Composer
Angelo Badalamenti
(
Cousins
) set the tone for
David Lynch
's bizarre television soap with a haunting theme created from electric piano, synthetic strings, and the twangiest guitar this side of
Duane Eddy
. The love theme, appropriately enough, sounds like a funeral march. (The series' central character was found dead at the beginning of the first episode.) The rest of the music, instantly recognizable to anyone who saw even one episode of the series, borders on fever-dream jazz.
Lynch
favorite
Julee Cruise
sings the only three vocal songs. The music from
Twin Peaks
is dark, cloying, and obsessive -- and one of the best scores ever written for television. ~ Brian Mansfield