If you would like to check out any of these albums for yourself, please feel free to do so by either visiting your local music stores, music-purchasing sites such as CDNOW, or the recording companies who've helped to put out the albums to the listening public, to which I've provided the appropriate links.
Artist(s): Lee Blaske
Label: Domo Records
Personal review/song highlights: This album is perhaps one of my vampire favorites of all time, musically. Half of the selections on this album are pure instrumental pieces while the other half is music accompanied by the mellifluous, darkly rapturous voice of a vampire who speaks of his own conversion....and his desire to bring you into his embracing arms and world. A true must-have for any and all vampires and vampire enthusiasts! I personally cannot recommend just a track here and there; the entire CD is enthralling.
Artist(s): Wojciech Kilar and Annie Lennox
Label: Sony
Personal review/song highlights: The choral and instrumental tracks which dominate this album are absolutely mesmerizing, possessing the ability to intertwine dramatic, dark tones with sweet mellifluousness that's eerie to the core. The only sharp, and more modern, contrast to this soundtrack is the last selection, "Love Song For A Vampire" as sung by Annie Lennox. Though many individuals will offer their own opinion of how it's a blemish to the rest of the CD and doesn't belong with the instrumental pieces (which I can understand to a point), I personally find this song to be just as exquisitely beautiful and enthralling as the orchestral seduction. Besides, a modern touch such as this can be a bit refreshing and offer a little variety to the listener.
Artist(s): Type O Negative
Label: Roadrunner Records
Personal review/song highlights: For a more gothic atmosphere, this group and album is a sure winner. The songs which compose this CD evoke a dark sensuality and eroticism that's quite fitting for vampires and vampire enthusiasts. Though such songs as "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)," "Green Man," and "Cinnamon Girl" are thoroughly enjoyable, track selections "Love You To Death," "Be My Druidess," "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend," and "Haunted" are especially talented at arousing the passionate senses of its listeners and setting the mood for a night of sexual pleasures.
Artist(s): Elliot Goldenthal and Guns N' Roses
Label: Geffen Records
Personal review/song highlights: Acclaimed composer Elliot Goldenthal beautifully scores this beloved film adaptation of Anne Rice's novel from start to finish. The eerily exquisite "Libera Me" gets the listener off to a haunting start and carries one all the way through by way of an ever-flowing current of classically-composed seduction, intensifying with the torrent of "Louis' Revenge," and ending with the Guns N' Roses' rockin' rendition of "Sympathy For The Devil." This makes it a bit similar to the Bram Stoker's Dracula soundtrack in that nearly the entire album is composed of classical pieces yet ending with something more mainstream.
Artist(s): Various
Label: Warner Brothers
Personal review/song highlights: Unlike the soundtrack for the prequel to this film, the songs which help to form the motion picture adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned weren't composed in a classical format, but with more modern songs that you're inclined to hear on the radio. Lead singer for the popular heavy metal band Korn combined his talents with that of former Oingo Boingo keyboardist Richard Gibbs and, hence, created five of the soundtrack's fourteen song selections. Further collaborations include the frontmen vocals of some of the most well-known and well-loved metal bands of our time: Static-X's Wayne Static, Disturbed's David Draiman, Linkin Park's Chester Bennington, Marilyn Manson, and Orgy's Jay Gordon. All of this, combined with the additional songs by other various groups, construct an album filled with music of a hardcore perspective and feel, yet with a vampiric seduction all its own.
Artist(s): Apocalyptica
Label: Universal Music
Personal review/song highlights: As the title of the album clearly suggests, Apocalyptica (foursome at the time of this album's creation, now a threesome of Finnish cello players) presents their cello versions of the beloved songs of Metallica. With meticulously fluid ability, they express the bittersweet darkness of Metallica's work, perhaps making it all the more so because of the wonderfully classical composition. Though neither the original works nor the instrumental covers speak of vampires or vampirisim (at least, not in obvious terms), the beautiful, powerfully dark atmosphere and symphonic voice of this album certainly has the potential of being vampiric in nature.
