I don't know who did the original background score for the Bell soaps in the 80s, but I loved them. LOVED them.

Check out YouTube clips of Brad in a cage to see what I mean. That music would make my hair stand on end. Chills.

B&B still uses its original score. Although sometimes it uses that music to add impetus to a SL where, honestly, there is none. But I wouldn't give up their music for anything.

GH used to have great, spooky background music in the late 70s and 80s. Now it all sounds a little generic, IMO, although there are some amazing pieces of music used sparingly (like when Lorenzo first kissed TB's Carly in the hospital chapel, for example).

id hate NO baking music at all. Yes it works really well sometimes, but sometimes the music withh help the scene.

As CAT said above, when Lorenzo first kissed Carly. That beat that hit at the moment, then the one right after. It was magic.

but the soaps way overdo it.

Here's another scene where the background music is perfect and works amazingly well. Bianca is close to being discharged from the hospital after getting Miranda back and in honor of AMC's 35th anniversary, the characters Nick and Mark return to pay Binks a visit. Nick gives her a letter that Mona wrote to her years ago and the letter concludes with some encouraging words (aka Agnes Nixon's poem). As Bianca reads it, there is a pan across the celebrations going on in honor of Joe's 35th anniversary of working at the hospital, and there's a nice little piano piece playing in the background. The one part that gets me every single time is that one hard note towards the end, right when it switches from Tad and Brooke to Erica and Bianca. That one note, coupled with Lucci's genuine tears, pierces me right in the gut EVERY TIME.

Edited July 1, 200817 yr by All My Shadows

I don't know how to imbed... but this is the CarLo chapel scene, I think:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MEWx3W6_p6M

UK soaps use, virtually, no background or incidental music. It's weird, British soaps make it work. It doesn't seem out of place. And when they do have music, it's usually because a scene is in a restaurant or party or church (or in the case of Tom King's memorable murder a group of Christmas carolers)

I think it's because they're written in a different way as well--they have (on average) much shorter scenes and make a ton of use of overlapping dialogue and scene work--that's harder to score regardless. I read somewhere it was meant to be like you were eavesdropping on bits of conversations (at least Corrie in the early days) which isn't true of American soaps (though GL seems to want to give that feel...)