Beetlejuice (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Though Beetlejuice’s most recognizable musical cues will always be Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” and “Jump in the Line,” the movie wouldn’t have been what it was without Danny Elfman’s score. While Elfman’s work on Pee-wee’s Big Adventure had been manic and idiosyncratic , his Beetlejuice work was more out-and-out dark, combining Burton and Elfman’s sense of camp with a shared love of 1960s-era horror. Elfman had scored four more movies in the years between Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, and you can hear a sense of progress and adjustment in his expanded palette: There are shades of Eastern European folk (“The Book! / Obituaries,” “End Credits”) and eerie science-fiction music (“The Incantation”); a stab at sweet Broadway show tunes (“The Aftermath”); and moments of pure, clanging dissonance (“The Wedding”). Elfman later said that part of the challenge in scoring the film was that its titular character—the misanthropic ghost Betelgeuse—doesn’t show up for almost half an hour. That meant that, in a way, Elfman was responsible for letting the audience know what weirdness was in store—a feat he pulls off in the opening credits (“Main Titles”).