During the second half of the 20th century, music underwent a dynamic evolution that profoundly influenced its styles, techniques, and broader cultural landscape.
In the 1950s, classical pop dominated with catchy, simple melodies that captivated a wide audience, offering an accessible and delightful listening experience.
In the 1960s and 1970s, rock 'n' roll emerged, bringing vibrant energy, bold expressions of personal identity, and innovative elements like electric guitars, becoming a symbol of counterculture and social movements of the era.
In the 1980s and 1990s, hip-hop rose to prominence, blending unique rhythms, rap, and socio-political themes, serving as a leading voice for a diverse generation and a platform for expressing struggles and life experiences.
By the early 2000s, innovative ambient music emerged, breaking traditional structures with electronic and experimental elements, emphasizing emotional and aesthetic experiences while offering creative freedom for deep, unrestrained expression, While eliminating the musical keys.
Concurrently, cinematic soundtracks evolved, particularly in science fiction films depicting the futuristic city as a central human space integrating history, society, and art. The city, transitioning from a spontaneous human image to sophisticated planning that incorporates technology and anatomical models, is expected to become a dynamic organism in the future, merging human and artificial systems.
Film soundtracks adapted to these changes: from complex classical music in the early 20th century, through aggressive sounds reflecting urban density, to today’s quiet ambient music, which expresses environmental awareness.
Three science fiction films—"Metropolis" (1927), "Blade Runner" (1982), and "Ghost in the Shell" (2017)—reflect this evolution through similar narrative structures. They share similar narratives: a beautiful and rebellious artificial woman, created by the elite but rebelling against it alongside the lower class, with a moral conflict and love between a human man and an artificial woman, against the backdrop of a central urban setting that divides the upper and lower city.
In "Metropolis", rich symphonic music accompanies the silent film, substituting for dialogue and effects while mirroring machinery and drama.
In "Blade Runner", a diverse soundtrack combines synthesizers, blues, and street noises, with silence as a backdrop to dialogues, creating a somber atmosphere.
In "Ghost in the Shell", minimalist sounds, nearly devoid of melody, blend with harmonious visual settings, highlighting the cyborg’s superiority, for whom traditional music is deemed unnecessary and even dangerous.
