Judge Dredd (newly expanded edition) – music by Alan Silvestri
In my mind, Judge Dredd was one of a glut of ’90s genre films that abandoned optimism for the future in favor of a future as a dystopia filled with antiheroes (though to be sure, both subgenres had always existed). As a not-entirely-faithful Hollywoodization of the star character of Alan Moore’s 2000 A.D. comics from the U.K., Judge Dredd wasn’t exactly a perfect adaptation of its source material, but it was enjoyable in its own right.
The original release of the soundtrack alongside the movie’s 1995 release date was mostly devoted to songs used in the movie, with a scant few selections from Alan Silvestri’s score. Intrada’s remastered 2-CD set presents the full score to the movie, including unused alternate cuts and, after a couple of decades of fans begging for it, Jerry Goldsmith’s trailer music, which may be better remembered than Alan Silvestri’s score. In short, this expansion of the original release should make everyone happy.
While the movie uneasily mixed the comics’ gloomy violence with the bright-and-flashy millieu of still-trying-to-ape-Star-Wars Hollywood sci-fi of the late ’80s, Alan Silvestri’s music 
is bright, brassy, and not apologizing one bit for being in your face. It’s heroic music for a character who can, in his original source material, barely be considered a hero. Hewing slightly closer to the tone of the source material is Jerry Goldsmith’s custom-scored trailer music, the original recording of which has never seen the light of day until this release.
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Disc One
- Main Title Revised (4:59)
- Block War Revised (5:01)
- I’ve Heard It All Revised (2:24)
- Aspen Revised (3:28)
- It Ends (0:42)
- The Law (1:46)
- Pawn Shop (1:45)
- Parking Penalty (0:55)
- Dredd’s Arrest (1:33)
- Say It Ain’t So (2:24)
- Judgement Day (4:26)
- Hidden Photo (0:40)
- Shuttle Crash (1:38)
- Access Denied (1:06)
- Angel Family Values (6:02)
- We Created You (3:48)
- New Order Montage (1:14)
- Hershey’s Close Call (0:17)
- Janus! (0:57)
- Council Chaos Revised (7:31)
- Hershey’s Apartment (1:15)
- Twice You Owe Me (1:18)
- Griffin Gets It (1:00)
- Send In the Clones (1:18)
- New World Revised (7:50)
- Judge Dredd: Trailer – music by Jerry Goldsmith (0:51)
Disc Two
- Main Title (4:56)
- Block War (3:06)
- I’ve Heard It All (0:37)
- Dredd and Fargo (0:35)
- You’re a Legend (0:25)
- Aspen (2:29)
- Aspen – Alternate (2:29)
- I Judged Him (0:58)
- Hershey Objects (0:24)
- Bon Appetite (1:45)
- Brief Reunion (1:33)
- Council Chaos (5:47)
- Choose (5:18)
- Choose Alternate (4:44)
- Choose Revised (5:17)
- New World (2:27)
- New World Alternate (2:29)
- Judgement Day – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (5:54)
- Block War – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (4:42)
- Angel Family – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (5:40)
- New World – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (9:16)
Released by: Intrada
Release date: May 12, 2015
Disc one total running time: 68:09
Disc two total running time: 70:51
It’s become one of the most recognizable rock riffs in modern history. The “dun-dun-da-da-dun-dun” is known the world over for its melody and heaviness. Although Iron Butterfly may be considered a ’60s one-hit-wonder, their influence and musical stylings paved the way for today’s heavy metal bands. But many people don’t even realize that there was an entire album to go with that one song.
The Deluxe Edition of this album released on CD contains two more versions of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”: another lengthy live version, and the much shorter single edit. Although it’s a nice way to fill out the remaining space, they certainly aren’t needed, and one wonders if other selections could have been chosen instead for the bonus material. Nevertheless, if you are a fan of rock music, psychedelia, or just someone who is interested in the origins of music history itself, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is not a bad choice to make.
Even if you were unaware that Klark Kent is, in fact, a pseudonym for Stewart Copeland, it would be difficult to listen to Kollected Works without thinking of The Police. The heavy reggae/ska influence and experimental attitude so prevalent in The Police’s early work (and almost entirely excised by the time of Synchronicity) are found in spades here. Copeland founded the Police and was responsible for most of the early songwriting, until Sting’s prolific nature (and, let’s face it, greater overall songwriting skill) took over. These recordings date from that earlier time, with most of them seeing original release around 1978/9 as an outlet for Copeland, already feeling boxed in by the band.
Positioned between the second and third seasons of the legendary animè series, Yamato: The New Voyage was a slightly awkward full-length TV movie which offered only a little bit of expansion on the Space Battleship Yamato franchise – and not much dramatic innovation. As the second theatrical Yamato film had killed off the entire cast of characters (which, after fan outcry, was rectified in the second TV season, which retold the second film’s story without the high body count), The New Voyage had to do a bit of backpedaling, remind the audience that their heroes had not died, but had simply been banged up a bit in their fight against the Comet Empire, and get the ball rolling hastily for yet another showdown with an all-conquering alien force.
Some works of pop and rock music beg to be orchestrated more richly, to put their original electric or electronic sound into a classical context to see if the music, at its most basic, can survive the translation without losing too much. And occasionally, the original music is already so well arranged and thought-out, there’s no need to try to make that paradigm shift happen.
(Thank God this album pre-dates “Desert Rose”.)
Debuting in the 18-month gap between Doctor Who’s 22nd and 23rd seasons, The Tripods was the BBC’s adaptation of John Christopher’s trilogy of children’s novels about a group of young people joining up with rebels in the fight to rid Earth of an alien race which has enslaved humanity. In many ways, The Tripods fared little better than the show it had been intended to replace – it got cancelled after a second season, leaving the show in a permanent major cliffhanger (which itself seems to be something of a BBC science fiction tradition, just ask any Blake’s 7 fan) when the adaptation of the third book was cancelled. Still, both the books and the 25-episode television series left behind a strong cult following. One of the products of that following is this soundtrack collection, consisting of a full-length CD and two CD singles with dance-oriented remixes of the show’s theme and assorted incidental cues.
Embers Of The Freemen (1:50)
Tripods: Limited Edition Remix
When Leiji Matsumoto’s epic space opera Space Battleship Yamato (later imported to the U.S. as Star Blazers) proved to be a success in Japan, the show’s landmark first season was rewritten and compressed into a movie with new (and, in many cases, improved) animation. The movie also went over well, so a second film was created, though it made the ill-advised move of killing off the entire crew of the Yamato in a fateful battle with the Comet Empire.
It may have been a little ahead of its time, but the soundtrack from Westwood’s acclaimed real-time strategy computer game Command & Conquer could almost earn the subtitle “music that could have been, but wasn’t, in The Matrix.” Frank Klepacki’s richly textured pieces rely heavily on techno, primarily because it’s easy to loop seamlessly (which is a requirement when scoring a video game). But while he could’ve just set the war machine on autopilot for these tracks, Klepacki made a real effort to vary the sound of each individual piece. Standouts include “Radio”, “Drone”, “Rain In The Night” and “Target”, all notable for a nice, uneasy but not overbearingly bombastic atmosphere, just the sort of doom-laden tension you need for a war game.
One of my few good memories about programming during the time I worked at a Fox affiliate in the early 1990s is Animaniacs, a Warner Bros.-produced cartoon with plenty of jokes that would fly in under the kids’ radar and give a big belly laugh (or maybe just a knowing smirk) to any adults who happened to be watching with their kids.