Survivor – music by Russ Landau & David Vanacore
“Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.” The classic line from Spaceballs seems to be appropriate here. Even while the Survivor series was airing, you could order bags and T-shirts with the Survivor logo or sayings like, “The Tribe has spoken”, “Don’t vote me off”, and “Tastes like chicken.” Some even organized Survivor-themed parties, complete with Tiki torches. So, it was inevitable that the music CD would be released. But is it worth it?
If you are a fan of the series, the answer is a resounding yes. This CD contains most of musical themes that were used in the series. While most of the CD sticks with a tropical theme (dare I say World Beat or New Age?) that matches the setting of the series, it does divert on occasion to an occasional techno beat or an Asian theme.
The familiar themes are all there. We have two versions of “Ancient Voices” music which was used during the opening credits, and which is instantly recognizable as being “This Is Survivor”. Another familiar theme is the “Survivor Yell”, which was played at the beginning of each episode to recap the events of previous episodes. And, yet another theme, “Tally The Vote”, was very familiar during tribal council portion of each episode. The other music was played as background during the show.
From listening to this CD, I was reminded of how much music plays a role in a show. I have the funny feeling that if I turned off the volume during the show, it would have appeared to be a boring vacation video. But, with the volume on, the music became part of the story telling. It set the mood of the moment, heightened the emotions of what was going on, or punctuating certain moments. The simple act of extinguishing the torch of a voted-off survivor, as told by the music, became WHAM! Game Over, followed by a tinge of sadness. That’s good sound editing.
However, I also got the sense that there were also budget constraints involved with the music of this show. After listening to this CD several times, I got the sense that at some points, it was someone who was working 
on a synthesizer generating the music, sometimes working against a production deadline. In this case, it works in the show’s favor.
There is no doubt that changes are in store for the music for Survivor II: Australian Outback. The tropic theme won’t work there, but there will no doubt be an aboriginal theme.
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- Ancient Voices (Extended)
- New Frontier
- Big Drama
- Explorer
- I Can See It
- My Tribe
- Chase Race
- The Strong Will Survive
- Survivor Yell
- Confrontation
- Snake Island
- Mud Bath
- Buzzed
- Island Council
- Rituals
- Voices Of Heaven
- Gold
- Tally The Vote
- Ancient Voices (Main Title Theme)
Released by: TVT Records
Release date: 2000
Total running time: 64:01
It’s a damn shame that this soundtrack was released only as a composer promo (which is a private pressing of a score paid for by the composer as an audition piece for future work as the studios look the other way, a kind of barely-sanctioned bootleg). Just as the movie Galaxy Quest itself was a hysterical spoof of all things Star Trek, throwing the out-of-work cast of a cancelled cult sci-fi series into the middle of a real interplanetary war, the music from that movie is a glorious send-up/homage to just about every composer who has laid their sonic fingers on that genre, from John Williams to James Horner to Jerry Goldsmith. And the sad thing is, for the most part, it’s a much better listening experience than, say, Goldsmith’s own score from the most recent Star Trek movie. In some ways, with this being the soundtrack to a spoof, the music had the same opportunity as the actors: to ham it up beyond anything that would normally be allowed in the object of the parody. David Newman (102 Dalmatians, Bowfinger, Anastasia and many others) rolls out snare drums, blaring brass, roaring bass notes, thick choral textures…in other words, just about every musical trick denied to the current composers of the Star Trek TV spinoffs. But this isn’t to imply that Galaxy Quest‘s score is all bombast – far from it. There are some musical moments of wonder that put anything since Star Trek: The Motion Picture to shame too.
more accessible material – some understanding of the historical context of these songs, both within the framework of Doctor Who’s history on TV and and within the musical trends of the mid-1960s, is probably required to enjoy them. Extensive liner notes offer lots of that information, but it will ultimately be up to the tastes of individual listeners. 
Much criticism has been levelled at this double-CD release purporting to offer listeners “every note of music from The Phantom Menace, and for the life of me, I still have yet to figure out why. Not quite two years ago, I got into a pretty public debate with Film Score Monthly’s Lukas Kendall about whether or not we deserved a two-CD set containing Episode I‘s full score in May, 1999. Instead, Sony gave us a single-CD edition, containing several concert versions and suites combining music from unrelated scenes. Now, I was always a big fan of the original Star Wars soundtrack double LP, back in the days before you could actually put the entire score (plus extras) on two CDs – I have some of those concert suites memorized. I don’t object to suite CDs, so long as the original score is available somewhere. So, despite the objections of quite a few really finicky fans, we finally have that full score release for The Phantom Menace.
I’d advise you to get your hands on this one before it becomes the next Space Adventures – in other words, before it becomes high-priced eBay bait. The music may not be to everyone’s taste, but this may be the last chance Doctor Who music completists have to get a hold of it. After years of seeing Space Adventures sell for huge amounts of money, I was happy to pay only $15 to get this.
And to think, you thought ELO’s story was over. A series of rare tracks, live cuts, concerts and rarities have kept the band alive for fans during the 90s – not to mention a little band called ELO Part Two, who have been paying Jeff Lynne’s mortgage from publishing royalties alone for the past decade. But with the abrupt end of ELO Part Two, now operating under the somewhat generic name Orchestra, we should’ve known something was up. Jeff Lynne’s been a busy boy, supervising the restoration and remastering of the original ELO session tapes and finishing incomplete recordings which originated anywhere from 1980 to ’82. Alternate mixes of “Do Ya”, “Mission (A World Record)” and “Mama” are included here, along with a murky 1973 home demo and a completely new version of “Xanadu”, performed by Lynne in a style which seems to owe more to the Traveling Wilburys than to ELO.
So impressed was I with Tim “Tuvok” Russ’s self-published EP a couple of years ago that I happily picked up his new solo effort, backed up by Neil Norman and the Cosmic Orchestra (a band which is fast gaining a reputation as the de facto musical ensemble at science fiction conventions) and released on Norman’s GNP Crescendo Records label. And Russ still has it – the guy can sing. And covers such as “Crossroads” and “Money Talks” demonstrate that Russ may be missing his greatest calling: the man is a fantastic blues vocalist. He has all the pre-requisite growliness necessary to pass muster with the blues, which you might not guess from hearing him emotionlessly intone technobabble every week on Voyager.
Catchy music seems to be a family affair among the members of New Zealand’s Finn clan, as this EP featuring Liam Finn – son of Crowded House frontman Neil Finn – demonstrates.