Avatar State and merges with La the Ocean Spirit, and then proceeds to annihilate the Fire Nation Navy. Hear it here.
The remix used in the sequel series trailer: Pure Awesomeness It actually turns out that the "remix" was simply a video speed error that sped up the original song, but the "wrong" version is still pretty cool
In subsequent airings of Sozin's Comet, the four parts were broken up, with a "Previously on Avatar" recap for each. The music playing during the recap for Part 4: Avatar Aang, is pure, distilled awesome, and you just know that whatever happens from there on out is going to be spectacularly EPIC. There's a short, high-quality version and a full-length, low-quality version. Prepare to feel the AWESOME.
Building Montage , In The Beginning, One Big Video Game, Carne Beat, Source Music of Doom, Gear Fight, Tak's Theme, It's On!, Kitty Rally... is there one song in this show that doesn't deserve a spot on this page?
One particular score during "Fanning the Flames". When Danny is flying Sam towards the Monster of the Week, the series plays a relaxing rendition of the theme's song. It makes the scene all the more poignant and remains one of the most convincing moments of the (Your Mileage May Vary) Danny/Sam pairing.
The scene in" My Brother's Keeper". After so much doubt and misery, Danny is shown flying happily as that particular rendition plays as Jazz comes to terms with knowing her brother is a hero.
The various heroic (and villainous) renditions of the main theme are all amazing! Just watch any scene with Vlad being especially villainous.
And the first ending theme. Listen to the full version (on Retrojunk).
That doesn't mean the second end title was bad. It was awesome!
In fact, all of Henry and June's background music was amazing.
June's song in "Won't Stick To Most Dental Work". That little girl (referring to June, her VA was actually 15 at the time, and still has a great voice) had a great voice. To bad there was never a musical episode with June being the lead.
Hey Arnold's Jim Lang gave us quite a few, including "Thinkin' It Over," which plays while Stinky contemplates his role as a Butt Monkey spokesperson for Yahoo soda.
ChalkZone, definitely, for its theme music, occasional songs within episodes ("Hula-Baloo", "Fire Plug Ballet", etc.) and especially the music videos that ended most every episode!
The Backyardigans can make genres you have never heard of sound good.
The incidentals and montages. "The Greatest Danger is Love" and "Graveyeard 8". Jeff Bennett, John DiMaggio, and Fred Stoller pulled off an amazing banjo folk song that was completely unexpected and awesome.
Dexter's Laboratory: "Enter at your peril, past the vaulted door; impossible things will happen that the world's never seen before..."
"In Dexter's laboratory lives the smartest boy you've ever seen. But Dee Dee blows his experiments to smithereens! There is gloom and doom while things go boom...IN DEXTER'S LAB!"
Adventure Time has some pretty catchy songs but "What Was Missing" really stands out for "I'm Just Your Problem" and "My Best Friends In The World", two truly epic songs that showcase the power of music.
Regular Show in general makes excellent use of licensed music. One example being Mississippi Queen by Mountain during a bad trip after drinking a concoction of the same name.
The Unicron Medley is perhaps the polar opposite of the Transformers theme, being slow, sinister and mysterious in contrast to the upbeat, to the point nature of the main theme. And it is AWESOME.
Every single episode should count. The writers had to come up with at least three brand new songs every single episode. Some songs were recycled, but yeah, rvery episode.
There's a certain piece of music (piano) that is always playing in the background whenever Scott and Rogue are on-screen alone.
Apocalypse's theme. It's a very regal, kingly piece that is absolutely appropriate for the resurrected pharaoh (particularly early on, when Apocalypse would just casually own whoever was fighting him without even lowering himself to speak as the music played).
The opening theme. The music that usually accompanied an attack by Storm was also rather awesome.
The main theme was a remix of the 90's cartoon theme. They even played the 90s theme in a more straightforward way (albiet with acoustic Spanish guitar) in the episode where Spyke joined.
The original opening theme for the X-Men animated series in the '90s deserves a mention as well.
Their excellent use of non-originals. Bender whistling "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the end of "Time Keeps on Slippin'" is amazing.
Four words: Don't Forget About Me. You know what I'm talking about.
Even better is the sort-of "evil alien" version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" that plays when the Globetrotters first arrive on Earth. Easy to miss, but awesome nevertheless.
The music playing when Fry saves the day at the end of Three Hundred Big Boys is pretty friggin' awesome.
So is That Was Then (And This is Too), the theme to Into the Wild Green Yonder.
This is one of the few times that most people consider the dub version of something to be better than the original (which used the theme song for the scene, which is generally not considered appropriate for a climactic battle.)
The 1990s Silver Surfer opening sequence, short as it was, is awesome enough to contain its own Ominous Latin Chanting. Hear it for yourself here, if you can tune out all the swooshing-in-space sounds that are layered on top of it.
Metalocalypse has some downright awesome music. Just listen to Go Into the Water and Awaken. There's a good reason Dethklok made the best-selling death metal album of all time. In real life.
This. Dethklok puts on a concert that lasts about a minute and fifteen seconds and manages to kill and horribly maim hundreds of their fans. For a coffee jingle.
Aside from all the death metal, Charles Foster Offdensen has his own sweeping, heroic instrumental that's heard during the Siege of Mordhaus during the S2 finale, as well as the S3 premier where it blends perfectly with Dethklok's song at the end of the ep.
The season 03 finale gave us "The Beginning." As an added bonus, the song plays as Dethklok pulls off a double booked concert and brings peace to the Middle East. It is as epic as it sounds.
In Home Movies, Brendon Small works in some cool garage band music with the band SCAB, including a Franz Kafka rock opera. Front man Duane, in a guitar competition, takes Brendon's trashed, untuned rental guitar and makes it sing. (He doesn't win. He was robbed.)
8 Double crowning in that the people behind Home Movies are the same people responsible for Metalocalypse.
Thanks to Author Appeal, Family Guy is lucky enough to have a truly lavish soundtrack. From the jazzy main theme (with remix by Frank Sinatra, Jr.!), to the gleeful Take Thatsong against the FCC, to the epic chicken fighttheme, the composers seem to be on a never-ending quest to top themselves. And then they made an album with a nine-minute big band medley of 80's sitcom themes.
"Anna rules!" "Cause I kick all the bad guys in their jewels!"...
In the newer episodes, there's a new ending theme, an awesome, jazzy, big band number.
Stewie's song "Down Syndrome Girl", which is hilarious. Near the end you wonder "How the hell is he singing that fast, with that many big words, without pausing?!"
The song "All I Really Want For Christmas" from "Road to the North Pole", where the whole town gets in on a kick-ass holiday carol.
Same episode, but "Christmas Time Is Killing Us" was the most incredible moment in the post-cancellation history of the show. Especially considering it takes its rhythms from BePrepared.
"Mr. Booze" from "Friends of Peter G." is particularly incredible.
The Venture Bros. has quite an epicsoundtrack that manages to have quite a bit of variety to it, even the occasional classical piece sneaked in for good measure. The usage of "Mars, Bringer of War", in the episode "Hate Floats", for example... Or compare/contrast the main theme for the show with the theme for Rusty Venture, as an example of the talent of J.G. Thirlwell.
And from the sequel, "Who You Really Are" which Muru sings to Aleu. Also, "The Grand Design", the song the wolf pack sings (including cameos from David Carradine and villain Mark Hamill!).
King Arthur And The Knights Of Justice . Not many people seem to remember this cartoon, about a Football team that gets transported to the middle ages to replace the missing King Arthur and his knights. But the opening theme song to this show is pure epic.
Meatwad's solo. That's on the list for one of the best guitar solos ever.
Mastodon's "Cut You Up With A Linoleum Knife", in which various pieces of movie snacks present a death metal version of a movie theater policy trailer. Even the people at Adult Swim thought that was the main highlight of the Aqua Teens movie.
Similarly, the little-known opening theme of 1986's Filmations Ghostbusters is this, despite the fact that its only lyrics are "Let's go, Ghostbusters! Let's go! Let's go, Let's go!". The pipe organ section, which interpolates part of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", has something to do with this.
Edward's original theme, particularly the version used in "Cows" and "Edward's Exploit", the latter of which has one of Edward's Crowning Moments of Awesome. Listen.
Thomas You're The Leader in the Great Discovery. The first song to feature a proper singer.
*cough* Really Useful Engine, Gone Fishing, Let's Have A Race, Never Never Never Give Up, etc *cough*
In fairness, 'Thomas, You're The Leader' was made by a normal recording artist, while those other examples were made by the shows original composers Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell.
Go Go Thomas from ''Hero of the Rails". And the original main theme. Every riff of it. Especially (to me at least) the riff used for the outro.
The theme from Misty Island Rescue, is, probably the best music ever used for a children's show ever.
The entire soundtrack of Cats Dont Dance, with extra points to Animal Jam and Tell Me Lies. There's a reason this out of print Randy Newman soundtrack CD goes for upwards of $100.
The track at any moment in any of the 3 Ice Age movies, particularly the third. Arguably the best is the track during Bucks flashback in Ice Age 3.
What? No love for Galaxy Rangers? The soundtrack in all of its 80's rock glory was so beloved by the fanbase that they begged Mandell and Koch to put it on the DVD collection separately from the episodes.
The Cult ClassicTwice Upon a Time has two great songs: For its opening Dramatis Personae segment there's "Heartbreak Town" (sung by Bruce Hornsby), and the title song (Maureen McDonald) plays over the lovely closing sequence and credits.
Which is saying a lot, since most fans thought the concept of music in the show was going to be worse than all the fart jokes. But with a little auto-tuning and actually a nice beat, even Ezekiel and Noah of all people are probably the best singers in the song!
Stuck To A Pole makes the classic "tongue on a flagpole" prank epic.
This Is How We Will End It is seconded, followed by Versus, which captured the denouement of Heather's and Alejandro's relationship. The two bitterly criticize each other while viciously competing (the only way those twoknow how to compete). Watching This Is How We'll End It and Versus back to back is simply epic.
"Down, Down to Goblin Town" and "Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees" are very catchy examples of the Villain Song, a catchiness that also grabs hold of the light-hearted "In the Valley, Ha Ha!" and "Rolling Down the Hole". The best of the soundtrack is when Glenn Yarbrough sings "Roads" and "The Greatest Adventure."
The one Lucky Luke song almost everyone knows: I'm a poor lonesome cowboy a long way from home.
Regardless of what you think about the actual cartoon, regardless of the lyrics being the same line over and over again — SUPER FIGHTING ROBOT! MEGA MAN!
The opening theme to the animated versions of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters. Not only is it epic, it fits the whole 'disc on the back of four elephants on the back of a turtle' thing. Listen to it with headphones on for added awesome.
From the mind of Danny Elfman, based on the theme to the movie Forbidden Zone, there is the theme to Dilbert. Paired with the panning titles, it captures the insanity of Dilbert's world perfectly. Have a listen!
RebootFirewall after episodes of despair and very close victories over Megabyte this triumphant song heralds the point where things start going the heroes way...for awhile.
The Boondocks' ending theme. Asheru and Jazz Liberatorz did more with a 30 second instrumental than a lot of big name hip-hop producers (who shall remain nameless) have done with 5 minutes.
This was already mentioned on the film page but because it is also animation, Alpha and Omega has the howling scenes, which were absolutely great.
The "Fix It" song from The Iron Giant, which plays whenever he uses his homing device to put himself back together. It's very cute and memorable, and gets a Triumphant Reprise at the end of the movie that never fails to make you smile.
While the Redwall cartoon was... Well, opinions vary, but the theme tune had a lovely Mediaeval feel to it.
