Category: 2004

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2004 2020 D Music Reviews S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

The Don Davis Collection, Volume 1

4 min read

Order this CDIn 2004, the BBC aired an ambitious miniseries combining a little bit of “hard” sci-fi with an attempt to impart information to and educate the audience, framing it as a reality-TV-tinged mockumentary about a fictional crewed mission through the solar system. Keeping in mind that this was a year before the launch of 21st century Doctor Who, the resulting two-night event, Voyage To The Planets, was quite possibly the BBC’s most impressive sci-fi effort to that date (and thanks to a co-production deal with the Discovery Channel in the U.S., it was retitled Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets and shown Stateside as well). The mention of Doctor Who is not accidental; quite a few personnel associated with Voyage To The Planets, up to and including writer/director Joe Ahearne, played major roles early in the revival of Russell T. Davies’ version of Doctor Who.

And somehow – in between sequels to The Matrix, when his visibility was at a career high – Voyage To The Planets landed American composer Don Davis, and gave him enough resources to have at least a few live players, which he used to maximum advantage to keep an otherwise synthesized score from having too much of an icy, electronic sheen. The result is a score – unreleased for 16 years – that does have some hints of Davis’ Matrix stylings, but leans much more heavily on the kind of noble, give-the-French-horns-lots-of-whole-notes-in-major-keys feel that has powered many a space exploration epic. With Davis having to work to disguise just how small his ensemble of live players is, there are few opportunities for Voyage To The Planets to be as “big” as, say, James Horner’s Apollo 13 score, but it still successfully conveys the nobility and sense of wonder that the show’s fictional space mission demands.

The “Walking With Spacemen Theme” that kicks off the album is the backbone of the score, returning as a motif throughout (and giving a nod to the early working title of the project, which was initiated by the producers of Walking With Dinosaurs). Various locales visited by the crew of the Pegasus – Venus, Mars, the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, and beyond – receive their own thematic treatments, tipping their hand as to the relative degrees of how inhospitable they are to human life. These tend to be the passages that get the closest to the dissonance of Davis’ scores for the Matrix trilogy, but the material in between returns to a more heroic default setting. (One of the most spectacular examples of Davis more dissonant “we’re in trouble” music arrives in “Forbidden Rays and Asteroid”, which may also be the peak of his skillful arrangements successfully disguising the live-player-to-synth ratio.)

4 out of 4It’s a wonderful score overall, and an unexpected surprise so many years after the fact. (This is also a testament to the lovely niche material that can be unearthed by niche and boutique labels like Dragon’s Domain, balancing out the much more mainstream selections offered by the larger soundtrack labels.) Voyage To The Planets is seriously obscure stuff by U.S. standards – following its one-and-done airing on Discovery, the premise of a mockumentary-with-flashbacks mission through the solar system was sold to ABC, where it was expanded with more fiction than science and became a bit of a soap opera in the 2009-2010 season, a time when ABC was trying to pattern nearly everything on its schedule after Lost. (For what it’s worth, Dragon’s Domain, Defying Gravity had an interesting score too, even though the show itself was a big letdown.) To get Voyage’s full, wonderful soundtrack after all this time was a true treat – it’s very much worth a listen, whether you’re familiar with the miniseries or not.

  1. Walking With Spacemen Theme (2:22)
  2. Main Titles and Apollo (2:38)
  3. Take Off and Venus (5:25)
  4. Hot Planet Venus (4:15)
  5. Time and Space (2:04)
  6. Mars (3:30)
  7. Flare and Storm Patrol (3:43)
  8. Forbidden Rays and Asteroid (4:14)
  9. Dispatching and Jupiter Turn (2:09)
  10. G-Force (2:46)
  11. Moons of Jupiter (3:08)
  12. Zoe’s Trouble (5:15)
  13. Europa (1:52)
  14. Pearson’s Peek (3:19)
  15. Deep Space Despair (4:26)
  16. Burial and Resuming Work (1:40)
  17. The Planet of Peace (2:18)
  18. Pluto People (5:06)
  19. The Comet (2:55)
  20. Comet Stroll and Danger (2:55)
  21. The Calamity on the Comet (4:06)
  22. Happy Homecoming and Finale (3:43)

Released by: Dragon’s Domain Records
Release date: September 17, 2020
Total running time: 1:13:49

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Categories
2004 F Film Soundtracks

The Final Countdown – music by John Scott

5 min read

Order this CDThe Final Countdown may not have been the thrilling time-travel spectacle its producers hoped it would be when it was released in 1980, but it did boast a winning score that continues to be widely praised not only for its creativity but its ability to transform a flawed movie into something of an unlikely classic.

I admit to being a huge fan of this movie. It’s easy to appreciate it as something of an anomaly in 1980 when movie special effects had survived the growing pains of Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Alien – not to mention The Empire Strikes Back, to name just a few. Next to these Big Boys, The Final Countdown, with its embarrassing laser storm time portal and use of stock footage, comes across exactly as it was to make – cheap. However, that low-budget approach and earnest attention to story, underscored by a wonderfully propulsive score, is what gives the movie a lasting charm.

On the whole John Scott imbues the score with incredible optimism and purpose. At its core, The Final Countdown is a science fiction movie and Scott opens the movie in the main titles with Star Trek-ian fanfare. Like the Starship Enterprise, the U.S.S. Nimitz is treated like a character in the movie with its own theme (which takes a curiously menacing turn when the Nimitz first appears on screen and can be heard at the 2-minute mark in track 1). There’s little in the “Main Titles” to portend the forthcoming mystery and danger of the story. It’s a balls-out piece of heroic bombast that finds its fingerprints all over the rest of the score. Scott gives it a beautifully fatalistic feel in “Nimitz On Route” and a revisited heroic identity for “Splash the Zeros”. It’s hard to ignore the very obvious Tchaikovsky influences and one may take issue with its shameless patriotism, which makes the score feel like a marketing piece for the Navy (the movie was in fact used as a recruiting tool for the Navy). Despite this, the theme serves quite well what is, in essence, a very American movie.

Scott displays his true creativity with his “Mr. Tideman” theme, which may be, I would argue, one of the best themes ever created for a movie character. This track is certainly worth dissecting because it’s a work of undeniable genius. The nervous strings running throughout the track convey the appropriate anticipation and mystery surrounding the Tideman character and the horns echo the more stately and official elements of the Navy and Tideman’s relationship to it, but it’s that quick, playful little melody heard 45 seconds in that’s at the soul of the theme. It took me a few listens but I realized, whether intentional or not, that Scott was tipping his hat to “Tubular Bells”, which played a significant role in the score for The Exorcist.

Scott brings back the Tideman theme in romantic guise for the first real personal meeting between Commander Owen and Laurel. The theme, now stripped down and played with flute, not only underscores their budding romance but also foreshadows their relationship to the first appearance of Tideman earlier in the movie. The theme becomes more aggressive and fulfilled (not to mention creepier) at the end of the movie when it’s revealed Commander Owen is Mr. Tideman – or became Mr. Tideman, however you want to interpret it.

Sometimes the fanfare gets to be a little too much. “The Admirals Arrive” is a painful marching band composition and “Last Known Location,” with its overly dramatic tympanis and strings, feels entirely mired in dated ’70s and early ’80s adventure film scoring. I can’t say too much about Scott’s use of the Jaws theme to underscore the approaching time storm. After all, Jerry Goldsmith used it as well for The Omen in a key scene there. Here, Scott has time to truly play it out. It’s yet another nice nod to another influential film score from that era, even if it does seem like a lazy choice (even “An Hour Ago” sounds slightly derivative of Capt. Dallas’ air shaft crawl scene in Alien, with a few sneaky notes of the main Alien theme thrown in for good effect).

The Final Countdown is a relic of a time long since passed, when scores were treated with incredible care and attention, especially for sci-fi and adventure films. Call it the Star Wars Effect. Today, with emphasis and minimalism and irony in scoring, it’s easy to 4 out of 4dismiss Scott’s score as dated or even jingoistic. As politically minded as we are today, a movie like this would be (if similarly made) filed on either side of the dividing line between red and blue ideologies. And that’s sad. It diverts attention from what is in essence a beautifully realized score that serves its movie well and makes it a memorable, if flawed, entry in sci-fi cinema.

  1. The Final Countdown Main Titles (3:53)
  2. Mr. Tideman (2:24)
  3. The U.S.S. Nimitz On Route (3:28)
  4. The Approaching Storm (4:22)
  5. Pursued By The Storm (2:45)
  6. Into The Time Warp (3:57)
  7. Rig The Barricades (2:16)
  8. Last Known Position (2:13)
  9. An Hour Ago (1:00)
  10. December 7, 1941 (0:46)
  11. The Japanese Navy (0:35)
  12. Shake Up The Zeros (2:13)
  13. Splash Two (1:05)
  14. Laurel and Owen (2:22)
  15. Climb Mount Nitaka (2:10)
  16. On The Beach (0:39)
  17. General Quarters (1:48)
  18. Operation Pearl Harbor (0:59)
  19. The Storm Reappears (3:28)
  20. Back Through The Time Warp (3:40)
  21. The Planes Return (1:27)
  22. The Admirals Arrive (1:30)
  23. Mr. and Mrs. Tideman (4:19)

Released by: JOS Records
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 53:20

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Categories
2004 M M.C. Hawking Non-Soundtrack Music

MC Hawking – A Brief History Of Rhyme

MC Hawking - A Brief History Of RhymeLadies and gentlemen, I bring to you: the first-ever rap review here on theLogBook.com. But don’t assign too much street cred to me, for this is incredibly geeky rap. The whole humorous premise behind MC Hawking is as follows: what if Professor Stephen Hawking was moonlighting as a gangsta rapper? If you’re wondering what in the world that would sound like, you may already know more than you think: MC Hawking – the brainchild of parody webmaster Ken Leavitt-Lawrence – sounds like the voice synthesizer used by the real Professor Hawking (who, if truth be told, doesn’t go around popping caps on anyone’s ass). The lyrics are a combination of the prerequisite topics of gangsta rap – getting even against one’s rivals by any means available, drug deals, the ever-popular topic of bitches, etc. – and real live honest-to-God theoretical physics. MC Hawking tries to explain the basic tenets of entropy, and then busts out the refrain “You down with entropy? Yeah, you know me!”

It’s hard to explain the appeal to those who perhaps just don’t “get” this kind of humor – I, for one, file this under the same category as Ben Folds’ ironically pretty cover of a certain Dr. Dre tune – but if I’m in the mood for MC Hawking, this stuff is hysterical. It’s not something to play with the kiddo within earshot, to be sure, but it’s damned funny – and word has it that a certain Professor Hawking himself is fully aware of the joke and thinks it’s funny too. (C’mon, we’re talking about the same Stephen Hawking who wanted to do a guest shot on Star Trek: The Next Generation and once appeared in a Red Dwarf special. Aside from being one of the most brilliant human beings to have emerged from the 20th century, Stephen Hawking, God bless him, is cool. I’d like to think I could hang on to my sense of humor in his circumstances.)

Now, of course, there will be those who just don’t find the humor in “Hawking”‘s profanity-laden tirades about taking out rival physicists from MIT in a drive-by, or things like the skit in which he beats Moby senseless on general principle (presumably, he’s trying to see if fission initiates, in which case we really are all made of stars). But it’s hard for me not to be dragged out of a downer mood by howlingly funny tracks like “Big Bizang”, “E=MC Hawking” or “Entropy”. Others, admittedly, miss the mark – I find myself routinely skipping “Bitchslap” and “The Dozens”. This is rap for the cool geeks, the people who took time out from high school science homework to memorize Monty Python movies (not that I’m talking about myself there, mind you…I was too busy memorizing Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes in high school).

Most of this material has been available for some time on the “official MC Hawking fan site“, but in 2004 several of the raps from that site appeared with a few new skits and songs on this “greatest hits” album (in actuality, the 3 out of 4first and only physical CD that “MC Hawking” has released). This is one of those things where I vote with my money, sort of like buying the Homestar Runner DVDs, to show my support for not-quite-mainstream talent – and after you check it out for yourself, if you’ve got even one wickedly funny bone in your body, I have a feeling you’ll be doing the same.

Order this CD

  1. The Hawkman Cometh (3:01)
  2. The Dozens (2:04)
  3. The Big Bizang (2:53)
  4. Excerpt From A Radio Interview, part 1 (1:14)
  5. Entropy (3:22)
  6. The Mighty Stephen Hawking (2:00)
  7. Crazy As Fuck (2:23)
  8. Bitchslap (4:25)
  9. Excerpt From A Radio Interview, part 2 (1:41)
  10. Fuck The Creationists (2:23)
  11. E=MC Hawking (3:27)
  12. All My Shootings Be Drive-Bys (3:36)
  13. UFT For The MC (3:28)
  14. Excerpt From A Radio Interview, part 3 (1:20)
  15. What We Need More Of Is Science (2:42)
  16. GTA3 (2:56)

Released by: Brash Music
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 42:55

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Categories
2004 Artists (by group or surname) Non-Soundtrack Music S Suckadelic

Suckadelic – Supervillains

Let me see if I can even explain this one. Supervillains is an aural tribute to the pantheon of megalomaniacal geniuses from ’80s pop culture, back before fictional bad guys had to have a more logistically manageable agenda than ruling the world/universe. The equally evil remix geniuses known as Suckadelic basically combine sound clips, quotes, the sound effects from old video games, hip-hop style musical backing and the occasional snippet of soundtrack music to create a meeting of the minds that no superhero in his right mind would want to face – or at least hear from all at once.

The villains we’re talking about here are sound clips from classic Galactica’s Baltar and his Cylon minions, Gargamel, Skeletor, Ming the Merciless, and even Mezmeron, the overlord of the animated Pac-Man’s ghost monsters. And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Music from all of those shows seep into the proceedings, along with sound clips from Atari 2600 games like Missile Command, Yars’ Revenge, and Space Invaders. In short, the stuff that world and/or universal domination in the ’70s and ’80s was made of. – bad guys you love to hate.

But will you love to hate Supervillains? I’ve found it best to try to absorb this occasionally hilarious sound-montage-over-breakbeats in small doses. I’d probably have to be on something to take the 3 out of 4whole CD in one sitting. Many of the clips are hysterically funny out of context, mashed up against each other and pureéd into a big foamy mess of nostalgia. After just a few tracks, though, it becomes readily apparent that most of these songs are drawing from the same material, and only the emphasis is changing.

But in small doses? Supervillains is diabolically funny stuff.

Order this CD

  1. Intro (2:04)
  2. Supervillain Fanfare (3:35)
  3. Traitors In The Midst (1:21)
  4. March Of The Suckbots (3:45)
  5. Powergrabs (3:33)
  6. Eternia’s Greatest (5:12)
  7. Cobra Stops The World (5:02)
  8. Mean Ol’ Wizard (4:03)
  9. Ball Of Evil (4:41)
  10. Gremlin Dust (5:35)
  11. Behold, Galvatron! (4:15)
  12. Plots And Schemes (2:45)
  13. The Malice Of Mezmeron (3:11)
  14. Master Of The World (2:50)
  15. Villain Invader Break (1:22)
  16. Hail Ming! (Ruler Of The Universe) (6:01)
  17. Trial By Stone (3:33)
  18. Galactic Super Battle (3:59)
  19. The Price (6:05)
  20. Bonus Track: The Nightmare (2:36)

Released by: Suckadelic Records
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 75:28

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Categories
2004 F Soundtracks Television

Farscape Classics Volume 1: Revenging Angel / Eat Me

Farscape Classics Volume 1If there were two more different episodes, music-wise, in Guy Gross’ tenure as the composer-in-residence for Farscape, I can’t think of them. This first release in a tentative series (as of this writing, only 1200 copies each of two volumes have been released) of complete episode scores jumps straight into the third season for the amusing, mostly-animated Revenging Angel and the horror-themed Eat Me. Put ’em together, and sure, maybe you have a slightly schizophrenic CD, but you also have one which demonstrates what a find Guy Gross was, and why he was handed the musical reins of the show early in season 2.

As Revenging Angel‘s animation was an unashamedly overt homage to the glory days of Warner Bros.’ Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies, Gross tips his hat to the late, great Carl Stalling for much of that episode’s score – even when the action wasn’t necessarily animated. Rather than saying that he skillfully keeps one foot planted in a cartoon mindset and one foot in the show’s usual scoring style, it’s more accurate to say that he manages to keep one entire foot, and all but the small toe of the other foot, in Stalling territory, with that one toe still anchored in what one would normally expect to hear from an episode of Farscape. Stalling isn’t the only target here either, as “Also Sprach Zarathustra” – a.k.a. the main theme from 2001 – is quoted frequently…cartoon-style, of course.

Eat Me is quite literally a completely different animal, with guttural brass samples twisted into something almost like whalesong for that episode’s diseased Leviathan. Just about every musical convention of horror filmmaking that you can think of can be found here, from slithery, dissonant string runs to eerie echo effects. The musical palette isn’t as dense as it here for Revenging Angel, but Gross manages to evoke an atmosphere of something going horribly wrong with his sparse arrangements alone. Conceptually, Eat Me wasn’t the most pleasant hour of TV ever made, so its discordant music fits perfectly.

However, the real find on this CD may be the Gross-era theme itself. Gross altered the show’s original opening title music to suit the expanding, increasingly epic storyline, taking it from exotic vocals plus tribal percussion to a sweeping orchestral/choral piece with exotic vocals and percussion. As this version of the theme hasn’t been released before – the previous Farscape album, released by GNP Crescendo, was out before Gross made his changes – it’s a great thing to have on CD at last. I loved how the music in the opening teasers and right before the end credits of Farscape would always find a way to slide into just the right key to segue into the titles.

4 out of 4It may not make for the most cohesive, listen-to-it-in-one-sitting soundtrack album ever heard, but this first volume of Guy Gross’ full episode scores from Farscape is a very worthwhile listen. It might just be that these CDs didn’t arrive while the show was still on the air, but I’ve found it odd that they didn’t catch on in the same way that the Babylon 5 “episodic” CDs did in the ’90s.

Order this CD

    Revenging Angel
  1. Sabotage / Farscape Opening Titles (2:12)
  2. Method #1: Revenge (3:10)
  3. Method #2: Avoidance (5:34)
  4. Ancient Luxan (1:40)
  5. You Started It! / Method #3: Reasoning (4:52)
  6. Method #4: Be Smart (2:31)
  7. Crichton’s Funeral (4:23)
  8. I’m Going To Kill You! (4:52)
  9. Revenge Is Not The Answer / I Did It! (3:08)
  10. No Revenge / Farscape End Credits (3:20)

    Eat Me

  11. Give Me Status / Farscape Opening Titles (3:37)
  12. Bad Mojo (2:17)
  13. All U Need To Know / Good Luck (3:25)
  14. Disarmed / Food Regeneration (3:43)
  15. Distress Call Response / R U Alone? (3:54)
  16. Death Rites (2:20)
  17. Twins (1:15)
  18. Life Juice / Life Plug / The Real Me (3:06)
  19. Good Things / Making Babies (2:12)
  20. 2 Chianas / Breeding (2:36)
  21. Finger Licking Good (1:55)
  22. Twice The Fun / Still Tied / Farscape End Credits (5:49)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 71:51

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Categories
1954 2004 Film G Godzilla Soundtracks

Godzilla: 50th Anniversary – music by Akira Ifukube

“Subtle” isn’t normally a word used in connection with Godzilla. However, Akira Ifukube’s soundtrack to the original Godzilla movie is deceptively subtle.

Most soundtracks have themes for characters and scenes that echo the main theme. But in Godzilla, nearly every piece of music is the main theme. With shifts in tempo or style, or emphasis on different types or individual instruments, the theme is reformed in many ways, each of them sounding completely unique and original. It’s a testament to Ifukube’s skill that he was able to stretch the theme into so many nearly unrecognizable shapes.

The main theme itself is a brisk and tense thriller, primarily using woodwinds with some brass for emphasis. When he appears in Tokyo Bay and moves on shore, the music becomes slow, dark and ominous using deep, throaty sounding muted trumpets to represent Godzilla and an almost disconsonant piano to highlight the people’s helplessness.

Ifukube often weaves two or more variations into the same piece of music. Among the most interesting are those hiding in a happy military march and tucked away in an island festival. There are even strains of the theme heard in a harmonica played by a sailor on a merchant vessel. The “Prayer For Peace,” which remains one of the most haunting pieces of music I’ve ever heard, brings the theme to a funeral dirge. When we see Godzilla on the ocean floor, the theme shifts to help us realize that the King of the Monsters is a victim as well.

4 out of 4The latest trend on the internet is to create original works in “mashups” of different source material. Akira Ifukube did it the old fashioned way- using only one source and without using “loops.” Godzilla: 50th Anniversary is an excellent achievement that is not only good to listen to, but can also be used as a study guide for budding composers.

Order this CD

  1. Godzilla Approaches (Sound Effects) (0:49)
  2. Godzilla Main Title (1:31)
  3. Ship Music / Sinking Of Eikou-Maru (1:06)
  4. Sinking Of Bingou-Maru (0:23)
  5. Anxieties On Ootojima Island (0:50)
  6. Ootojima Temple Festival (1:21)
  7. Stormy Ootojima Island (1:53)
  8. Theme For Ootojima Island (0:34)
  9. Japanese Army March I (0:42)
  10. Horror Of The Water Tank (0:42)
  11. Godzilla Comes Ashore (1:52)
  12. Godzilla’s Rampage (2:25)
  13. Desperate Broadcast (1:12)
  14. Godzilla Comes To Tokyo Bay (1:25)
  15. Intercept Godzilla (1:27)
  16. Tragic Sight Of The Imperial Capitol (2:18)
  17. Oxygen Destroyer (3:11)
  18. Prayer For Peace (2:48)
  19. Japanese Army March II (0:21)
  20. Godzilla At The Ocean Floor (6:20)
  21. Ending (1:41)
  22. Godzilla Leaving (Sound Effects) (1:04)

    Bonus Tracks

  23. Main Title (film version) (2:03)
  24. First Landing (film version) (3:37)
  25. Tokyo In Flames (film version) (2:17)
  26. Last Assault (film version) (2:21)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 46:28

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Categories
2004 Soundtracks T Television

Space Knight Tekkaman – music by Bob Sakuma

Tekkaman soundtrackFrom the team behind Kagakuninjatai Gatchaman (known to the English speaking world primarily as Battle Of The Planets) came another, slightly more obscure creation later in the 1970s. Though it’s not meant to occupy the same “universe” as G-Force, Tekkaman shares many (perhaps unavoidable) similarities: the artists at Tatsunoko Studios devised a very similar look, complete with a tinted motorcycle-helmet-inspired visor, immediately inviting comparisons with the character designs of Gatchaman, and Tekkaman’s adventures were scored by Bob Sakuma, the inventive composer behind the original Gatchaman music. Still in “Chicago mode” for his new assignment – Sakuma has openly admitted that the jazzy rock-disco stylings of his 70s anime scores were inspired by the American rock group – Sakuma still manages to create a slightly different musical setting for Tekkaman.

What it has in common with Gatchaman is Sakuma’s trademark bold, funky brass – you can definitely tell the same person is behind the music of both shows. The most obvious “new” element to the Tekkaman music is a wordless solo female vocal that floats above the rest of the music. Strangely enough, there are instruments and frequently vocals that have a completely different amount of reverb than the rest of the music. It doesn’t really detract from anything, but this odd production technique does tend to draw attention to itself.

There are guitar passages that cross the line from funky into hard rock territory, making for some interesting 3 out of 4new twists on the style Sakuma had established with the earlier series. But for the most part, if you enjoyed Bob Sakuma’s original Gatchaman music, Tekkaman makes a nice companion piece to it. This is one of those cases where a “sounds like…” or “customers who bought this also bought that” recommendation are probably right on the money.

Order this CD

  1. Tekkaman no Uta (2:48)
  2. Hoshi Kara Kita Otoko (2:55)
  3. Hiromi to Mutan (4:46)
  4. Chikyuu Ryakudatsu Shirei (4:50)
  5. Gekitou no Tekkaman (4:47)
  6. Minamijuujisei (2:37)
  7. Yameru Chikyuu (1:45)
  8. Voltekka (0:09)
  9. Harukanaru Sanno-sei (3:36)
  10. Weekend (4:27)
  11. Waldaster Trap (3:37)
  12. Taiyou no Yuusha (3:27)
  13. Leap, Tek Set! (3:52)
  14. Saigo no Tekkaman (3:09)
  15. Space Knights no Uta (0:44)

Released by: Columbia Japan
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 47:29

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Categories
2004 Film O Soundtracks

OK Connery – music by Ennio Morricone & Bruno Nicolai

OK Connery soundtrackHow far removed can one be from a film and still enjoy something about it? This review – and the fact that I bought this CD – will be an exercise in answering that question. For, you see, I’ve seen this movie – but I’ve only seen it with the benefit of a guy and two robots sitting in the bottom right corner of the screen, cracking wise at the movie’s ample supply of foibles. Mystery Science Theater fans will instantly recognize this movie as Operation Double 007, while most parts of the world know it as Operation Kid Brother. The idea behind the movie was simple. Step one: get Sean Connery’s little brother (whether he has any acting experience or not) and as many supporting players as you can from the James Bond movies, and put them in a Bond-esque superspy spoof. Step two: ??? Step three: profit!

How much profit did OK Connery pull in? The existence of this album seems to be proof that, not long after the film’s release, it was at least popular enough for composer Ennio Morricone to get everything together that one would need to release a record of the soundtrack. And really, it’s fine music – it’s a bit much in places, but that description could just as easily apply to the movie as a whole. Morricone and Nicolai do a fine job of sending up John Barry’s already-nearly-over-the-top style, and it’s a testament to their work that, even despite having only ever seen this movie with the MST crew cracking wise over the movie audio, the music is so memorable. It’s all here, from the theme music (presented in English, Italian and instrumental forms on this CD, just in case you feel the need to sing along), to the brass-with-60s-electric-guitar action cues, to the hilariously extravagant music from the scene where Adolfo Celi’s supervillain waltzes around in a bathrobe, lights a cigar, and admires what seems to be a personal collection of reclining nude women. Everybody needs a hobby, but man, this guy and his hobby get some killer theme music!

The sound is surprisingly crisp (the master tapes are nearly 40 years old now) and everything has been remastered until it sonically shines. It’s a stunning amount of effort for a movie that, even in regions where it’s better-remembered, was an extremely marginal footnote in cinematic history (and even then, probably only due to the leading man…and his brother). Now, to be fair, you can be sure that the work was undertaken to preserve an unreleased score by one of the cinema’s most famous composers, and I really do appreciate that – but you can also bet that around half of the copies of this CD that have been sold to date have probably been bought by folks who, like myself, have only seen it with Joel and the ‘bots taking well-observed potshots at the movie.

3 out of 4OK Connery sports some dandy music – if you’re in a specific superspy spoofin’ kinda mood. I just hope that I can someday accumulate my own collection of reclining nudes so I, too, will be worthy of the music on track 2. (I’ve already got a bathrobe.)

Order this CD

  1. Man For Me (3:19)
  2. Connery (1:58)
  3. Allegri Ragazzi (1:44)
  4. Primo Amore (4:37)
  5. A Passo D’uomo (2:39)
  6. Varco Nel Muro (1:36)
  7. Connery (2:19)
  8. Missione Segreta (1:07)
  9. Verso Il Mare (1:48)
  10. Fiori Gialli (1:17)
  11. Gli Enigmi (1:11)
  12. Diapositive (1:24)
  13. Can Can Delle Amazzoni (1:46)
  14. Connery: Congiura (2:42)
  15. Contrabbando (1:15)
  16. Turbinosamente (1:25)
  17. Gatto Parlante (1:14)
  18. Missione Segreta (1:44)
  19. La Preda (0:50)
  20. Man For Me – Italian version (3:04)
  21. OK Connery – Sequence 1 (1:44)
  22. OK Connery – Sequence 2 (2:03)
  23. OK Connery – Sequence 3 (1:58)
  24. OK Connery – Sequence 4 (1:13)
  25. OK Connery – Sequence 5 (1:26)
  26. OK Connery – Sequence 6 (3:05)
  27. Man For Me – Instrumental (3:11)
  28. Man For Me – Alternate version (3:10)

Released by: DigitMovies / Beat Records
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 57:02

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Categories
2004 L Soundtracks Television

Logan’s Run: The Series

4 min read

It’s hard to follow Jerry Goldsmith. Take Star Trek: Voyager, for example – each week, Goldsmith’s sweeping theme would often be followed by something that, despite the valiant efforts of the composers who scored each episode (and due to the restraints imposed on them by the show’s producers), simply couldn’t be in the same league. When MGM decided to continue the story of Logan’s Run on the small screen in the late 1970s, the decision was made to “reboot” the story – to essentially retell the movie in a different context that would lead seamlessly into an ongoing series of adventures. The main roles were recast, and so too was the music; gone were the futuristic city setting and Jerry Goldsmith’s avant-garde electronics, replaced by something much more traditional and, perhaps, not a million miles away from Fantasy Island (a thought that I had before opening the liner notes booklet and seeing that composer Bruce Broughton, who scored other episodes represented on this CD, said the same thing). This CD from Film Score Monthly presents the highlights from the entire series, written by several different composers.

Laurence Rosenthal was tapped for the extended-length pilot, several early episodes, and the theme music that would open every subsequent episode. The difference between all of the music on this CD and the score to the movie that inspired the series is stark – where the movie score achieves a little bit of timelessness through unusual instrumentation and unconventional musical thinking, the TV scores are clearly rooted in the pre-Star Wars 1970s. To a greater or lesser extent, depending on who composed it, virtually every track references Rosenthal’s main theme, but instead of being used as an adaptable leitmotif, the theme is quoted almost in its entirety every time it appears.

The theme itself is a snapshot out of time, with a Yamaha organ providing an electronic “siren” effect that, to put it lightly, hasn’t exactly aged gracefully. (It almost sounds like someone had a hot game of Asteroids going during the recording session.) And that’s about as electronic as this iteration of Logan’s Run gets.

The episode score suites do occasionally bear a certain similarity to some of the movie’s action cues, however, particularly those by Rosenthal himself. Bruce Broughton contributes a couple of decent tracks from two of his episodes, two more tracks are from Jerrold Immel’s score, and another track features score music by Jeff Alexander. The rest of the music is by Rosenthal, including a brief selection of “commercial break bumpers” that heralded a commercial interruption.

Now, I’m not judging this music solely on its similarity or lack thereof to a movie score by Jerry Goldsmith; the TV series was aimed squarely at family viewing time, and as such it’s pitched as a whole different animal. But it’s hard not to have the comparison in the back of one’s mind – how much more different could two projects bearing the same name and underlying premise be? The music itself is pleasant enough, though occasionally the age of the source material shows where audio fidelity is concerned. But in the end, there’s a phrase in a paragraph in the booklet describing one of the tracks, explaining that the track is comprised of brief excerpts of a score that wouldn’t have stood up to extended CD listening. To a certain degree, that applies to this CD as a whole. It’s neat to have another vintage SF series musically unearthed and lavished with packaging that’s as informative as it is attractive (Film Score Monthly is the best in the business at that), but as a listening experience, it’s an exercise in how well some music dates…and how well some doesn’t.

rating: 4 out of 4I can really only recommend this one to fans of the show – a show which, I’ll admit, I barely remember myself. Though the liner notes booklet, whose extensive episode guide reveals that such luminaries as D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Shimon Wincelberg and even Harlan Ellison worked on the series, makes me hope that a DVD release is in the planning stages somewhere; maybe then I’ll have a better appreciation of this version of Logan’s Run, and its music.

Order this CD

  1. Main Title (1:11)
  2. Pilot Suite, Part 1 (8:43)
  3. Pilot Suite, Part 2 (6:18)
  4. Pilot Suite, Part 3 (7:47)
  5. Bumpers (0:10)
  6. The Collectors (4:10)
  7. Capture (music by Jeff Alexander) (5:56)
  8. The Innocent (music by Jerrold Immel) (6:29)
  9. Man Out Of Time (9:06)
  10. Half Life (music by Jerrold Immel) (8:46)
  11. Fear Factor (music by Bruce Broughton) (11:39)
  12. Futurepast (6:40)
  13. Night Visitors (music by Bruce Broughton) (1:55)
  14. End Title (0:38)

Released by: Film Score Monthly
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 79:55

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Categories
2004 B Battlestar Galactica Soundtracks Television

Battlestar Galactica – music by Richard Gibbs

Battlestar Galactica soundtrackIf ever there was a case of musically “playing against type,” the score for 2003’s Battlestar Galactica miniseries is it. The music of the original series had such a foothold in the collective memory of the viewers that it’d be hard to avoid comparisons. And yet, as fitting as Stu Phillips’ exercise in sounding like John Williams was for the original 1978 miniseries and series, Richard Gibbs’ and Bear McCreary’s score for the new version is equally fitting. It’s a visceral, almost mournful, score for a new take on the series that seems to be, more than any SF project of the past few years, informed by the 9/11 experience and its attendant emotions.

There’s not a lot of orchestral writing, but contrary to some reports, there is some. Rather than going for a full-on western orchestral approach, Gibbs and McCreary mix orchestra with ethnic percussion and vocalizations. In the CD liner notes, Gibbs talks about how several scenes of the movie had been temp-tracked by director Michael Rymer with music from Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack for The Last Temptation Of Christ, and that’s a fairly good analogy for what the new Galactica wound up with. Gibbs and McCreary reined things in just a little bit, with a more traditional western feel than the aforementioned film score, but the Gabriel influence is clearly there: battle scenes tend to be tracked with Japanese taiko drums and a thunderous mix of other percussion. The scenes associated with the plight of the Colonials tend to be treated with wistful Middle Eastern vocals, a little bit of orchestra, and occasionally a bit of tuned percussion – Gabriel would be proud.

And it would seem that the composers took as many hints from Christopher Franke as they did from Peter Gabriel; the cue “Seal The Bulkheads” is given an epic-but-elegiac sound, as Commander Adama makes the decision to seal off a critically damaged portion of the ship, sacrificing the lives of several crewmembers still trapped inside. There’s no thundering action here (though the fast-cutting editing of that sequence and the show as a whole would have lent itself to that), but more of a funeral dirge for those lost.

When Gibbs arrived to work on Galactica, a scene had already been temp-tracked with a Sanskrit mantra loaned to the director by Edward James Olmos; Gibbs found that it was so hard to top that he phonetically transcribed the mantra and included it as a vocal for the track “To Kiss Or Not To Kiss”, which is easily the soundtrack’s most sensual cue; “The Lottery Ticket” and “The Storm And The Dead” tie for a close second in that department. I also liked some of the cues that are heard early in the miniseries, which build a sense of anticipation without really being specific about the end result of that anticipation being good or bad. (That “anticipation” motif shows up again in the final scenes, and the effect is altogether different – in that context, it’s almost like a musical demand for a series order.) My one regret is that the expansive main title for the miniseries seems to have been replaced with a more mournful piece to cover the main titles of the weekly series – but again, it fits with the tone of the series, whereas’ the miniseries’ main titles occurred before the real jeopardy of the story kicked in.

I’m a little torn on recommending the Battlestar Galactica miniseries soundtrack as an all-in-one-sitting listening experience – if you have it playing in the background and you’re not listening for the intricacies of the music, it all blurs together a bit. But a close listen makes it clear why this approach was chosen for the new Galactica – and it’s no surprise that the early episodes of the hourly series sound as though they may have 4 out of 4been tracked with this same material (fittingly enough, as the original Galactica was tracked from a limited library of music composed for a small handful of specific episodes).

Good stuff – let’s hope that the series is around long enough to get some more music, and maybe another CD or two, out of the composers.

Order this CD

  1. Are You Alive? / Battlestar Galactica Main Title (5:28)
  2. Goodbye, Baby (2:24)
  3. Starbuck Buck Buck (1:49)
  4. To Kiss Or Not To Kiss (2:42)
  5. Six Sex (1:48)
  6. Deep Sixed (1:59)
  7. The Day Comes (1:08)
  8. Counterattack (2:40)
  9. Cylons Fire (1:34)
  10. A Call To Arms (1:03)
  11. Apollo To The Rescue (1:56)
  12. Launch Vipers (4:26)
  13. Seal The Bulkheads (2:10)
  14. The Lottery Ticket (3:06)
  15. Eighty-Five Dead (1:23)
  16. Inbound (1:23)
  17. Apollo Is Gone / Starbuck Returns (2:19)
  18. The Storm And The Dead (2:40)
  19. Thousands Left Behind (2:09)
  20. Silica Pathways (3:32)
  21. Reunited (1:56)
  22. The Sense Of Six (3:01)
  23. Starbuck’s Recon (1:11)
  24. Battle (7:40)
  25. Good Night (2:38)
  26. By Your Command (1:56)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: 2004
Total running time: 67:04

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