There is a thin line between movie soundtracks and new age music – and artists such as Vangelis and Kitaro have in the past made that line almost non-existent. Now master pianist Edward Weiss has a very interesting comment on James Horner’s soundtrack to the popular movie Avatar. On Allaboutjazz.com mr. Weiss writes:

It used to be the stuff of the ’60s and ’70s. A magical mystery tour express, where rock stars and alternate religion advocates converged on the same track New Age Music. Today, the once famous Age of Aquarius is now simply known as New Age. And instead of being on the fringes of society, its in the mainstream as evidenced by James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar.

I disagree. I think that it is a stretch to say that the Avatar soundtrack is new age, since most of the tracks used in the movie are large scale orchestral music. But some of the tracks clearly have what we can call a new age music atmosphere, which obviously fits nicely into the movie.   

So which tracks on Avatar are Edward Weiss pointing at? Well it is hard to say; I find that track 5, Becoming one of the people Becoming One With Neytiri, has a new age-ish atmosphere. Track 6, Jake’s first flight, too has “it” (especially in the use of ethnic samples and voices).

The title of Weiss’ article is “Avatar Soundtrack Ushers in Return of New Age Music!” Hopefully that is the case, but James Horner’s Avatrar is well within the “movie soundtrack” genre.

So if you are looking for a soundtrack that is truly new age, you have to go back in time… That is a magical mystery tour express.

Sample the Avatar soundtrack on Amazon. And, if you haven’t seen it, here is the movie trailer.