CD CORNER : Film Sound-Track Albums at Budget Prices

Advice: Next time you’re browsing in a record store, spend some time in the sound-track department.

Sound-track collections are often overlooked because they are usually isolated in their own department, far from the “pop-rock” section that commands the most consumer attention.

Yet the best sound tracks--both traditional film scores and the increasingly common collection of songs by different artists--offer immensely appealing music. Added good news: an encouraging percentage of catalogue, or pre-1989, sound tracks are available at budget prices--generally retailing for between $8 to $12.

Excluding such pop-star vehicles as the Elvis Presley films, approximately 60 sound track albums made the national Top 10 between 1955 and 1985. Thirty-five of them are now on compact disc and 19 of them are part of budget lines.

The list includes a wide range of musical styles: “Around the World in 80 Days” (MCA), “The Benny Goodman Story” (MCA), “Beverly Hills Cop” (MCA), “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (RCA), “Bye Bye Birdie” (RCA), “Can-Can” (Capitol), “Charade” (RCA), “Doctor Zhivago” (MCA).

“Exodus” (RCA), “Fame” (PolyGram), “Flashdance” (PolyGram), “Ghostbusters” (Arista), “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (EMI-Manhattan), “Hatari” (RCA), “Romeo and Juliet” (Capitol), “Saturday Night Fever” (PolyGram), “South Pacific” (RCA), “Staying Alive” (PolyGram) and “The Sting” (MCA).

Beyond this, there are valuable albums that didn’t make the Top 10. A small sampling:

“A Clockwork Orange” (Warner Bros.)--Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is what is best remembered about Stanley Kubrick’s brilliantly unsettling film about deviant behavior, institutional and otherwise. But Beethoven accounts for only about 16 of the 46 musical moments here. Other elements range from the “William Tell” overture and “Singin’ in the Rain” to original material by Wendy Carlos.

“Less Than Zero” (Def Jam/Columbia)--This 1987 film version of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel about the latest lost generation was widely panned, but producer Rick Rubin’s sound track was a noteworthy merger of pop’s then-warring hard rock (Aerosmith, Slayer) and rap (Public Enemy, LL Cool J) factions. Also featured: Roy Orbison, the Bangles and Poison.

“Midnight Express” (PolyGram)--There are plenty of mushy moments in the music from this late ‘70s film about brutality in a Turkish prison, but the opening, 8-minute “Chase” selection was a striking exercise in tension that made Giorgio Moroder’s synthesizer-dominated score so influential.

“Once Upon a Time in the West” (RCA)--Ennio Morricone’s score, with its jarring orchestral strains and consistently inventive subtexts, was such an essential part of the moody backdrop of Sergio Leone’s gripping Western that Morricone seems an equal partner with Leone rather than his musical supervisor.

“The Wizard of Oz” (CBS Special Products)--You not only get the musical memories from one of Hollywood’s most endearing films, but this 74-minute disc also includes the music for the “Jitterbug” scene that was cut from the film.

BOWIE UPDATE: The first three David Bowie albums in Rykodisc’s “Sound + Vision” series--”Space Oddity,” “The Man Who Sold the World” and “Hunky Dory”--will be released Jan. 23 and will each contain at least three tracks not included on the original albums. The additional “Hunky Dory” selections will be “Bombers,” a previously unreleased track recorded in 1971, as well as an alternative version of “The Supermen,” an alternative mix of “The Bewlay Brothers” and the demo version of “Quicksand.”