MCU: 10 Things You Learn Rewatching Captain America: The Winter Soldier
6. The Score Is Actually Memorable
Although the Avengers theme is certainly recognisable (why else would Marvel have led with it in Infinity War's trailers?), a consistent criticism levelled against Marvel Studios has been that their solo features lack compelling scores. That might be true when it comes to Iron Man, or perhaps even Thor, but Captain America has always had an identifying theme - one that's shifted to mirror the character's own journey from 1945 through to the present.
Winter Soldier's score, composed by Henry Jackman, takes cues from Alan Silvestri's composition for The First Avenger and adds a modern edge to it. Embedding the Silvestri score was also a clever way of mirroring Cap's status as a man out of time - you have these classic instruments that harken back to the character's war years, but they're joined by electronic sounds to create a unique kind of dissonance on the screen.
It's easily labelled as a typical superhero theme, but it's not nearly as forgettable as other Marvel compositions. It benefits from Silvestri's earlier work but it also elevates it by mirroring Cap's own journey into a modern landscape, combining the heroic inflections of The First Avenger's music with new instruments to impart not only the film's paranoid leanings, but also Cap's own position in a world he's still getting used to (and railing against).
The MCU might have better compositions, but Winter Soldier's is one worth paying attention to.