Category: Film

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1971 1972 1973 1974 2008 Film H Isaac Hayes Music Reviews S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

The Shaft Anthology: His Big Score And More!

7 min read

Order this CDReleased in 2008 (to an audience that almost immediately bought out the print run of all 3,000 copies that were pressed), Film Score Monthly’s The Shaft Anthology is a revelation even if you’re already familiar with the existing release of Isaac Hayes’ album of music from the original movie. For one thing, the album released by Hayes alongside the film did not contain the original recordings as heard in the movie, but took the common approach of a more album-friendly re-recording that had better flow as a listening experience. (This frequently happens because film scores tend to contain a lot of discrete cues that might seem to be jarringly short to those not accustomed to listening to scores in their original form, hence the time-honored tradition – upheld by Williams, Goldsmith, and many others – of re-recording “concert” arrangements that sew the better short pieces together with linking material.) As a result, there is much here that was not on Hayes’ hit album – and even where there’s material that the two albums have in common (such as “Theme from Shaft”), the film version is a different recording, sometimes quite noticeably different. FSM’s 3-CD set aimed to deliver the full score from Shaft down to its shortest track, and with Hayes backed by the Bar-Kays or Movement (or some combination thereof) as his backing band, even the briefest track is a treat to hear.

The plan was to bring Hayes back for the sequel, Shaft’s Big Score!, but as the original film and its soundtrack had made him a hot commodity, Hayes simply didn’t have an opening in his schedule to handle scoring duties on the second movie. Tom McIntosh, who had lent orchestration expertise to Hayes on the first film, was still under contract to MGM and present on the studio lot, expecting to assist Hayes again, but instead found himself collaborating with director Gordon Parks, who opted to try his hand at scoring his own picture (paving the way for John Carpenter). (The delicate subject of who did the most actual musical work on Shaft’s Big Score! – and thus who should get the toplining screen credit – remained something of a long-running point of contention between Parks and McIntosh.) Whoever did the work, the Shaft’s Big Score! is better than you might expect. On the one hand, you’re probably not expecting the songcraft to be on Hayes’ level, but it’s certainly not lacking in either effort or orchestration. (Needless to say, everything in this entire box set is expertly played and extraordinarily well-produced – Hayes’ score from the original film is populated by musicians from the Stax Records stable of players, so it seems to be understood that, with that as the starting point, everything else in the Shaft franchise has to be at that level.) It may not be Hayes and his backing band, but the music of Shaft’s Big Score! is also not a letdown. Since the film’s director had direct input into the score, the second movie’s soundtrack is arguably more “soundtrackish” than the first, but still finds time to pause for a song (“Type Thang”, “Don’t Misunderstand”, “Move On In”) or two. The template established by Shaft is hewed to closely.

Though the extensive liner notes booklet acknowledges Shaft In Africa, it also reveals that the rights to that soundtrack – available elsewhere – did not allow it to appear in the box set, which means that almost half of disc two and all of disc three are devoted to the previously-unreleased-in-any-form complete episode scores from CBS’ short-lived Shaft TV series. That such a series happened at all – with Richard Roundtree remaining in the starring role, and on CBS, arguably the stodgiest old-school network on TV at the time – is still one of the most counter-intuitive moves in the history of film and TV, though to no one’s surprise, the television rendering of Shaft was vastly watered down from the far less filtered version of the character from the big screen. The result was a show that heavily compromised the films’ version of John Shaft, and probably made CBS’ older, largely white audience break out in a cold sweat. Still, the music tries to hold up its end of the bargain of connecting to the film franchise: the melody of Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft” is quoted often, and the TV episode scores spend equal time trying to summon the movies’ classic soul vibe, and dwelling in the space where a lot of ’70s TV music dwells (i.e. we can’t afford as large an orchestra as a movie, but we’re going to make the best of it). When there are tracks like “Cars And Bridges” connecting the TV series to the sound of the movies, There’s still a lot to love within the reduced expectations of Shaft: The Series.

4 out of 4Long out of print and much sought after, at least parts of The Shaft Anthology live on in other releases (Shaft’s Big Score! is available separately, and the first disc (minus the last two tracks) containing the complete score from Shaft itself is now part of Craft Records’ more easily attainable 2017 release Shaft: Deluxe Edition. This leaves the television scores as the real “killer app” of The Shaft Anthology, taking up nearly half of the box set. It’s gotten pricey on the secondary market, but the whole set is worth tracking down.

    Disc One: Shaft ((1971)
  1. Title Shaft (Theme From Shaft) (4:34)
  2. Shaft’s First Fight (1:46)
  3. Reel 2 Part 2 / Cat Oughta Be Here (1:43)
  4. Bumpy’s Theme (Bumpy’s Lament) (1:44)
  5. Harlem Montage (Soulsville) (3:32)
  6. Love Scene Ellie (Ellie’s Love Theme) (1:43)
  7. Shaft’s Cab Ride / Shaft Enters Building (1:38)
  8. I Can’t Get Over Losin’ You (2:06)
  9. Reel 4 Part 6 (1:37)
  10. Reel 5 Part 1 (1:35)
  11. Reel 5 Part 2 (A Friend’s Place) (1:44)
  12. Source No. 1—6M1A (Bumpy’s Blues) (3:05)
  13. Source No. 1—6M1B (Bumpy’s Lament) (1:32)
  14. Source No. 1—6M1C (Early Sunday Morning) (3:05)
  15. Source No. 2—7M1A (Do Your Thang) (3:21)
  16. Source No. 2—7M1B (Be Yourself) (1:54)
  17. Source No. 2—7M1C (No Name Bar) (2:28)
  18. Shaft Strikes Again/Return of Shaft (1:36)
  19. Source No. 3 (Caffe Reggio) (4:23)
  20. Shaft’s Walk To Hideout (Walk From Reggio) (2:27)
  21. Shaft’s Pain (3:03)
  22. Rescue / Roll Up (10:44)
  23. Bonus Tracks)
  24. Theme From The Men (4:09)
  25. Type Thang (From Shaft’s Big Score!) (3:53)

    Disc Two: Shaft’s Big Score! (1972)
  1. Blowin’ Your Mind (Main Title) (3:30)
  2. The Other Side (1:49)
  3. Smart Money (2:10)
  4. The Search/Sad Circles (2:31)
  5. Asby-Kelly Man (1:45)
  6. First Meeting (1:56)
  7. Don’t Misunderstand (1:46)
  8. Fight Scene (1:06)
  9. Ike’s Place (4:09)
  10. Move on In (3:38)
  11. 8M1/8M2 (1:25)
  12. Funeral Home (4:02)
  13. Don’t Misunderstand (instrumental) (1:53)
  14. 9M3 (0:44)
  15. Symphony for Shafted Souls (Take-Off / Dance of the Cars / Water Ballet / Call and Response / The Last Amen) (14:06)
  16. End Title (1:16)
  17. Don’t Misunderstand (demo) (2:00)

    Shaft (Television Series, 1973-74)
    The Executioners

  18. Courtroom/Leaving Court (2:36)
  19. Dawson’s Trial (1:58)
  20. Shaft Leaves Barbara / East River / He’s Dead, Barb / Cunningham’s Breakfast (1:58)
  21. Visiting Jane / Act End / Jury Meets (2:02)
  22. Cars and Bridges (2:43)
  23. Leaving Airfield / Shaft Checks Hospital (2:22)
  24. Shaft Gets Shot / Shaft In Car (1:29)
  25. Night Blues (1:02)
  26. Day Blues (1:04)
  27. Pimp Gets Shot (2:59)
  28. Handle It / Follow Cunningham (3:31)
  29. Shaft Escapes / Stalking Menace (2:42)
  30. End Theme (0:30)

    Disc Three: Shaft (Television Series, 1973-74)
    The Killing
  1. Opening (2:33)
  2. Diana In Hospital (2:37)
  3. Window Shop / Leaving Hospital / Ciao (1:28)
  4. Restaurant Scene / Punchin’ Sonny (2:52)
  5. Hotel Room (3:05)
  6. Diana Splits / Booking Shaft (1:31)
  7. Shaft Gets Sprung / Searchin’ (2:09)
  8. Pimps / Lick Her Store / Wettin’ His Hand / Diana Ducks Out (2:12)
  9. Juke Box / Hands In The Box (2:31)
  10. Shaft (2:53)
  11. Iggie’s Tail (2:21)
  12. Kyle Goes Down / Case Dismissed (1:21)

    Hit-Run

  13. Opening (1:57)
  14. He’s The Best / Reenact / Good Day (2:38)
  15. Travel Shaft (0:42)
  16. Coffin Time (1:34)
  17. To the Club (1:22)
  18. Ann Appears / Shaft Gets It (2:14)
  19. Jacquard (2:31)
  20. Dart Board / Kissin’ Time (3:09)
  21. Omelette (1:55)
  22. Cheek Pat / Don’t Shoot / Shaft’s Move (1:05)
  23. Funny Time (0:58)
  24. At the Club (2:12)
  25. Ending (1:49)

    The Kidnapping

  26. Chasin’ Shaft (3:00)
  27. Sleep, Dog, Sleep (1:37)
  28. Here Comes The Fuzz (2:11)
  29. I Said Goodnight / Walkie Talkie (3:46)
  30. Shoot Out (2:34)

    The Cop Killers

  31. Rossi Gets It / Hospital / Who The Hell Are You? (2:06)
  32. Honky Horn (1:22)
  33. Sleeping Pigs (1:35)
  34. Splash Time (1:32)
  35. Shaft Gets It (1:50)
  36. Vacate The Van (1:41)
  37. Fork Lift (2:09)
  38. Shaft Theme (End Credit Version) (0:30)

Released by: Film Score Monthly
Release date: September 10, 2008
Disc one total running time: 1:10:18
Disc two total running time: 1:17:50
Disc three total running time: 1:18:49

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2023 D Film Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

A Disturbance In The Force – music by Karl Preusser

2 min read

Order this CDI’ve already raved elsewhere about the better-than-anyone-had-any-right-to-expect documentary about the making of the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, A Disturbance In The Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened. In short, it’s a better documentary than you ever expected about such an arcane, niche topic. The documentary actually has wider appeal than the subject it’s covering. That’s a neat trick.

Karl Preusser’s score for A Disturbance In The Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened is just over half an hour long (the frequent clips and needle drops in the movie don’t leave a lot of room for an original score), but there’s actually a lot to love in that half-hour-and-change. I found myself hoping that the whole thing would be drenched with disco cheese, but Preusser shows admirable restraint by containing that style reference to only three tracks (“So Bad, It’s Not Good”, “A Disturbance In The Force”, and “The Lost Treatment”, the first two of which walk right up to the edge of riffing on Meco’s disco cover of the Star Wars theme). The rest of the score riffs on John Williams’ style of arrangement without ever directly quoting any Williams themes. There are passages that are almost the Jawa theme, or hint at other Williams compositions, and this is an impressively sharp-eared feat made more impressive by the fact that it’s all carried off fairly convincingly with samples.

4 out of 4And now that this score, for a documentary about the Holiday Special, has been released? Go find and release the score from the special itself, you cowards. Seriously. I dare you. It’s got to exist somewhere in the files of the late composer Ian Fraser (who shouldn’t be obscure: he was a frequent music collaborator on Julie Andrews’ prime time variety specials, was the music director for the opening of EPCOT, and arranged the accompaniment for Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s “Little Drummer Boy” duet). Because chances are I’ll buy that too. You can bet your Life Day on it.

  1. So Bad, It’s Not Good (1:59)
  2. Charley Lippincott (2:24)
  3. Boba Fett Genesis (2:16)
  4. Fan Outreach (1:01)
  5. It All Started In 1978 (1:40)
  6. Maintaining Momentum (2:46)
  7. The Talent (0:54)
  8. Life Day (1:49)
  9. The Faithful Wookiee (1:36)
  10. The Lost Treatment (1:57)
  11. Costume Difficulties (1:31)
  12. Sell Toys To Kids (1:10)
  13. It Just Was Not Working (1:49)
  14. And They Loved It (2:14)
  15. Fanbase Grows (3:01)
  16. A Disturbance In The Force (3:30)

Released by: Gription Music
Release date: December 4, 2023
Total running time: 31:17

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2023 B Babylon 5 Film Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

Babylon 5: The Road Home – music by Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion & Lolita Ritmanis

5 min read

Order this CD“Hey, how did everybody like that Babylon 5 animated movie?” Now there’s a question that’s unlikely to bring about a casual discussion. You might as well ask for people’s opinions on the Star Wars sequel trilogy as a chaser. In both cases, you hear – often loudly – from those who hated it, or loved it, but very few saying “well, it was okay.” But for what it’s worth – nice to meet you. I’m the “well, it was okay” guy. I liked the funny bits. (If an entire hollow planet full of multiple instances of Zathras doesn’t make you laugh out loud, you clearly need to be reminded of the time Lennier quizzically repeated “woo…hoo?” to Sheridan, or the time Ivanova did the whole “boom-shaka-laka” dance.)

I think sci-fi fandom, whether it revolves around major franchises, cult classics, or things like Babylon 5 that teeter precariously between those two descriptions, tends to defend a little too vociferously the idea that My Show Means Something, And Don’t You Dare Make Fun Of It. And hey, yeah, I used to be that guy too, when I was younger and had fewer plates to keep spinning and thought that stuff was actually important. Now I can watching something like this, chuckle knowingly at the bits that I know will cause other people’s blood pressure to spike, and say “well, it was okay.” It entertained me. It was like a visit with old friends who brought along some new friends. It proved that – with all due apologies to his voice actor replacement – you can’t just go replacing the majestic, world-weary voice of Andreas Katsulas.

But can you go replacing the often-near-operatic sound of Christopher Franke? Should you even try? That’s the dance that The Road Home‘s score does for a little over an hour, positively drenching a 78-minute movie with 68-odd minutes of music. Sometimes it hits close enough for government work. Sometimes it’s pretty wide of the mark. And a lot of the time…well, it’s okay. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that Franke was using a very distinctive, and very customized, set of orchestral samples. The composers here clearly know what they’re doing – we’re talking about the trio responsible for so much of the music of Batman: The Animated Series, the fantastic scores to the two direct-to-video Batman animated movies starring Adam West and Burt Ward, and countless other direct-to-video movies featuring DC Comics characters. I wouldn’t want to bet that the composers didn’t understand the assignment when they have clearly nailed so many other assignments. The folks working on this are some of the best, and most reliable, in the business.

But it puts me in mind of another animated project, Tron Uprising, whose score knocked it out of the park because Joseph Trapanese used the same sample library that Daft Punk developed for Tron Legacy. That makes all the difference. Franke’s samples were very distinctive: you instantly knew his blast of Wagner tubas, his apocalyptic choral samples, and his thundering drums. Melodically, the music fits very nicely within the Babylon 5 universe. But without those very specific samples used in endless combinations in the original live action series, it’s like a SpaceX rocket landing outside the painted circle on the deck of the recovery ship, but it still landed on the ship – the music lands in a bit of an uncanny valley, for lack of a better description. Despite that, it would be nice if fandom would go easier on these composers than the ridiculously xenophobic response that Evan Chen‘s music for Crusade drew.

3 out of 4And yet if you just close your eyes and listen and forget that this was a Babylon 5 project, it’s excellent space opera scoring, and really beautiful in a few places. Some fans will decide this is fitting, because they want to set The Road Home off to one side from what they consider “real Babylon 5“. Me, I’m kind of hoping there’s another animated feature in the works to give the music team a chance to stick the landing. They were so close this time, and it makes for a nice listen.

  1. The Road Home Main Title (McCuistion) (01:10)
  2. Interstellar Changes (Ritmanis) (02:54)
  3. Delenn Love Theme and Tachyon Disturbance (Carter) (01:32)
  4. Thank You (McCuistion) (00:31)
  5. Good for Humanity (Ritmanis) (02:06)
  6. Tachyon Overload (Carter) (02:34)
  7. In the Future (Ritmanis) (00:40)
  8. Consulting the Doctor (McCuistion) (02:04)
  9. Amber Waves of Memories (Carter) (01:31)
  10. Love Shows the Way (McCuistion) (02:36)
  11. Shadow Lair (Ritmanis) (01:56)
  12. Shadows Awaken (Carter) (00:41)
  13. B5 Under Attack (Carter) (02:41)
  14. Sinclair (Ritmanis) (01:18)
  15. This Is a Standoff (McCuistion) (02:09)
  16. Things Going Downhill Quickly (Carter) (02:06)
  17. There’s Another Way (McCuistion) (04:10)
  18. Activate (Ritmanis) (02:53)
  19. Funny Chat (Ritmanis) (00:20)
  20. Leaving Babylon 5 (Ritmanis) (01:18)
  21. Meet the Zathri (Carter) (01:00)
  22. The Big Silence (Carter) (00:52)
  23. It’s Getting Closer (McCuistion) (01:04)
  24. Someone Familiar (Ritmanis) (00:45)
  25. The Approaching End (Carter) (02:14)
  26. The End Arrives (Carter) (03:13)
  27. Time Tunnel Travel (McCuistion) (00:29)
  28. Consciousness and Love (Ritmanis) (04:57)
  29. Back to the Wormhole (Carter) (01:06)
  30. Sheridan Fever Dream (Carter) (00:33)
  31. Unexpected Meeting (McCuistion) (00:26)
  32. Dark Discovery (Ritmanis) (02:42)
  33. Zathras Arrives (McCuistion) (01:49)
  34. Love Is All (McCuistion) (01:59)
  35. Converging Paths (Carter) (02:08)
  36. Here to Stay (McCuistion) (03:12)
  37. Babylon 5: the Road Home End Credits (Carter) (03:13)

Released by: Watertower Music
Release date: October 27, 2023
Total running time: 1:08:31

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1977 2012 Film Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title W Year

Wizards – music by Andrew Belling

4 min read

Order this CDIf anyone was going to put the “high” in “high fantasy” in the 1970s, it was going to be Ralph Bakshi, and that’s really seems like the most likely explanation for the 1977 animated cult classic Wizards, which attempted – successfully in places, it has to be said – to inject earthy (and earthly) elements into the fantasy genre. The movie gets a lot of help from its score, which combines ’70s synths, a funk/jazz/rock sensibility very much of its era, and the kind of instrumentation one might expect of this genre. Andrew Belling’s music for Wizard is the same kind of fearless blending of genres that the movie itself is, fittingly.

If you’re in a mood for something not a million miles removed from a funky ’70s jam, you can’t go wrong with tracks like “War Against Peace / Weehawk Disturbs The Peace / The Bubble Bursts” and “Battle & Peewhittle’s Death” – though the track titles read as very soundtrackish, they’re very listenable slices of funk/rock if you’re up for this particular vintage of those particular styles. (One listener’s dated sounds are another’s comfort food. There’s nothing wrong with a good old ’70s jam-out.)

And yet tracks like “Snow Drift / Snow Time / Assassins In The Snow” and “Moving Out” give you the more traditional vibe you’d expect from an adventure film (in synthesized form, mind you, but almost always mixed in with some live players, particularly on woodwinds, timpani, brass, and percussion. Some tracks straddle the fence between the two styles, transitioning from traditional to more funk/rock oriented in the blink of an eye. Much like the movie, the music keeps you on your toes, even if it’s purely a listening experience. Interestingly, Belling allows his small ensemble to sound sparse to great effect in “The Elves Are Coming”.

Occasionally the electronic elements of the music get a bit weird with it, as in the final portion of “Now Begins Our Final Battle / Avatar Equestrian / On The Road To Scortch”; bit of “Fairy Attack” almost sound a bit Radiophonic Workshop-esque. As dated as it may sound now, the Wizards score was actually seriously ahead of its time. The album is opened and closed with two different edits of “Time Will Tell”, both with vocals by Susan Anton, but also stylistically similar to the rest of the score.

4 out of 4The sad news is: Wizards is long out of print. Given a relatively small print run of only 2,000 copies over a decade ago, and La-La Land – which is normally very good about keeping the original pages for its extinct titles archived in an out-of-print section – has scrubbed any mention of it from their site, and there is no digital edition. It’s like the soundtrack is as much of a fever dream as the movie itself was. A pity it’s now hard to get hold of, because it’s a very effective case study in combining traditional and non-traditional instrumentation and styles, from an era where it truly was a revolutionary experiment. This might just be one of those cases where the score outclasses its film.

  1. Time Will Tell (Full Version) featuring Susan Anton (2:11)
  2. The Story Begins / Scortch 3000 Years Later / Fairy Hookers / Peace Goes Forth / Peace In The Valley Of Montagar (7:03)
  3. War Against Peace / Weehawk Disturbs The Peace / The Bubble Bursts (2:45)
  4. Jukebox Junky Blues (1:26)
  5. Blackwolf Finds The Record / War & Frog / We Can’t Lose (1:37)
  6. Moving Out (1:54)
  7. Battle & Peewhittle’s Death (2:05)
  8. Now Begins Our Final Battle / Avatar Equestrian / On The Road To Scortch (1:27)
  9. Fairy Attack (1:43)
  10. Fairy Drums / Jungle Drums / Gargoyle Once A Day (1:42)
  11. Snow Drift / Snow Time / Assassins In The Snow (2:22)
  12. Tanks Again & Betrayal / Peace Isn’t, Elinore Doesn’t (1:20)
  13. To All Our Ships / Larry Gets Weehawk (0:52)
  14. The Elves Are Coming (1:30)
  15. Gathering Of The Heavies / The Charge Of The Heavy Brigade / The Battle Picks Up Tempo / The Punchup / The Elves Lose (6:36)
  16. Weehawk Finds Elinore / Elinore’s OK / Blackwolf Bites It / Final History / Bye (3:29)
  17. Time Will Tell (Film Version) featuring Susan Anton (2:00)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: October 23, 2012
Total running time: 42:36

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2023 Film I Indiana Jones Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny – music by John Williams

4 min read

Order this CDFirst things first: I’m listening to this soundtrack without having seen the movie; the track list might spoil something for you, but I won’t. John Williams is still one of those “get the soundtrack sight unseen/unheard” composers for me, and to even be listening to this is a surprise. Wasn’t he announcing his retirement from film scoring not that long ago? What happened? Did Mr. Burns (or Steven Spielberg) tap the “don’t forget, you’re here forever” sign on the wall?

But if the result is Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, I can make peace with Williams’ quick punch-of-the-undo-button on his retirement announcement. Like I said, I have no idea what to expect from the movie itself; reviews have been…colorfully mixed…at best. And honestly, I’m not sure how high my personal bar is set after Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. I’m not sure I’ve even set up a bar, I just want a more dignified exit for Indy than what Han Solo got. In some respects, Williams’ music for The Dial Of Destiny does hearken back to The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi – there are major action setpieces that rank among Williams’ Best, but for the most part, we’re getting a somewhat more contemplative take on the ongoing adventures.

The lengthy prologue is a good reminder that Williams’ superpowers extend to building tension and dread, not just big action scenes. It’s followed by “Helena’s Theme”, which is also reprised at the end of the album (and as a standalone single) with solo violin by Anne-Sophie Mutter; this initial appearance is a more widescreen orchestral version highlighting thematic material that turns up later in the score, and it’s a typically gorgeous Williams theme. “Germany 1944” is the first major action piece on the album, and the first time that Indy’s theme shows up on the album as well, and – as intended – it’s a rewind to Indy’s glory days in the ’80s. Never mind the de-aging CGI, Williams is doing the heavy lifting here.

“To Morocco” is a musical travelogue that leans heavily on “Helena’s Theme”, while “Voller Returns” builds more tension. “Auction at Hotel L’Atlantique” has some moments of whimsy leading up to action, providing a good segue into the next big action piece, “Tuk Tuk in Tangiers”. “To Athens” spins the “Helena’s Theme” motif into something more adventurous, and joins it with Indy’s theme. “Perils Of The Deep” is more contemplative and slightly menacing; “Water Ballet” picks up that menace and runs with it, with some intriguing sounds that are clearly the movie’s big “horror” scene. “Polybius Cipher” and “The Grafikos” pour on the mystery and the swashbuckling, both with Indy’s theme and suggestions of Helena’s theme. “Archimedes’ Tomb” continues the mystery, while “The Airport” and “Battle Of Syracuse” are more action oriented.

It all comes together in “Centuries Join Hands” and “New York 1969”, the latter of which closes things out with the fullest statement of Indy’s theme to be found on the album. (It’s a given that there’s probably quite a bit more music in the movie than we’re getting here, a quandary to be solved by an adventurous soundtrack specialty label at some point in the future, hopefully before the day someone decides that CD reissues belong in a museum.)

4 out of 4Even if the movie isn’t the return to form that everyone is, deep down, hoping it is, John Williams’ score is the real marvel of time travel going on with this movie. It’s a period piece within a period piece: a rewind to his 1980s-style musical accompaniment for characters of an even-more-bygone era. Whether or not the movie successfully delivers that, the soundtrack doesn’t let up, and doesn’t let the listener down. Any five-minute stretch of this score does more to proclaim that Indiana Jones is back – and does more to make you believe it – than the best trailer ever could. And that’s probably why no one’s letting John Williams retire.

  1. Prologue to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (06:01)
  2. Helena’s Theme (03:30)
  3. Germany, 1944 (04:43)
  4. To Morocco (03:21)
  5. Voller Returns (03:06)
  6. Auction at Hotel L’Atlantique (02:59)
  7. Tuk Tuk in Tangiers (03:36)
  8. To Athens (02:18)
  9. Perils of the Deep (02:31)
  10. Water Ballet (04:53)
  11. Polybius Cipher (02:39)
  12. The Grafikos (04:40)
  13. Archimedes’ Tomb (03:02)
  14. The Airport (04:46)
  15. Battle of Syracuse (02:51)
  16. Centuries Join Hands (03:02)
  17. New York, 1969 (04:17)
  18. Helena’s Theme (For Violin and Orchestra) (04:59)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: June 28, 2023
Total running time: 1:07:06

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2022 Film Music Reviews S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Trek Television Year

Star Trek Collection: The Final Frontier

2 min read

Order this CDI hit peak Star Trek superfandom in the late ’80s, just in time for the 1990s and the sudden rapid expansion of Star Trek as a genuine media franchise to kick in. There were so many shows on TV. A good few episodes of these various series had really good music. And the music…was nowhere to be found commercially. Star Trek: The Next Generation wound up with four individual CD releases through the end of the 1990s, while Deep Space Nine and Voyager merited one each, in each instance with (most of) the score from their pilot episodes. That pattern continued with the pilot episode of Enterprise in 2001, and then…it all went silent. Being in my early 20s, I didn’t get it. It seemed like GNP Crescendo had a license to print money – or at least a license to get their hands of copious amounts of my money – if only they’d keep releasing more Star Trek music. (I know nothing of musicians’ unions and re-use fees at the time, I just knew what I liked.) My attention drifted to other franchises that seemed to know full well that their fans wanted more music, not less – Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, the new Doctor Who… and then a magical thing happened in the late aughts. Suddenly Paramount seemed more open to the idea of mining its musical vaults. Long-out-of-print Star Trek movie soundtrack albums suddenly had newly expanded editions. On the television front, things went from famine to feast as massive box sets chronicled either the entire musical oeveure of the 1960s series, or the entire body of work of a beloved single Next Generation composer. And then all of the television series racked up not just one, but two 3-or-4-disc box sets covering music from their entire broadcast run. … Read more

Categories
2019 Film Soundtracks Star Trek W Year

What We Left Behind – music by Dennis McCarthy and Kevin Kiner

4 min read

If there was ever a way to gauge how passionately fans of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were willing to go to bat for a series that remains something of the bastard stepchild of the franchise, all one had to do was promise a documentary interviewing all of the major players, and then crowdfund that documentary. Then you just sit back and watch how many of the stretch goals go whizzing by as the production is funded.

One of those stretch goals was to hire the original composer of the Deep Space Nine theme and most of the series’ episodes, Dennis McCarthy, to score the documentary, What We Left Behind. McCarthy was not only game for returning to the Star Trek universe, but he brought with him Kevin Kiner, a frequent collaborator from McCarthy’s years providing music for the ratings-challenged, budget-addled Star Trek: Enterprise. As that show’s music budget was repeatedly slashed, McCarthy would lean on Kiner to bring the music to life electronically, since the money for an orchestra was no longer necessarily on the table. By the time McCarthy brought Kiner in the perform much the same function on What We Left Behind, Kiner was a composer in his own right, having scored nearly the entirety of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, numerous early episodes of Stargate SG-1, and a second animated series, Star Wars: Rebels.

There’s one component of the documentary where bringing McCarthy back into the fold really pays major dividends. The show’s storied writers’ room is reassembled – a room now made not of rookie TV writers, but of high-powered Hollywood showrunners in their own right – with their old boss, Ira Steven Behr (also the frequent narrator/muse of the documentary), to break down the story for an entirely hypothetical season 8 premiere. As they devise the story, it’s brought to life by artwork and by McCarthy’s music, which is authentic as one could get without actually digging up McCarthy’s 1990s session tapes. The result is an authentic Deep Space Nine story with authentic Deep Space Nine music, one of the highlights of the whole project. In a few other cases, McCarthy ends up rescoring scenes he originally scored in the ’90s. With Kiner’s considerable skill at electronically recreating orchestral bombast, the results are genuinely thrilling.

McCarthy and Kiner bring more modern sensibilities to tracks like “Mr. Brooks”, “Killing Will Robinson”, and “Racial Inequalities”. From the jauntiness to the electronic percussion elements of these tracks, there’s a clear musical dividing line between “documentary” and “breaking the story for an unmade season 8 premiere”.

The all-star barbershop quartet of DS9 veterans – Casey Biggs, Jeffrey Combs, Armin Shimerman, and Max Grodenchik – also appear on the soundtrack with their renditions of classic standards (now with Deep-Space-Nine-inspired lyrics, i.e. “I Left My Quark And Captain Sisko” to the tune of “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”). These interludes were a highlight of a documentary that tried very hard to give the impression that it wasn’t taking itself too seriously, and is an extension of Biggs’ and Grodenchik’s convention party piece. (It’s especially nice to have these songs handy in a year where conventions have abruptly become as much a distant memory as the show itself.)

4 out of 4So if you were wondering why you should bother with a soundtrack that isn’t even from one of the Star Trek series, but rather a documentary about that series, it’s pretty simple: by bringing Dennis McCarthy and Kevin Kiner back into the Trek universe, the result is something that earns its place alongside the music from the series itself. Much like the entirely hypothetical season 8 premiere, it’s a tantalizing glimpse into a Star Trek tale that could’ve kept on going.

Order this CD

  1. Main Title (0:12)
  2. Through A Glass Darkly (0:57)
  3. I Left My Quark and Captain Sisko (2:10)
  4. Reunion (2:40)
  5. Big Space / Fun Voyages (0:37)
  6. Mr. Brooks (3:03)
  7. Concept Art / Production Design (2:47)
  8. Actor Interaction / DS9 Renaissance / Promise to be Back (3:05)
  9. Writers Intro / New Episode (4:58)
  10. Explosion (1:33)
  11. Evolving Characters I / Friendship to Romance (1:32)
  12. Grey Character (2:54)
  13. Evolving Characters II / Recurring Characters (1:46)
  14. Killing Will Robinson (2:29)
  15. Galactic War Saga / Sacrifice of Angels (3:04)
  16. Writers’ Room I (2:48)
  17. Haven’t Advanced Much (1:33)
  18. Racial Inequalities (1:45)
  19. Writers’ Room II (2:30)
  20. Action Barbie / Being Heard (3:03)
  21. Intro Ezri (1:28)
  22. Bashir (1:16)
  23. The Cost of War (1:16)
  24. Real World Issues (2:53)
  25. Section 31 (3:49)
  26. Finale (5:58)
  27. What We Left Behind (Vocal) (2:48)
  28. In Memorium (0:43)
  29. End Credits (3:12)
  30. DS9 Rocks (1:29)
  31. What We Left Behind Trailer (2:27)
  32. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Main Title for Solo Piano “After 3:00 AM at Quarks” (5:09)

Released by: BSX Records
Release date: October 11, 2019
Total running time: 1:17:54

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Categories
2019 Film P Soundtracks Year

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu – music by Henry Jackman

3 min read

I all but had to invent a new movie category for Detective Pikachu, because this is a movie that falls under the “well, that worked so much better than I was expecting it to” category. Given that the Pokemon IP holders were going to throw whatever was necessary at this film to make sure it didn’t fail, I wasn’t expecting abject failure, but I wasn’t expecting a movie that I’d be so utterly engrossed in.

Henry Jackman’s score was a big help in that regard. While it does have some synth elements lending it something of an “old video game” feel (and Jackman has become the de facto “video game movie” composer in recent years, with the Wreck-It Ralph franchise and Pixels under his belt), the bulk of the score wisely plays to the movie’s emotional core. You know, that thing that I wasn’t expecting to be there, and wasn’t expecting to be engrossing.

The music also does a lot to play up the sheer wonder of the movie’s universe, a world where Pokemon do, in fact, exist and have always been there alongside human beings. Absent from this universe are cats, dogs, and other familiar animals; in their place are the fictional creatures from the Pokemon franchise down through the years – Skitties and Growliths instead of cats and dogs.

Some of my favorite music cues are those, like “Apom Attack”, “The Roundhouse,” and “Pikachu vs. Charizard”, accompanying scenes that really highlight what that kind of a world would be like (in both good and bad ways). Taking a world of trainers and gym battles and so on into something resembling our physical reality is not an easy task; the score sells the viewer on these things as a reality (maybe not the viewer’s reality, but a reality for the characters in the movie). Some of this music gets almost hyperkinetic, bordering on dubstep, and it’s fun to hear that colliding with a more traditional orchestral treatment.

4 out of 4Other tracks, like “Embrace” and “Digging Deeper”, to name just a couple, have more traditional supporting roles to play in underscoring the emotional thrust of their respective scenes, helping lend weight and menace to the movie’s central mystery (what happened to Pikachu’s former partner?), which, if the whole movie hadn’t hung together so well, might have been seen as a really silly solution to that portion of the plot. Overall, Detective Pikachu is as engrossing a listening experience as it is a viewing experience, and one can certainly hope that Jackman is on board for whatever next installment might be waiting in the wings to happen.

Order this CD

  1. Mewtwo Awakes (1:19)
  2. Catching A Cubone (2:05)
  3. Bad News (1:17)
  4. Howard Clifford (0:56)
  5. Ryme City (2:11)
  6. A Key To The Past (2:06)
  7. Aipom Attack (1:58)
  8. On The Case (1:26)
  9. Childhood Memories (1:42)
  10. Buddies (1:08)
  11. Interrogation Of Mr. Mime (1:53)
  12. The Roundhouse (1:50)
  13. Pikachu vs. Charizard (3:06)
  14. Embrace (3:07)
  15. Digging Deeper (3:55)
  16. Unauthorized Access (3:38)
  17. Greninja & Torterra (2:59)
  18. The Forest Of Healing (3:53)
  19. Shock To The System (1:19)
  20. Save The City (1:07)
  21. True Colors (2:11)
  22. Merge To One (2:08)
  23. Game On (1:05)
  24. Ditto Battle (2:26)
  25. Howard Unplugged (2:35)
  26. Epiphany (2:22)
  27. Together (2:20)

Released by: Sony Classical
Release date: May 3, 2019
Total running time: 58:02

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Categories
Film S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title

Space Station 76 – music by Marc & Steffan Fantini

2 min read

Ah, Space Station 76 – I hadn’t even thought about this movie in years when the soundtrack popped up out of nowhere in 2020, six years after the movie itself met with some minor film festival buzz before becoming a creature of the streaming media ecosystem. Filmed on a bunch of gorgeously retro-futuristic sets – evoking that ’70s sci-fi vision of what the future might be – Space Station 76 was a joy to look at, but there wasn’t much to actually watch. It was as much a retro sci-fi parody as it was a parody of the entire decade whose sci-fi it was spoofing, poking fun at the “I’m OK, you’re OK” vibe of the 1970s. It’s a pity it just wasn’t that funny, especially since it was billed as a comedy. The score, however, serves as a pleasant reminder that the movie’s music may have been even more successful than its look in evoking that decade.

While there are bits that sound like they’re reaching, in a tongue-in-cheek way, to meet the vibe of a serious sci-fi score of that era, much of the score takes on a laid-back, mellow, ’70s pop vibe, a sound carefully constructed to sit comfortably alongside several vintage slices of Todd Rundgren and Ambrosia that punctuate the proceedings. The blend of new score and older songs is reasonably successful, helping the movie to conjure a lot of its retro vibe. (The Rundgren and Ambrosia selections are not included here, and that’s okay; they’re readily available elsewhere.)

3 out of 4It’s perhaps not the best plaudit for a movie that its most memorable elements are its score and its production design (shame about the story and the characters, though), but the score’s release is a nice reminder that the movie was an audiovisual feast, even if it forgot to stick the landing with a satisfying story.

Order this CD

  1. Introduction (0:55)
  2. Title Sequence (Alien Ship) (1:55)
  3. Roller Skating (1:43)
  4. Irregularities (0:33)
  5. Stressing Me (0:35)
  6. Here Comes The Delivery Man (0:42)
  7. 70’s Joy’nt (0:53)
  8. World Of Fantasy (0:47)
  9. Hello (0:38)
  10. Sunshine, No (0:45)
  11. Asteroidal Pocket (2:18)
  12. Sex and Death (1:09)
  13. Never Been To Earth (1:09)
  14. Romantic Joy’nt (0:51)
  15. Last Gerbil (1:25)
  16. Mail’s Here (0:29)
  17. Home Movies (1:08)
  18. Mom In Pod (1:07)
  19. Budding Romance (1:19)
  20. Logan Is Coming (0:16)
  21. Asteroid Hits (2:25)
  22. Asteroid Misses (2:15)
  23. Sunshine Floats (0:51)

Released by: Madison Gate Records
Release date: April 3, 2020
Total running time: 26:06

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Categories
2017 Film S Soundtracks Star Wars

Star Wars: The Last Jedi – music by John Williams

4 min read

Star Wars fandom may never be a cohesive whole again once the post-original-trilogy trilogy wraps up. The Force Awakens was knowingly derivative – on purpose, so we’re told in hindsight – to bring a new, younger audience into the familiar story beats of a Star Wars movie, while The Last Jedi‘s iconoclastic approach to the story’s remaining original trilogy characters seemed to split Star Wars fandom down the middle. The one unchanging constant in this whirlwind, however, has been John Williams, the architect of the orchestral Star Wars sound.

The soundtrack from The Last Jedi, appropriately for the middle chapter of a trilogy, leans heavily on themes already established. Themes for Rey, Kylo Ren/the First Order, and Poe/the Resistance are holdovers from The Force Awakens, with Rey’s theme given a great deal of development here. From the original trilogy, the Force theme (also frequently associated with Obi-Wan Kenobi) gets plenty of play here, as does a theme for another Jedi Master long past. The TIE Fighter battle theme is back as the Millennium Falcon shakes off its pursuers on Crait, with maybe two seconds of whimsy dropped in for Chewie’s new Porg sidekick. (Not heard on the album: the re-use of the Emperor’s theme for Snoke – perhaps a tacitly tuneful admission that the two were nearly interchangeable?) Luke and Leia’s reunion gets a somber, low-key treatment of their theme from Return Of The Jedi, tagged out by a short reference to Han and Leia’s love theme before Luke strides into battle against Kylo Ren.

Virtually the only truly new theme here is reserved for Finn’s winsome new partner, Rose (though that description should, perhaps, be the other way around). This leaves the movie’s major action setpieces for the majority of “new” material – percussive, raging battle music for Rey and Ren’s fight against Snoke’s guards, Finn’s final fight with Phasma, and naturally Luke’s climcactic duel with Kylo Ren. “The Battle Of Crait” rolls out a low, threatening motif for the oncoming First Order forces, as well as a choral interlude for Finn’s futile attempt to sacrifice himself for the Rebel cause.

The introduction to Canto Bight has an opulent opening (hearkening back to some of the “Coruscant” music from the prequel trilogy, which then segues into a boisterous jazz tune that sounds like it’s played by the same ensemble as the original Star Wars‘ Cantina Band music. It’s not a callback to that specific tune, but very much a delightful callback to its style. “The Fathiers”, accompanying the scenes of Finn and Rose lowering Canto Bight’s property value with large, four-legged help, is a callback of another kind – it sounds like a theme from an Indiana Jones movie slipped into the Star Wars universe.

I can handle a soundtrack falling back on old favorites more gracefully than I can handle the entire script of a movie doing so, and – spoiler alert – John Williams gives Luke Skywalker and Leia a truly epic sendoff, the 5 out of 4former with a mythic choral treatment, and the latter with her theme from Star Wars arranged for piano during the end credit tribute to the late Carrie Fisher.

With J.J. Abrams back in the driver’s seat for Episode IX, the question isn’t whether John Williams’ final Star Wars outing is worthy of the franchise. The question now becomes whether or not the movie itself will be worthy of Williams’ grand finale.

Order this CD

  1. Main Title and Escape (7:26)
  2. Ahch-To Island (4:23)
  3. Revisiting Snoke (3:29)
  4. The Supremacy (4:01)
  5. Fun with Finn and Rose (2:34)
  6. Old Friends (4:29)
  7. The Rebellion is Reborn (4:00)
  8. Lesson One (2:10)
  9. Canto Bight (2:38)
  10. Who Are You? (3:04)
  11. The Fathiers (2:42)
  12. The Cave (3:00)
  13. The Sacred Jedi Texts (3:33)
  14. A New Alliance (3:13)
  15. Chrome Dome (2:03)
  16. The Battle of Crait (6:48)
  17. The Spark (3:36)
  18. The Last Jedi (3:04)
  19. Peace and Purpose (3:08)
  20. Finale (8:28)

Released by: Walt Disney Records
Release date: December 15, 2017
Total running time: 77:49

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