Profondo Rosso

Profondo Rosso is the most important horror score ever recorded and it sounds, at first, like a mistake.

Argento had hired Giorgio Gaslini, a serious jazz composer, and then fell out with him; the replacement he found was a young Roman progressive rock band then called Cherry Five, who had just failed to get an album off the ground. They recorded the score quickly, renamed themselves Goblin, and produced something nobody had attempted: a horror soundtrack that is a rock record. Bass guitar high in the mix, a drum kit playing actual grooves, Hammond organ, Moog, electric piano, and a title theme built on a children's lullaby figure played on a toy-box keyboard over a riff that would not be out of place on a Deep Purple B-side.

It should not frighten anybody. It is one of the most frightening pieces of music in this index, and the reason is the collision: the nursery melody and the rock band are two incompatible registers playing at once, and the listener's ear cannot settle on which one is the threat.

The lullaby is the whole idea

The theme's childlike figure is the film's actual subject — Deep Red's murderer is driven by a childhood event, and the killer plays a recording of that lullaby before killing. Goblin's decision to make the title theme a nursery tune played on something that sounds like a music box, and then to put a fuzz bass under it, is the single most copied gesture in horror scoring. Every subsequent score that frightens an audience with a child's melody — Halloween (OST) excepted, which does something else — is downstream of this.

The rest of the record is a prog album

"Death Dies", "Mad Puppet", "Wild Session" and "Deep Shadows" are not atmosphere cues; they are compositions with structures, solos, key changes and endings. That is the record's other innovation and the one that has aged most interestingly: a 1975 horror film underscored by a band playing live in a room, loudly, rather than by an orchestra or a synthesiser.

Where it is a problem

It is relentless in the film to the point of comedy — Argento drops the full band into scenes that do not need it, and the score is frequently louder than the dialogue. Some of the jazz-rock material is simply of its moment. And the album's many reissues have scrambled the running order so thoroughly that there is no canonical sequence.

For the Goblin score everybody knows, Suspiria (OST); for the film this one scores, Dawn of the Dead carries Goblin's work in Argento's own cut.

The short answer, with a caveat: there is no canonical ending, because there is no canonical running order. Profondo Rosso has been issued and reissued on Cinevox and elsewhere with different sequences, different numbers of tracks, bonus cues, alternate takes and, on some pressings, Gaslini's rejected material included. What every version does is return to the title theme — the record is structured as a set of variations around the lullaby figure, and the closing position on most sequences is either the theme itself or a reprise of it. That is the actual answer to how it resolves: it does not develop towards a conclusion, it circles back to the nursery tune, which is the same thing the film does. If you want a definitive sequence, the 1975 Cinevox original is the one to start from; later editions are more complete and less shaped.

What is the lullaby in Profondo Rosso?

The title theme's central melody — a simple, repetitive, childlike figure played on a toy-piano or music-box timbre, over a rock rhythm section. Inside Deep Red it is diegetic as well as scored: the killer plays a recording of a children's song before each murder, and the melody is tied to the childhood event that produced them. The score's genius is making the nursery tune the thing you learn to fear.

Who are Goblin?

A Roman progressive rock group, previously Cherry Five, who were brought in after Argento fell out with the jazz composer Giorgio Gaslini. The core line-up on this record is Claudio Simonetti on keyboards, Massimo Morante on guitar, Fabio Pignatelli on bass and Walter Martino on drums. They went on to score Suspiria, Dawn of the Dead, Tenebrae and Phenomena, and the band's name is now effectively a genre.

Is Profondo Rosso the same as Deep Red?

Yes. Profondo Rosso is the Italian title of Argento's 1975 film, released in English as Deep Red, and the score carries the Italian title on record. If you are looking for the album under the English name you will find it credited both ways, and some pressings use Deep Red on the sleeve.

Where should I start with Goblin?

Here or with Suspiria. Profondo Rosso is the more musically interesting record — it is a band playing, with real compositions — and Suspiria is the more frightening one. Both are short. After those, Goblin's score for Dawn of the Dead is the odd one out and worth hearing, and Tenebrae is where the sound goes fully electronic.

Is Profondo Rosso scary on its own?

Genuinely, which separates it from most scores. The title theme works without the film: the collision of the lullaby and the rock band produces an unease that does not depend on any image, and the record's reality anchor score of 080 reflects how little it resembles ordinary music. The jazz-rock tracks are a different matter and are closer to period pleasure than to dread.

Scored against the published rubric, here is what the numbers mean.

Reality anchor 080 is high — only 16 works score higher. The record's method is incompatible registers played simultaneously, and there is no stable frame to hear it in.

Viscera 058 is above the median — 70 works score lower. Nothing is described, but the sound is physical: fuzz bass, close-miked drums, organ played hard, and an overall mix that is loud rather than atmospheric.

Era bias 008 is deep analog — only 9 works score lower. 1975, a band in a room, tape, a Hammond, an early Moog and no digital anything.

Tone 042 is close to the midpoint — 91 works score lower, which is high for this index: large parts of the record are a prog band enjoying themselves.

Pace 056 is just on the shock side — 76 works are slower. These are songs with grooves, not drones.

The threat at 030 is on the supernatural side — 35 works score lower, although Deep Red has no supernatural element at all and the score is attached to an entirely human killer.

On shocks: several, and most of them are the band coming in at full volume under something quiet.