Category: B

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2021 B Battlestar Galactica Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Tribute / Reinterpretation Year

So Say We All: Battlestar Galactica Live

3 min read

Order this CDWe’re now 20 years out from the launch of Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, and us old salts are having to remind people that such was the allure of Bear McCreary’s music for this series that he actually took a combined orchestra and band on the road, and played concert dates of nothing but Battlestar Galactica soundtrack music, and people ate that up. McCreary’s genre-bending Celtic-but-also-Middle-Eastern musical melting pot encompassed everything from the straightforward orchestral treatment expected of the genre to heavy metal to multi-ethnic-flavored covers of Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower”. It was dizzying, bordering on intoxicating. And the good news is that it’s finally been captured in recorded form.

It’s important to note that this is real deal: many of the performers head in the recordings were the same musicians who played on the original studio recordings, and it’s not a small ensemble, nor is the music scaled down. There’s a lot of thunder and immediacy captured from the stage performances here, with enough electricity in the air to fry the nearest Toaster. Even pieces that I didn’t care much for in the show itself are given new life here. Things are rearranged and moved around, disparate pieces are glued together, but not reduced in power or volume. The only thing better would be to have seen one of the live shows in person, but this is a great consolation prize for those of us who couldn’t make it to those shows, captured in wonderfully crisp recordings best played loud. (Major rock acts could learn a lot from how these recordings were engineered before releasing their own live albums.)

“Something Dark Is Coming” is expanded into a hard rock epic, while “Apocalypse” (a brutally hard-rocking expansion of the series theme tune from the TV movie The Plan) is blown up as big as the ensemble can make it. Quieter pieces such as “Roslin and Adama” and “Wander My Friends” are given no less attention, though, and are played beautifully – it’s not all eardrum-splitting maximum volume. Other pieces, such as “Lords of Kobol” and “Fight Night” (the latter hailing from, admittedly, one of my least favorite hours of the show), strike a good middle ground and made me worry less about the heart rates of the percussionists.

4 out of 4My favorite track, however, may be an obvious case of saving the best for last: the rocked-out rendition of Stu Phillips’ original 1970s that segues into a piece of music that was already a favorite in its studio incarnation. The double-whammy of “Heeding The Call” and “All Along The Watchtower” runs a very close second, almost a tie for my favorite on the album. Your favorites will probably skew heavily in favor of favorite episodes or soundtrack cuts, but it’s lovely to have this little flashback to a time when there were sold-out dates for live concerts of soundtrack music from one series/franchise. It’s wonderful, and in places almost indescribably cathartic, to hear these pieces jammed out properly.

  1. A Distant Sadness (3:59)
  2. Prelude To War (8:10)
  3. Baltar’s Dream (6:02)
  4. Roslin And Adama (2:59)
  5. Apocalypse (5:34)
  6. Fight Night (4:04)
  7. Something Dark Is Coming (6:16)
  8. Wander My Friends (5:43)
  9. Lords Of Kobol (3:55)
  10. Storming New Caprica (8:02)
  11. Heeding The Call (2:45)
  12. All Along The Watchtower (4:22)
  13. Colonial Anthem / Black Market (7:30)

Released by: Sparks & Shadows
Release date: June 4, 2021
Total running time: 1:09:16

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2022 B Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

The Book Of Boba Fett Volume 2 – music by Joseph Shirley

4 min read

Order this CDHey, remember that crazy turn that The Book Of Boba Fett took when it suddenly went all “we interrupt this broadcast to bring you an important message from the Mandalorian”? I’ll forgo my musings on that perhaps being why we’ve never gotten a season two, and just talk about the music.

Since this second volume of score from The Book Of Boba Fett covers the fourth through seventh episodes, the sudden shift from Boba Fett’s narrative to Mando’s is precisely where we pick up. It sounds more like music from The Mandalorian at this point, but the interesting thing happening here is that we’re getting Mando music a la Joseph Shirley. It doesn’t sound terribly different from Ludwig Goransson’s style, but considering that Joseph Shirley graduated from scoring this series to scoring the third season of The Mandalorian, it’s tempting to think of it as an audition piece. A jaunty pace creeps into the proceedings in “Faster Than A Fathier” as Mando tries out his new ship, and that tone becomes triumphant in “Maiden Voyage” as the space pedal is duly applied to the space metal. “It’s A Family Affair” shifts to a more pastoral – and more John-Williams-esque – feel as Mando goes to pay Grogu a visit at Skywalker’s School for Tiny Jedi. The Williams influence becomes overt in “Life Lessons”, complete with quotation of Williams’ themes for Yoda, Luke, and the Force itself. Like Goransson before him, Shirley proves that while he’s comfortable making the sound of Star Wars more percussive and electronic, he’s equally adept at layering in the classics of the Star Wars playbook very authentically.

Shirley also plays nicely with Goransson’s themes, delivering a more playful rendition of the piece last heard when Luke rescued Grogu at the end of The Mandalorian’s second season (a piece that was positively mournful in its original application). The setting returns to Tatooine for “From The Desert Comes A Stranger”, and stays there as much of the rest of the album concentrates on music from the final episode. Fett’s theme proper doesn’t come back with a vengeance until “Battle For Mos Espa”, and it remains at the forefront in “A Town Beiseged” and “Final Showdown”. With “A Town At Peace”, things calm down considerably and bring us to the end of the series.

4 out of 4The four tracks at the end of the album feature music from earlier in the series, with some of the show’s key scenes that mysteriously didn’t make the first album appearing here, including “The Reign of Boba Fett”, the six-plus-minute “Train Heist”, and “The Bonfire”. There’s also a source music track, “Hit It Max”, played by the remarkably bulletproof Max Rebo and his band – did he survive that bombing, or did his luck only get him as far as surviving the battle on Jabba’s sail barge? – which is no “Lapti Nek”, but at the very least I like it better than the number that replaced “Lapti Nek” in the Special Editions.

I really liked The Book Of Boba Fett while it was about, well, Boba Fett. It’s a pity that it didn’t get to even attempt to be its own thing for very long, especially with Temuera Morrison willing to don the armor again. But even if the series and its central character went no further than this, Joseph Shirley proved himself more than capable of providing music for wearers of Mandalorian armor everywhere.

  1. The Underworld (3:19)
  2. A Cautionary Tale (3:12)
  3. Faster Than A Fathier (4:59)
  4. Maiden Voyage (1:21)
  5. It’s A Family Affair (3:48)
  6. Life Lessons (3:56)
  7. A Gift (2:46)
  8. Teacher’s Pet (6:26)
  9. From The Desert Comes A Stranger (2:19)
  10. Two Paths Diverged (2:51)
  11. In The Name Of Honor (3:24)
  12. Battle For Mos Espa (2:30)
  13. A Town Besieged (6:46)
  14. Final Showdown (4:13)
  15. Goodnight (2:32)
  16. A Town At Peace (2:22)
  17. The Reign Of Boba Fett (1:22)
  18. Hit It Max (2:01)
  19. Train Heist (6:16)
  20. The Bonfire (1:41)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: February 11, 2022
Total running time: 1:07:56

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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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2022 B Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

The Book Of Boba Fett, Volume 1 (Chapters 1-4) – music by Joseph Shirley

5 min read

Order this CDSince it’s embraced full-time fanservice, I’m not as sure as I used to be that The Mandalorian was the revolution in Star Wars storytelling that was so urgently needed after the bulk of the sequel trilogy, but I will still give it credit for shaking up the status quo where the music of the Star Wars universe is concerned. That willingness to experiment beyond the John Williams playbook continues with the music from The Book Of Boba Fett, scored by Mandalorian composer Ludwig Goransson‘s longtime collaborator, Joseph Shirley. He’s been Goransson’s programmer since 2015‘s Creed and began racking up “additional music by…” credits alongside his mentor on TBS’ Angie Tribeca series and season two of The Mandalorian. The Book Of Boba Fett really should be his breakout work, because there’s a lot in this score to enjoy. I don’t expect to see him doing much programming work for other people after this.

Goransson still has his fingers on the scale, however: he composed the theme for the series, which is referred to frequently in the score, and he also has intimate knowledge of Goransson’s working style, so there are plenty of ways in which The Book Of Boba Fett and The Mandlorian are musically of a piece (especially since – and surely it’s been long enough that this is no longer legitimately a spoiler – two episodes out of seven are taken up by what even the show’s creators refer to as “The Mandalorian Season 2.5”, where the narrative momentum surrounding Fett himself comes to a grinding halt so we can catch up with the stars of the show from which this series was spun off). The lumbering theme Goransson coined for Fett in the second season of The Mandalorian also makes several appearances here.

One sound that The Book Of Boba Fett can claim all its own is an almost-guttural tribal sound, with low male vocals either supplanting or supplementing traditional orchestration. This is another element taking its lead from Goransson’s main theme, but it lends this show’s scores a very unique flavor. Combined with just the right level of low, threatening brass, as in the track “The Stranger”, this is an amazing sound. It’s not just an unbroken vowel sound, though; the vocals have wordless syllables that do a great deal of the rhythmic work, even if the vocals are not in the foreground of a given piece (such as “Fear Is A Safe Bet”). These elements convey a lot of the emotion as Fett joins the Tusken tribe and takes them on as his found family in the early episodes’ flashbacks. The vocal work reaches peak beauty with a passage toward the end of “Aliit Ori’shya Tal’din” that reaches for an almost religious feel.

The score also has a very modern edge, too; the “Road Rage” and “The Mod Parlour” tracks bring a trip-hop beat to the proceedings. This is particularly fun with “Road Rage”‘s extended chase scene – it’s some of the most fun action music I’ve heard since, honestly, The Matrix trilogy‘s Don Davis/Rob Dougan mash-ups. The orchestra gets its licks in, but the synth elements that almost wander into dubstep territory glue it all together, and it’s the standout action scene here. “The Mod Parlour” is a piece of source music, heard alongside the first appearance of a cybernetic modifier (think of it as the Star Wars universe’s answer to a tattoo artist) played by musician-turned-actor Thundercat, accompanying a montage of his working to save the life of Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) at Fett’s insistence; a well-known bassist, Thundercat actually plays the trippy descending bass riffs on the track itself.

If you’re looking for the music accompanying episode 2’s train heist as Fett and his found Tusken family finally take the fight to the Pykes, it’s a bonus track on the second volume. That may be a frustrating thing to move to a later release, but honestly, a lot of the best music happens before a show that’s nominally about Boba Fett suddenly gets hijacked for a check-in with Mando and Grogu.

4 out of 4If there’s anything I want out of a second season of The Book Of Boba Fett (something which, at this time, has yet to be announced officially), I want an entire season of Temuera Morrison as the show’s intense lead without the jarring “we interrupt this program for an urgent update from the Mandalorian” gear-shift of the first season, and I’m definitely ready to hear Joseph Shirley doing the music again.

  1. Rebirth (03:17)
  2. The Stranger (03:01)
  3. Normal Day at the Office (02:42)
  4. Fear Is a Sure Bet (03:48)
  5. Desert Walk (03:01)
  6. Boba’s Throne (03:45)
  7. The Twins (04:37)
  8. Stop That Train (04:06)
  9. Like a Bantha (02:03)
  10. The Ultimate Boon (05:08)
  11. Aliit Ori’shya Tal’din (06:12)
  12. Road Rage (04:57)
  13. The Mod Parlour (featuring Thundercat) (03:04)
  14. Fennec and Boba (02:09)
  15. You Fly, I’ll Shoot (05:34)
  16. The Families of Mos Espa (05:34)
  17. The Book of Boba Fett (02:56)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: January 21, 2022
Total running time: 1:05:45

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Categories
1979 1980 2014 B Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century: Season Two

8 min read

Order this CDMost music takes quite a while to seep into someone’s head, and it usually takes repeat listening. Music for television didn’t really get much of a chance to do that. Theme songs heard week to week, sure, and in the days when shows were able to reuse music from episode to episode, such as the original Star Trek did (or, to name another whose instantly recognizable themes come to mind, Gilligan’s Island), would ingrain themselves in the memory. And I’m here to report that Bruce Broughton’s music from the second season of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century did the same, at least for young me.

Each episode’s opening credits still unrolled to the tune of Johnny Harris’ brassy arrangement of the Stu Phillips/Glen A. Larson theme tune from season one, but Broughton brought something different to season two; cute synthesized robot music and “something kinda funky” were off the table as the series tried desperately to graduate from its decidedly disco-era first season. Under a new producer who was trying to lend the show a new layer of credibility, Buck Rogers’ second season was somewhat ironically patterned after its cancelled NBC predecessor, Star Trek, with Buck & company exploring deep space rather than staying on Earth. Most episodes opened with a slow tracking shot of the Earth ship Searcher, Buck’s new home base, with a noble, widescreen, and not-at-all-disco-fied theme for the ship and its mission provided by Broughton… and though I had long since lost track of what it was from, when the series resurfaced on DVD, it all came back to me. This four-disc set allows it all to be heard without all of that pesky dialogue and the sound effects mix.

Also in the irony department is the fact that the shorter second season – which ran only half as long as the first season – gets a four-disc soundtrack collection as opposed to season one’s three-disc box set. Chalk that one up to the recognition that, at least musically, the show was trying harder. There would be no goofy scenes of Buck trying to convince anyone to boogie down; the music is painted from a more epic palette for season two’s eleven episodes (two of which were feature-length specials each split into two-parters in syndication), and stands up to more repeat listening than, well, “something kinda funky”. (Not that there’s anything wrong with something kinda funky, it’s just that this wasn’t that show anymore.)

Also getting his own theme from the opening moments of season two is Hawk, the stoic warrior who becomes the show’s #2 star (which led to Erin Gray being somewhat sidelined for the remainder of the show); the music for season opener Time Of The Hawk drives Hawk’s theme through minor and major keys, starting with a threatening sound and ending on a redeemed note as he joins the show as a regular. Broughton continues refining these new themes in The Guardians, which aired later in the season, and gets some marvelously mysterious music into the mix as well, with just a hint of Holst’s “Neptune” creeping into the “Janovus” 27 cue. The second of the movie-length species, Journey To Oasis, opens the second disc, with sweeping but slightly old school music from returning season one composer John Cacavas – not to say that it’s steeped in musical cliche, but it’s pretty much exactly the kind of music you’d expect from a trudge through the desert. It’s interesting that Journey To Oasis also gets its own unique end credit suite – was this an approach being considered for the series going forward? Broughton is back for The Golden Man, iterating his Searcher theme through some moody variations appropriate to its predicament in this episode (being wedged into an asteroid). The music for what’s nominally the episode’s “A” story, involving a wayward father-son alien team where the older of the two is played by a child actor, gets a more interesting musical treatment than it really deserved, but that’s why Broughton quickly graduated from TV scoring to the movies: he didn’t phone in even the most ridiculous assignments.

That comes in handy on the third disc, with Broughton’s scores for The Satyr, a borderline-goofy space western episode, and the hasn’t-aged-well slapstick comedy of Shgoratchx! (whose original title, Derelict Equation, was ejected at the last minute for reasons unknown, according to the liner notes, despite the fact that one can at least conceivably pronounce it). Neither are the show’s finest hour; Bruce Broughton gives them decent scores anyway, and yes, that theme for the Searcher continues to evolve to the point that I now think if someone was really smart, they’d track a Star Trek fan series just with Broughton’s music from this box set, because at this point he’s Buck Rogers’ Fred Steiner. Also on the third disc is Herbert Don Woods’ score for The Crystals, which again brings a slightly more old-school sound compared to the more modern sound of the Broughton scores. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it has a somewhat late ’60s/early ’70s sound to it.

Disc four features the return of Stu Phillips, composer of the Buck Rogers theme and one of season one’s house composers, for The Hand Of Goral, and it’s very much in line with season one’s better dramatic scores, with some real weight and menace to it. Herbert Don Woods’ old-school sound is back for The Dorian Secret (the last episode to air); the album closes out with another Broughton score, Testimony Of A Traitor, which has a heavier, darker sound than most of Broughton’s prior material, and doesn’t allow much development of the Searcher theme since the episode is, atypically for season two, Earth-bound, dealing with Buck’s actions prior to his fateful space flight.

4 out of 4In the end, what makes Broughton’s scores stand out on this set is that he was consciously developing themes that recurred whenever he got a scoring assignment. Naturally, the other composers contracted for different episodes were under no obligation to refer to his material. But Broughton’s work brings this sometimes silliest of sci-fi series the weight and heft of an ongoing saga – the almost-nautical recurring theme Broughton employs makes the show sound, frankly, more important and epic than it ever actually was. It might just be that the music of season two of Buck Rogers was the best thing we got out of the show’s renewal. Well, that and some Crichton one-liners. Sadly, this set is now out of print, with no apparent digital distribution afterlife for the material; an unfortunate fate for music that was better than the show it was meant to accompany.

    Disc One

    Time Of The Hawk

  1. The Massacre (2:40)
  2. Main Title (Version 2) (1:14)
  3. The Searcher (1:44)
  4. So Far Away (2:30)
  5. You’re Changing (0:36)
  6. Thordis (1:48)
  7. Gassed (1:16)
  8. War Against the Humans (2:05)
  9. Flight to Hawk’s Lair (3:15)
  10. Buck Looks for Wilma (2:34)
  11. Birdfight (3:22)
  12. Crash Landing (1:50)
  13. Koori Injured (2:10)
  14. The Trek (3:38)
  15. We Meet Again (1:56)
  16. Let My Spirit Go (6:06)
  17. Forget the Past (2:48)
  18. Bumper (0:08)

    The Guardians

  19. Janovus 26 (1:34)
  20. The Prophecy (0:46)
  21. The Messenger (2:53)
  22. Frozen Mission (1:51)
  23. I Wasn’t Dreaming (0:29)
  24. Hawk’s Vision (4:08)
  25. Vision in the Corridor (1:05)
  26. I’m Scared (3:32)
  27. Shuttle to Surface (1:47)
  28. Janovus 27 (3:41)
  29. End Credits (long) (0:51)

    Disc Two

    Journey To Oasis

  1. Main Title (Version 1) (1:14)
  2. Head and Body (2:49)
  3. Episode Titles (1:05)
  4. Wilma and the Ambassador (4:00)
  5. Abandon Ship (1:32)
  6. This Way, Doctor (2:34)
  7. The Doctor Trapped (1:31)
  8. You’ll Never Get There (3:43)
  9. Romantic Dreams (5:09)
  10. Moaning Wind (4:25)
  11. Unconscious Thoughts (1:38)
  12. Ezarhaaden (4:41)
  13. The Spires of Oasis (6:10)
  14. Journey to Oasis End Credits (0:54)

    The Golden Man

  15. Intercepting Lifepod (1:27)
  16. Wedged In (2:29)
  17. Caged (2:23)
  18. Too Much Weight (3:48)
  19. Certain Precautions (1:22)
  20. The Bait (1:23)
  21. Man in the Cape (4:37)
  22. Searcher Freed (5:04)
  23. Straight to Bed (0:50)
  24. End Credits (0:31)

    Disc Three

    The Crystals

  1. The Mummy (3:54)
  2. The Crystals Credits (1:03)
  3. Mummy Havoc (3:34)
  4. Meeting Laura (1:20)
  5. Mummy Hunt (0:48)
  6. Mummy Takes Crystals and Laura (3:23)
  7. The Mummy Is Your Mommy (4:23)
  8. I’m Frightened (1:55)
  9. Buck and Mummy Fight (1:54)
  10. Goodbye Laura (0:52)

    The Satyr

  11. The Satyr Attacks (1:25)
  12. New Corinth (3:40)
  13. Just the Wind (4:11)
  14. He’s Out There (0:47)
  15. Moon Wine (2:04)
  16. Pangor and Buck Fight (4:27)
  17. Buck Transforms (4:17)
  18. Woman and Wine (4:06)
  19. Buck Recovers (2:02)

    Shgoratchx!

  20. The Derelict (1:36)
  21. Lifeforms (1:33)
  22. Chaos Aboard (3:13)
  23. Power Plant Havoc (3:23)
  24. Poor Wilma (0:22)
  25. Locked In (0:31)
  26. Wilma Trapped (2:53)
  27. Last and Best Hope (0:59)
  28. Twiki’s Solution (4:31)
  29. Dog of a Ship (0:24)
  30. End Credits (vocal version) (0:31)

    Disc Four

    The Hand Of Goral

  1. Strange Flashing (2:37)
  2. Goral City (2:47)
  3. Cursed Planet (3:02)
  4. Suspicious (3:45)
  5. Searcher Calling (1:14)
  6. Snare-Beam (0:56)
  7. Gone Like the Others (5:18)
  8. Wrong Hawk (2:49)
  9. Laughter (0:15)

    The Dorian Secret

  10. Pursuit & Escape (1:56)
  11. Asteria (6:11)
  12. Unrest (3:16)
  13. Dorian Justice (3:54)
  14. Revelation (6:01)
  15. Look to the Future (1:08)

    Testimony Of A Traitor

  16. High Treason (1:10)
  17. Traitors and Mad Men (7:40)
  18. My Best Friend (2:12)
  19. Clandestine Meeting (1:51)
  20. Strategic Air Command (1:03)
  21. Escape to Earth (4:11)
  22. Mount Rushmore (0:56)
  23. President’s Bunker (3:50)
  24. A New Course (0:34)
  25. End Credits (long vocal version) (0:51)

Released by: Intrada Records
Release date: August 11, 2014
Disc one total running time: 1:04:45
Disc two total running time: 1:05:41
Disc three total running time: 1:10:23
Disc four total running time: 1:09:42

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2017 Artists (by group or surname) B Black Mirror Sigur Ros Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Black Mirror: Hang The DJ – music by Alex Somers & Sigur Ros

3 min read

Arguably the 21st century’s most legitimate and enduring successor to the O’Henry-inspired twisted morality tales of The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror began on Channel 4 in the U.K. before migrating to Netflix and gaining an international audience beyond C4’s reach. Each of its stories are couched in the technology we have, or the technology we’re all but destined to invent given current trends of both technology and society. While many an episode of Black Mirror ends with a dark twist, Hang The DJ has a much happier one, an oddball among the show’s typical cynicism.

Hang The DJ‘s score is an exercise in barely-tonal minimalism. The episode concerns itself with an omnipresent matchmaking system, Coach, which pushes couples together for relationships of various lengths as it tries to determine their ideal match. Failure to abide by Coach’s matches risk banishment beyond an unspecified wall around the city/county/country in which the story happens, but when the alternative is being permanently paired with someone who isn’t one’s ideal match, and one is forbidden from doubling back to a former match, is that really such a threat?

Rather than hewing closely to the contours of the two protagonists’ budding-but-uncertain romance, the score almost seems to be providing accompaniment for Coach and its influence on the lives of everyone seen on screen: it’s atonal at times, almost a background drone that only foregrounds itself in melodic terms when the two main characters’ attraction increases. Even at the end, when they seriously contemplate climbing over the wall themselves rather than waiting for banishment, there’s little in the way of urgency or traditional tonality. It’s not an action scene, and the momentousness of it isn’t signalled by the score.

4 out of 4Things become more melodic and “human” once they’ve escaped – the constant drone of Coach’s presence is gone, and along with it the rigid matchmaking system that dominates everyone’s lives, and suddenly it’s Sigur Ros doing the music.

Hang The DJ is a fairly brief score, one whose impact and meaning may be a little hard to grasp when heard in isolation. But despite its brief duration, much like the story it accompanies, the score makes an impact.

Order this CD or download

  1. All Mapped Out (1:26)
  2. Sorry (2:58)
  3. Hours, Days, Months (1:31)
  4. Into Place (3:31)
  5. Match (1:31 – Sigur Ros)
  6. Out There (1:43)
  7. Sleeps (0:48)
  8. See You (1:53)
  9. Treasured (1:34)
  10. Ruined It (3:19)
  11. One Year (2:09)
  12. Doubts (1:58)
  13. Three, Two, One (1:12)
  14. We Agreed (0:33)
  15. One, Two, Three, Four (0:39)
  16. There’ll Be A Reason (1:28)
  17. End (4L58 – Sigur Ros)
  18. Over And Over Again (1:07)

Released by: Lakeshore Records
Release date: December 30, 2017
Total running time: 34:18

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Categories
2016 B Film Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

Beep – music by Leonard J. Paul

2 min read

The soundtrack for a documentary about the evolution of sound in video games, Beep is very much an exercise in electronica, with a healthy dose of chiptune. That seems like an almost obvious way to go, right? Except there’s a bit more to it than that.

Many of the tracks on the Beep soundtrack album are ethereal and just a little bit hypnotic – repeating musical figures that sort of draw you into their sonic spiral. That’s no accident: these sequences were built on a foundation of procedurally-generated tunes. The repeating sequences were created at random by a program (given certain parameters), and then everything on top of that was the work of the film’s human composer. It’s an interesting way to have man and machine working together, and for the subject matter of Beep, it works. Even as a listening experience with none of the context of the movie, it’s very relaxing.

There are a few places where it gets a bit more active, though. There are two versions of “Half Steppin’/Freaky DNA”, a tune that sets up a funky groove, and there’s an ode to game music’s 4 out of 4less melodious early years in the form of “Dave’s Atari”, which gives you a really good idea of an Atari 2600’s actual range of notes and octaves. (And it’s still musical in its own way.) “Wood Bug” has a feel similar to “Dave’s Atari”, but with a more modern sound palette.

Beep may not be everyone’s cup of pleasantly arranged sine waves, but it’s mesmerizing and yet unmistakably pays tribute to the 8-bit sound of the early video gaming era. Those are two really strong selling points for a listener in the right frame of mind for something different.

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  1. Beep Movie – Main Theme (1:17 )
  2. Banana Seat (5:28)
  3. Karin Originals (5:21)
  4. Orange Shag (3:31)
  5. Buckwheat Pancakes (4:03)
  6. Riverbank (4:10)
  7. Ankylosaurus Almonds (2:12)
  8. Rotary Dial (3:07)
  9. Dave’s Atari (1:58)
  10. Skipping Rocks (7:45)
  11. Half Steppin’ (Genesis Remix) – Freaky DNA (1:21)
  12. Help Steppin’ – Freaky DNA (3:07)
  13. Beep Logo (0:06)
  14. Magic Hour (4:20)
  15. Pluto (4:43)
  16. Galaxies (2:30)
  17. Googol (3:31)
  18. Crusin’ The Cosmos (4:50)
  19. Quadra Sunrise (3:54)
  20. Wood Bug (2:06)
  21. Backyard Flight (4:10)
  22. Beep Movie – Closing Theme (2:40)

Released by: Bandcamp
Release date: September 16, 2016
Total running time: 1:16:10

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2016 B Soundtracks Television

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders – music by Lolita Ritmanis, Michael McCuistion & Kristopher Carter

3 min read

Consider, for a moment, how long it’s taken for the 1966 Batman to reach the torrent of merchandise that we’ve seen recently. We have the entire series on Blu-Ray, there are comics, there are action figures on the way, and Adam West and Burt Ward have reunited as the Dynamic Duo for some direct-to-video animated adventures. It’s glorious. Batman ’66, as we now call it, was my Batman – the Batman I watched over grilled cheese sandwiches at my grandmother’s house every day after school. I’m pleased to see it come out from under the post-Alan-Miller “received fandom wisdom” shadow of “But it isn’t, and never was, what Batman was supposed to be!” (If you’ve been reading either this site or my books long enough, you know that I live to debunk “received fan wisdom” – just about every corner of every franchise has its charms if you go in with an open mind.)

But a Batman ’66 soundtrack album? The thrice-reissued score from the movie that was released between the show’s first and second seasons is as close as we’re likely to get. Take the tangle of sometimes conflicting rightsholders that held up the show’s release on Blu-Ray, add the estates and publishers of two composers, stir, and you have a scenario where even the label that finally brought us a massive CD box set of every classic Star Trek TV score has admitted defeat.

But they can bring us this: the complete score from the first of those animated Batman ’66 adventures, Return Of The Caped Crusaders. I had very, very mixed feelings about the movie itself, but the soundtrack is just about magical. Frequent collaborators Ritmans, Carter and McCuistion have been composing music for Batman since the 1990s animated series, so they know what’s up in the Batcave – and they’re not afraid to luxuriate in the classic TV show’s jazzy-with-surf-guitar style, or quote Neal Hefti’s 4 out of 4immortal Batman theme, to make it fit in almost seamlessly alongside the three season of live action. It helps matters considerably that they were given enough of a music budget to hire real players to bring it to life: it’s a really lush score for a cartoon.

But it’s perfectly in keeping with the Batman ’66 ethos, and that alone makes the Return Of The Caped Crusaders soundtrack an absolute joy.

Order this CD

  1. Classic Batman Main Title (1:24)
  2. Batman’s New Look (0:25)
  3. Meet Our Baddies / It’s the Bat-Signal (2:22)
  4. To the Batcave (1:53)
  5. Not So Fast, Old Chum / Crosswalk Conundrum (0:30)
  6. Riddle Me This? / Atomic Lab Fight (3:13)
  7. Jokermobile Chase (1:49)
  8. Catwoman Has Batnip (1:49)
  9. TV Dinner Factory Arrival (1:24)
  10. TV Dinner Factory Kerfuffle / TV Tray Death Trap / Dessert Denouement (4:31)
  11. Establish Police HQ / The BatShadow Rises / A Moment With Aunt Harriet / You’re Dismissed (2:15)
  12. In Search of Criminal Activity (1:10)
  13. Batcave Batmobile Arrival / To the Bat-Rocket (1:20)
  14. The Right Bat Stuff / Space Joker Playon (1:29)
  15. Bat-Rocket Approaches the Station (1:21)
  16. Outer Space Rendezvous / Under the Influence (3:34)
  17. Zero-G Brawl (2:29)
  18. Like a Bat in the Night / Holy Hitchhiker, Robin (0:37)
  19. Bruce Snaps at Aunt / Back Alley Dirge (1:03)
  20. Why Won’t He Answer? (0:33)
  21. Gotham Crime Spree (0:39)
  22. Bat Dupe See / Batmen Take Over / Robin Figures It Out (3:39)
  23. Catwoman Is in Her Element / To the Catmobile (2:10)
  24. Batcave Showdown (2:24)
  25. Radioactive Silo Trap / Bat Anti-Isotope Spray / Surprise Prison Inspection (2:46)
  26. Mass Prison Break (1:32)
  27. The Show Must Go On / Bat TV Two See (2:38)
  28. Bad Batmen (2:00)
  29. One Step Ahead (2:22)
  30. Villains Plan (3:44)
  31. Airship Battle (2:18)
  32. Farewell Catwoman (1:39)
  33. Classic Batman End Title (3:22)
    Bonus Tracks
  34. Gotham Palace TV Theme (0:21)
  35. Hector and the Hoedaddies (0:21)
  36. Bedbugs TV Source (0:53)
  37. Kitkat Kave Dancing (0:35)
  38. Gotham Palace TV Source #2 (0:45)
  39. Joker Circus (0:43)
  40. Elegant Party Source (1:01)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: November 11, 2016
Total running time: 1:12:30

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2013 B Soundtracks Television

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century: Season One

6 min read

Order this CDA while back, Intrada gave a remastered version of the original 1979 Buck Rogers soundtrack LP its first official compact disc release (following at least a decade of the same material – probably transferred from vinyl – being bootlegged relentlessly). Intrada also released several CDs’ worth of Buck Rogers composer Stu Phillips’ wealth of work on another Glen A. Larson-produced science fiction series from roughly the same period, Battlestar Galactica. The thought never occurred to me that anyone would go through the trouble of arranging a similar release from post-pilot Buck Rogers. And yet here it sits, three magical CDs of disco-era sci-fi soundtrack goodness, featuring music not just from Phillips, but from such composers as Les Baxter, Richard La Salle, and Johnny Harris.

The first thing that comes to mind in listening is that the “disco era” description is apt on multiple levels. Just as the series itself was an attempt to cash in on Star Wars mania, the music features both straightfoward symphonic power as well as disco-fied passages that seem to split the difference between John Williams and Meco. This is a common feature among all of the composers featured; in fact, for a show which featured the work of this many composers, the first season of Buck Rogers had a surprisingly cohesive musical sound, judging by the music presented here.

Not all of the first season is covered across the three CDs, with the emphasis on episodes early in the season and one late-season standout whose plot centered around a space rock group. Music is presented from the episodes Unchained Woman, Return Of The Fighting 69th, and the two-part The Plot To Kill A City, while a later first season episode, Space Rockers, features both score and source music. Various opening and closing title music, as well as the very brief rendition of the theme used as a commercial break bumper, is included, along with a few Stu Phillips source music cues used in Plot To Kill A City and the series premiere. Even the renditions of the closing titles with a vocal are included; needless to say, if you’re a fan of the theme music, this set has you covered.

The early runaway favorite – I’ll even fess up to jumping straight to disc three for this – is Space Rockers, an episode which revolved around Law & Order’s Jerry Orbach and Night Court’s Richard Moll hatching a scheme to play a subliminal mind control signal into live concerts by space rock group Andromeda. Andromeda’s concerts were represented by existing Johnny Harris disco tracks (namely the ridiculously catchy disco-with-synth-gasm that is “Odyssey”, here titled “Andromeda”), with slightly punched-up synth overdubs (because that sounds more spacey… am I right, ’70s?). Harris’ other scores have the same wobbly synth overlays in places, and it’s his tracks that I find myself gravitating toward when I go back to listen to the collection again.

Phillips’ score from the Plot To Kill A City two-parter and Les Baxter’s Vegas In Space are the middle ground between symphonic and rock/disco influences, while Richard La Salle’s Unchained Woman score comes down solidly on the “orchestral” side of the fence without even so much as a wink and a nudge toward the disco influences on the rest of the collection.

Ultimately, this is Johnny Harris’ gig. Not only did his sound pick up the ball from Phillips’ grandiose pilot score and run in a more fun direction with it, but Harris was also responsible for the various arrangements and bumper-length “cutdowns” of the Phillips/Larson main theme for the series. Much like Fred Steiner didn’t coin the Star Trek theme but ended up musically defining the series itself, Harris takes over here, and the show wound up being ridiculously fun for his efforts – even the music wasn’t taking the whole thing deadly seriously, and it was okay to have fun watching.

3 out of 4For those who demand more straightfoward orchestral grandeur, however, Intrada promises a similar collection of music from the truncated second season in 2014, which will be a true treat – much like Harris defined the first season, rising star Bruce Broughton owned the sound of the show’s troubled second year, with spectacular results. In the meantime, this set of season one scores is something I never thought would be available to us, and it puts a great big seven-year-old grin on my face to listen to it all again. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but for us teevee space travelers of a certain age, old enough to remember that Gary Coleman was the president of a whole planet, it’s a nostalgia trip into the “guilty pleasure” archives.

    Disc One
  1. Main Title [Version 2] (1:14)

    2. Planet Of The Slave Girls – music by Johnny Harris

  2. Mysterious Illness (5:42)
  3. Love And Energy (2:57)
  4. Uncivilized Nomads (6:35)
  5. Food Conspiracy (2:47)
  6. Power Leech (2:40)
  7. Desert Trek (6:01)
  8. Surprises (2:33)
  9. Hot Escape (3:55)
  10. Space Battle (4:34)

    11. The Plot To Kill A City – music by Stu Phillips

  11. Argus (1:21)
  12. A Big One (2:05)
  13. All Systems Engaged (1:24)
  14. Direct Hit (2:57)
  15. Mind Games (2:23)
  16. Joella (1:35)
  17. Wilma Chase (2:13)
  18. Uncontrolled Reactions (1:19)
  19. Reversal Of Fortune (1:02)
  20. Last Time (3:06)
  21. Interrogation (2:16)
  22. A Touch Of Death (2:46)
  23. Do Your Job (2:27)
  24. Chain Reaction (1:57)
  25. Attempted Escape (1:06)
  26. End Credits [Long] (0:51)
    Disc Two
  1. Main Title [Version 1] (1:14)

    2. Return Of The Fighting 69th – music by Johnny Harris

  2. Escape From The Asteroids (2:02)
  3. Alicia (2:32)
  4. Ungrounded (6:03)
  5. Memory Globe (1:58)
  6. Watch For Falling Rocks (3:01)
  7. Handy Work (1:27)
  8. Play Acting (1:21)
  9. I’m Sorry (2:30)
  10. Bombing Run (1:57)
  11. Ancient Signaling Device (0:50)
  12. Bombs Away (0:50)
  13. Silver Eagles (1:12)

    14. Vegas In Space – music by Les Baxter

  14. Falina’s Abduction (2:40)
  15. Tangie’s World (2:16)
  16. Welcome To Sinaloa (4:42)
  17. Not Your Type (0:48)
  18. Tangie And Buck (6:57)
  19. One Or Two Ways (0:47)
  20. Velosi’s Pad (2:10)
  21. Kill Her (2:31)
  22. Buck To The Rescue (1:43)
  23. Goodbye Sinaloa (1:52)

    24. Aradala Returns – music by Johnny Harris

  24. Draconian Plot (4:06)
  25. Reaction Times (4:38)
  26. The Switch (3:25)
  27. Ardala And The Boys (2:08)
  28. Objective: New Phoenix (2:51)
  29. Ping Pong (2:25)
  30. End Credits [Long Vocal Version] (0:51)
    Disc Three
  1. Bumper (0:08)

    2. Space Rockers – music by Johnny Harris

  2. Andromeda (5:45)
  3. It’s In The Music (4:08)
  4. Let’s Do It (1:53)

    5. Unchained Woman – music by Richard La Salle

  5. Prison Approach (2:07)
  6. Hit The Deck (4:31)
  7. Escape Into The Desert (2:42)
  8. Desert Pursuit (2:52)
  9. Hungry Sand Squid (0:39)
  10. Well-Fed Sand Squid (2:07)
  11. Sand Swirl (2:20)
  12. Snooping Around (3:31)
  13. Buck To The Rescue… Again (5:18)
  14. End Credits (0:31)

    15. Source music by Stu Phillips

  15. Jelly Belly (From “Awakening”) (1:28)
  16. Source One (From “Plot To Kill A City”) (1:31)
  17. Source Two (From “Plot To Kill A City”) (1:40)
  18. End Credits [Vocal Version] (0:31)

Released by: Intrada
Release date: 2013
Disc one total running time: 69:45
Disc two total running time: 74:00
Disc three total running time: 43:55

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2012 B Battlestar Galactica Soundtracks Television

Battlestar Galactica: Volume 3 – music by Stu Phillips

7 min read

Order this CDThe third volume of music from the 1970s iteration of Battlestar Galactica proves that, even well into its run, despite budget overruns, the series’ music was still a big priority, even if it occasionally took on forms that were stripped-down compared to the full-blooded orchestral score of the pilot miniseries.

This volume deals exclusively with one-off, self-contained episodes (with one great big surprise as the final selection). The Long Patrol, one of the earliest single-part stories in the series, starts out with what modern ears would probably hear as novelty synthesizer effects, but the bulk of this episode’s score is still orchestral, though leaning on a smaller ensemble than the pilot (heard in full in the first volume of the series) and the early two-part extravaganzas (covered in the second volume). The most distinctive feature of The Long Patrol is a recurring, insistent cello riff, heightening the jeopardy of the storyline.

The Lost Warrior was an episode that riffed on just about every western/cowboy movie trope in the space of a single hour; the soundtrack takes that to heart too, giving us a Battlestar Galactica episode scored with prominent guitar work. Even though it reuses some of the action music established as far back as the pilot, those themes are now played on guitar, and aside from the occasional orchestral flourishes (and some interesting experiments in blending woodwinds with similarly-timbred synths), it would almost fit an episode of Gunsmoke.

The Magnificent Warriors, loaded with low brass and busy, clockwork-like percussion, almost anticipates Michael Giacchino’s Lost soundtracks, and features the longest track of the entire two-disc set, “The Boray Camp / Into The Cave,” weighing in at over four minutes. The Young Lords is the most reminiscent of the music on the previous Galactica releases, again reusing themes from the pilot, but in a similar (if scaled back) orchestral vein. The first disc is rounded out with source music selections from The Lost Warrior (an amusingly corny synth version of Scott Joplin’s “The Easy Winners” that jars completely against the episode’s more authentic western guitars) and The Magnificent Warriors.

The second disc opens with Murder On The Rising Star, essentially a single-episode homage to The Fugitive with Starbuck as the wrongly-accused subject of a Kafka-esque manhunt. This might just be the most interesting score of the entire set, with a more subdued musical style than most Galactica episodes. It also has, in terms of sheer running time, more music than most episodes, so its themes get a chance to develop nicely. A single track from the hostage-drama episode Take The Celestra!, a march-like take on the Galactica theme, offers an interesting contrast to a similar treatment of Phillips’ theme music that appeared in the pilot miniseries of the revived Galactica in 2003.

The Hand Of God, the classic series’ first series finale, had a real sense of “building up to something” (clearly, the makers of Galactica weren’t expecting to be told to scale the series back to something that could be shot inexpensively at unaltered modern-day locations), and the music comes very close to upping its game almost to the level of the pilot. Like Murder On The Rising Star, The Hand Of God has a lot of music, giving themes time to develop. Many themes are reused from the pilot, but turn up in interesting variations. Phillips clearly doesn’t have the same size orchestra that he had for the pilot, but his arrangements make the best use of the players on hand; the most memorable cue is the mysterious ending scene in which a stray television signal from Earth plays out to an empty observation room, completely unknown to our heroes: a replay of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Naturally, despite the build-up to that fascinating conclusion, the show’s second season was lumbered with major creative interference from ABC, threatening not to renew unless its wishes to curb Galactica’s enormous budget were met. The result, retitled Galactica 1980, tends to be ignored by most of fandom, with the possible exception of its final episode, the Glen A. Larson-written farewell The Return Of Starbuck, which throws the ABC-mandated recasting of the show out the door by bringing Dirk Benedict back as Starbuck (and yet explaining it within the context of the show’s largely new cast). The score from that episode is heard here for the first time, a real surprise that almost sounds more like Phillips’ work for Glen Larson’s other TV sci-fi epic of the time, Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. In retrospect, with its unusual use of female vocals, The Return Of Starbuck – by putting Starbuck in an Adam-and-Eve scenario with much hardship ahead of him – can also be seen as a precursor to the finale of the 21st century Galactica. Who knew?

Stu Phillips, whether he was conducting a full orchestra or having to make do with a smaller ensemble or just a synthesizer, provided much of Galactica’s epic heart and soul, even at points in the show’s brief life where it was struggling to not overspend anymore. Hopefully more of his music is forthcoming (two-parters The 4 out of 4Living Legend and War Of The Gods, both already published with lower audio fidelity on the impossibly rare late ’90s Battlestar Galactica Anthology 4-CD set by the defunct Supertracks label, are conspicuous by their absence thus far). Each of the soundtrack releases from the classic series have proven to be surprisingly good music.

    Disc One
  1. Exploration / Main Title (1:45)
  2. Episode Titles (0:45)

    The Long Patrol

  3. Double Parked (2:03)
  4. Stolen Viper (1:22)
  5. Viper Stolen (1:51)
  6. Starbuck In Prison (0:44)
  7. Cassiopeia And Athena (1:05)
  8. Deserted Town (0:52)
  9. The Limping Man (1:21)
  10. Grandpa Adama (1:39)
  11. The Map (1:00)

    The Lost Warrior

  12. Apollo “A” OK (0:55)
  13. The Boxey Con (1:05)
  14. Same Old Story (1:28)
  15. The Hunt (1:23)
  16. Time Running Out (2:16)
  17. Bootes To Boot Hill (1:42)
  18. Doubt (0:45)
  19. Shoot Out (2:31)
  20. No More Killing (1:16)

    The Magnificent Warriors

  21. The Courting (1:35)
  22. Here Come The Borays (2:13)
  23. Trapped Again (0:59)
  24. Time To Eat / Belloby Kidnapped (2:32)
  25. The Boray Camp / Into The Cave (4:38)
  26. Starbuck’s Plan (1:11)

    The Young Lords

  27. Into The Swamp (2:43)
  28. Attack By The Children (0:56)
  29. Fanfare And Theme (0:49)
  30. Launch The Raft (1:59)
  31. The Attack Rhyme (2:01)
  32. Starbuck And Miri / Well Done (2:13)
  33. Warriors (0:45)
  34. End Titles (0:30)

    Source Music

  35. Source: Saloon (3:15)
  36. Source: A Smoking Band (0:42)
  37. Source: Three Sided Pyramid (1:25)
  38. Source: Starbuck’s Luck (2:01)
  39. Source: Hospitality Muzak (2:10)
    Disc Two
  1. Exploration / Main Title (1:49)
  2. Episode Titles (0:46)

    Murder On The Rising Star

  3. No Fighting (1:17)
  4. Sudden Draw / The Victim / Cassiopeia Waits / Grim Starbuck (1:19)
  5. Laser Test / A Match (1:55)
  6. Starbuck Gets Help / Not Guilty (2:58)
  7. Escape (0:45)
  8. Starbuck’s Mistake / Change of Heart (0:49)
  9. Questioning Baltar (0:59)
  10. Night Of The Cylons / Cella Reacts (1:46)
  11. Apollo’s Plan / Stowaway (1:56)
  12. Baltar – The Skeptic (0:51)
  13. Cassiopeia – The Witness / The Villain (1:18)
  14. Karibdis Overcome (1:36)
  15. Friends (0:34)

    Take the Celestra!

  16. Ceremonial Fanfares (1:42)

    The Hand of God

  17. The Dome (1:05)
  18. Strange Signal (1:37)
  19. Boomer Embarassed (0:28)
  20. From The Past (0:44)
  21. Cylon Base Ship Rising (1:29)
  22. Tired of Running (1:43)
  23. A Great Plan / An Agreement (1:29)
  24. Some Deal / A Share of Loneliness / More Casi And Starbuck (2:40)
  25. Good Luck (1:04)
  26. They’re Gone (1:02)
  27. Strays (0:39)
  28. Man Your Vipers (1:11)
  29. In The Lair Of The Cylons (2:45)
  30. Here They Come (1:28)
  31. There She Is (1:13)
  32. We Did It! (0:53)
  33. Waggle (1:21)
  34. The Dome II / The Eagle Has Landed (1:29)

    The Return of Starbuck

  35. Main Title – Galactica: 1980 (1:19)
  36. I Had a Dream (1:13)
  37. Starbuck And Boomer (1:19)
  38. Starbuck Lives (0:46)
  39. Trek / Perhaps To Sleep (2:53)
  40. Shelter / I’m Sorry (1:12)
  41. In Search Of Woman (1:37)
  42. Taking Care Of Angela / Starbuck’s Planet (1:40)
  43. Spiritual Son (1:02)
  44. Ship Building (2:06)
  45. Three Humans (1:46)
  46. Cy Leaves (1:11)
  47. Goodbye Angela (0:52)
  48. Friend Cy (0:50)
  49. Sermon on the Mount / Zee, Son of Angela (1:26)
  50. End Titles (0:36)

Released by: Intrada
Release date: 2012
Disc one total running time: 62:47
Disc two total running time: 68:02

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