Best-known for his musical scores for David Lynch films including "Blue Velvet" and the series "Twin Peaks," the Grammy-award winning composer died in his New Jersey home on Sunday.
Composer Angelo Badalamenti has died at the age of 85Image: Lieven Van Assche/Belga/IMAGO
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US composer Angelo Badalamenti rose to fame on the back of his signature melancholic soundtracks for David Lynch films and TV series in the 1980s and 90s.
Having already provided the score for the seminal 1986 art thriller "Blue Velvet," his haunting piano composition that underlay key scenes in the surreal, celebrated TV series, "Twin Peaks," won him a Grammy in 1990.
From the Catskills to Twin Peaks
This was perhaps the composer's artistic peak during a brilliant career that began as a teenager playing piano to tourists in Catskills mountains resorts outside New York.
Born in 1937 in Brooklyn, Angelo Badalamenti was of Sicilian decent on his father's side and started playing piano aged 8 before attending the Manhattan School of Music.
In the 1970s, he wrote score for different action films, including the blaxploitation classic "Gordon's War" in the 1970s, and wrote songs for Nina Simone, among others.
His breakthrough came when he was asked to work on "Blue Velvet" — initially as star Isabella Rossellini's singing coach. He ended up creating a soundtrack that Lynch wanted to be "dark and a little bit scary," and a collaboration was born that would last the rest of his career.
He composed soundtracks for "Wild at Heart," "Lost Highway" and "The Straight Story," and worked with other directors including Jane Campion ("Holy Smoke!"), Danny Boyle ("The Beach") and Paul Schrader ("The Comfort of Strangers").
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'He's got this musical soul'
In the recording studio, Badalamenti worked with the likes of David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney and Marianne Faithfull. He also wrote "The Flaming Arrow'' Torch Theme for the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics
But the score for "Twin Peaks" was perhaps his magnum opus.
"David felt that the music of 'Twin Peaks' would have to cover a lot of ground, a wide range of moods: sadness, passion, ecstasy, love, tenderness, and violence. He wanted the music to be dark and abstract," he said in an interview. "He asked me for music that would tear the hearts out of people.''
"He's got this musical soul, and melodies are always floating around inside," Lynch said of his chief musical collaborator, in a 1990 interview with People Magazine. "I feel the mood of a scene in the music, and one thing helps the other, and they both just start climbing.''
As a score composer, Badalamenti said he primarily wanted to fulfill the director's vision.
"I always have one major question for a director when I compose a soundtrack: what do you want your audience to feel?" he told NME music magazine in 2011. "I translate their words into music.''
Badalamenti was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Soundtrack Awards academy in 2008, and the Henry Mancini Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 2011.
According to Badalamenti's family, the composer died of natural causes on Sunday (11.12.2022). Badalamenti's niece Frances said the composer passed away at his home in Lincoln Park, New Jersey.
The weird, wacky and wonderful world of Twin Peaks
With a brand new season of the cult series about to launch, we revisit the town where 'the owls are not what they seem."
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'Dead, wrapped in plastic'
The mystery of "Twin Peaks" starts with the grisly discovery of the body of prom queen Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee). The entire town appears to be traumatized by the loss of the popular high-school girl. But things aren't necessarily what they seem, and underneath Laura Palmer's polished veneer lurks the story of a severely troubled girl, as investigators learn.
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'Fire Walk With Me'
The 16-year-old Laura was numbing her pain and problems with drugs, and financing her habit with prostitution and pornography. The sleepy town of Twin Peaks apparently harbors all these secrets and much more, as the series reveals. The dark underbelly of the fictive small town is later explored in even greater depth in the cinematic prequel movie, "Fire Walk With Me" (pictured here).
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Secrets behind white picket fences
Things weren't always difficult in Laura Palmer's life, viewers learn. What drove the blonde girl from this sleepy little place in the Pacific Northwest of the US into leading a scandalous double life? As the audience tries to piece her story together, the role of her parents moves into greater focus. Laura's father Leland (Ray Wise) is apparently keeping a dark secret.
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A demonic villain
And then there is Bob - one of the creepiest characters to ever be featured on television. With a spine-chilling stare and a sinister lust for blood, we learn that Bob (Frank Silva) is a demon who uses humans as vessels to feed on their fear. As the series progresses, it is revealed that there is a portal to a shadowy world - the Black Lodge - in Twin Peaks, where such evil spirits dwell.
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Donuts, pie and 'damn good coffee'
As if the occult world of Twin Peaks weren't strange enough, FBI Special Agent Dale B. Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan, right) is another surreal character with lovable idiosyncrasies, including some less-than-orthodox investigation methods and his childlike enthusiasm. Detective Cooper bonds with local Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) over donuts and "damn good coffee" while solving the case.
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Underage femme fatale
Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), whose father owns the hotel where Agent Cooper stays, also develops feelings for the dapper FBI man in town to solve the crime. However, as a classmate of Laura Palmer's, Audrey is too young to really be considered a serious love interest for Cooper. The tender exchanges between the two characters nevertheless make for some of the best lines of the show.
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Visions of a dark place
The truth about the murder reveals itself to Agent Cooper incrementally, mainly in dreams and visions that offer but glimpses into other worlds like the Black Lodge. By the end of the series, Cooper ventures out into the place where the evil demons of Twin Peaks hide, only to return with a surprise that has kept fans hanging on a cliffhanger for 25 years. Will the new series resolve this?
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Ahead of its time
Twin Peaks wasn't only visionary in the way it told its narrative, it was ahead of its time through the important social issues it addressed. The series introduced the first transgender character on television, played by David Duchovny. Fans of the show were quite excited to find out that Duchovny would indeed be returning in the role of Special DEA Agent Denise Bryson in the new season.
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David Lynch's stroke of genius
The show's award-winning director David Lynch has kept all details surrounding the plot of the new "Twin Peaks" series a well-hidden secret, adding massively to the hype that has been building up on social media in anticipation of the relaunch. While some fear that after a quarter century the revival may flop, fans around the world await the start of the new series with great excitement.
