Badalamenti scored films such as ''
Gordon's War and Law and Disorder'', but his break came when he was hired as
Isabella Rossellini's singing coach for the song "
Blue Velvet" in
David Lynch's 1986 film
Blue Velvet. Badalamenti and Lynch collaborated to write "Mysteries of Love" using lyrics Lynch wrote.
Julee Cruise, who went on to work with Lynch and Badalamenti on other projects, performed the vocals for that track. Badalamenti composed the film's score and served as music supervisor. Lynch's request to him was for the score to be "like
Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary." Badalamenti appears in
Blue Velvet as the piano player in the club where Rossellini's character performs. This film was the first instance of a career-long collaborative relationship with Lynch spanning television and film. After scoring a variety of mainstream films, including
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors Twin Peaks became the score Badalamenti is perhaps best known for, one that helped define the show's style and mood. Many of the songs from the series were released on Cruise's album
Floating into the Night. Badalamenti won the
Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the "Twin Peaks Theme" from the
Twin Peaks soundtrack. The song also earned a gold plaque from the
RIAA. Between 1991 and 1993, Badalamenti and Lynch collaborated on the project
Thought Gang, the results of which were released in 2018. Other Lynch projects Badalamenti worked on include the movies
Wild at Heart,
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me,
Lost Highway,
The Straight Story,
Mulholland Drive (in which he has a small role as a gangster with a finicky taste for espresso), and
Rabbits, and the television shows
On the Air and
Hotel Room. His projects with other directors include the TV film
Witch Hunt and the films
Naked in New York,
The City of Lost Children,
A Very Long Engagement,
The Wicker Man, He also worked on the soundtrack for the video game
Fahrenheit (known as
Indigo Prophecy in North America), and wrote the music for
Paul Schrader's films
Auto Focus,
The Comfort of Strangers, and
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. In 1998, Badalamenti recorded "
A Foggy Day (in London Town)" with
David Bowie for the
Red Hot Organization's compilation album
Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to
George Gershwin that raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease. In 1999, he worked with director
Jane Campion on the film
Holy Smoke!, writing the soundtrack after working with Campion for a few days. In 2005, he composed the themes for the movie
Napola (Before the Fall), which were then adapted for the score by
Normand Corbeil. In 2008, he composed and directed the soundtrack of
The Edge of Love:
Siouxsie Sioux sang the Weill-influenced "Careless Love", Badalamenti received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the
World Soundtrack Awards on October 18, 2008, in
Ghent, Belgium. That night, he performed a concert at the piano with the
Brussels Philharmonic orchestra directed by
Dirk Brossé, with Siouxsie Sioux and Beth Rowley on vocals. The concert, spanning his whole career with a selection of tracks, On July 23, 2011, the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers gave Badalamenti the Henry Mancini Award for his accomplishments in film and television music. The
2017 revival of the
Twin Peaks television series marked the continuation of Badalamenti's work with Lynch. Its score features new compositions by Badalamenti as well as material from the original score. ==Collaborations==