Tag: Jerry Goldsmith

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

Star Trek Collection: The Final Frontier

2 min read

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

Categories
1995 2015 Film J Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

Judge Dredd (newly expanded edition) – music by Alan Silvestri

Judge DreddIn my mind, Judge Dredd was one of a glut of ’90s genre films that abandoned optimism for the future in favor of a future as a dystopia filled with antiheroes (though to be sure, both subgenres had always existed). As a not-entirely-faithful Hollywoodization of the star character of Alan Moore’s 2000 A.D. comics from the U.K., Judge Dredd wasn’t exactly a perfect adaptation of its source material, but it was enjoyable in its own right.

The original release of the soundtrack alongside the movie’s 1995 release date was mostly devoted to songs used in the movie, with a scant few selections from Alan Silvestri’s score. Intrada’s remastered 2-CD set presents the full score to the movie, including unused alternate cuts and, after a couple of decades of fans begging for it, Jerry Goldsmith’s trailer music, which may be better remembered than Alan Silvestri’s score. In short, this expansion of the original release should make everyone happy.

While the movie uneasily mixed the comics’ gloomy violence with the bright-and-flashy millieu of still-trying-to-ape-Star-Wars Hollywood sci-fi of the late ’80s, Alan Silvestri’s music 4 out of 4is bright, brassy, and not apologizing one bit for being in your face. It’s heroic music for a character who can, in his original source material, barely be considered a hero. Hewing slightly closer to the tone of the source material is Jerry Goldsmith’s custom-scored trailer music, the original recording of which has never seen the light of day until this release.

Order this CD

    Disc One
  1. Main Title Revised (4:59)
  2. Block War Revised (5:01)
  3. I’ve Heard It All Revised (2:24)
  4. Aspen Revised (3:28)
  5. It Ends (0:42)
  6. The Law (1:46)
  7. Pawn Shop (1:45)
  8. Parking Penalty (0:55)
  9. Dredd’s Arrest (1:33)
  10. Say It Ain’t So (2:24)
  11. Judgement Day (4:26)
  12. Hidden Photo (0:40)
  13. Shuttle Crash (1:38)
  14. Access Denied (1:06)
  15. Angel Family Values (6:02)
  16. We Created You (3:48)
  17. New Order Montage (1:14)
  18. Hershey’s Close Call (0:17)
  19. Janus! (0:57)
  20. Council Chaos Revised (7:31)
  21. Hershey’s Apartment (1:15)
  22. Twice You Owe Me (1:18)
  23. Griffin Gets It (1:00)
  24. Send In the Clones (1:18)
  25. New World Revised (7:50)
  26. Judge Dredd: Trailer – music by Jerry Goldsmith (0:51)
    Disc Two
  1. Main Title (4:56)
  2. Block War (3:06)
  3. I’ve Heard It All (0:37)
  4. Dredd and Fargo (0:35)
  5. You’re a Legend (0:25)
  6. Aspen (2:29)
  7. Aspen – Alternate (2:29)
  8. I Judged Him (0:58)
  9. Hershey Objects (0:24)
  10. Bon Appetite (1:45)
  11. Brief Reunion (1:33)
  12. Council Chaos (5:47)
  13. Choose (5:18)
  14. Choose Alternate (4:44)
  15. Choose Revised (5:17)
  16. New World (2:27)
  17. New World Alternate (2:29)
  18. Judgement Day – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (5:54)
  19. Block War – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (4:42)
  20. Angel Family – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (5:40)
  21. New World – Original 1995 Soundtrack Assembly (9:16)

Released by: Intrada
Release date: May 12, 2015
Disc one total running time: 68:09
Disc two total running time: 70:51

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Categories
2016 Compilation Film S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Trek Television Tribute / Reinterpretation Video Game / Computer Game

Star Trek: The 50th Anniversary Collection

9 min read

In the early ’90s, I was positively obsessed with Star Trek music – every new movie score released, any new television soundtracks that came along, anything was a cause for celebration, because I was in “maximum Trekkie” mode, and there never seemed to be enough of it.

Fast-forward a bit to the 21st century, in an era where we’re starving for the seemingly perpetually-delayed first new Star Trek TV series in a decade…and yet we’re positively drowning in music from the franchise’s glory days. I’ve gone from “not being to get enough Star Trek music” to “how in the hell do I organize this huge glut of music when I rip the latest box set worth of CDs to my hard drive straight out of the mail?”

Not that I’m complaining. The 50th Anniversary Collection from La-La Land Records is a fine buffet line adding to the embarrassment of riches we’ve gotten since 2009, a year during which the first J.J. Abrams movie (and yes, its soundtrack) came along, revitalized Trek as a media juggernaut, and convinced new Paramount music executive Randy Spendlove that maybe, just maybe, he should license some of the gems from the Trek music vaults to these specialty soundtrack labels that are clamoring to release it.

Rather than a laser-like focus on any one series, this four-disc set tries to patch some holes, right some wrongs, and answer some fannish prayers. The first disc consists, mostly, of remastered selections from the original series, piece of music of which better copies have been found since La-La Land’s monumental 2012 box set release of every note of music recorded for classic Trek. There are a few new 1960s gems as well: Wilbur Hatch’s “bumper” music, played over still slides of the Enterprise and the Star Trek logo as the show went to commercial during its broadcast premieres, is something I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. An alternate take of a cue from Star Trek: The Motion Picture also appears, but the big takeaway from disc one is the dialogue-free version of the end credits from Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, a track which had previously only appeared on CD with the late Leonard Nimoy’s ethereal narration. Fans have been demanding this since Film Score Monthly released an otherwise complete Star Trek II score on CD in 2009, and at last, here it is.

The second disc, however, contains the box set’s biggest knock-me-over-with-a-feather surprises: virtually the entire music library from the 1973-74 Filmation animated Star Trek series, a segment of the franchise that’s often overlooked for no readily justifiable reason. These selections come courtesy not of a miraculous session tape find (stories have circulated for years about how the original tapes no longer exist), but from the box set’s restoration experts and producers painstakingly editing together all of the cues from the audio of the episodes themselves, meticulously splicing together dialogue-and-FX-free sections of music until they had the entire piece of music reconstructed. Fans have been trying to do this since the days of cassette tapes with moderate success, so to hear an expert reconstruction of this music is nothing short of amazing. (Sharp-eared Filmation fans will also recognize a lot of this music from its later reuse in the live-action series Jason Of Star Command.)

As the animated series’ music consists primarily of fairly short cues, the second disc is rounded out with Dennis McCarthy’s all-synth score from the PC game Star Trek: Borg (previously heard on a private-release CD sold by McCarthy himself) and something that I never would’ve anticipated hearing: new Ron Jones Star Trek music. Let me repeat, for emphasis: new Ron Jones Star Trek music. In 1991, Jones was effectively “let go” by the TNG producers for consistently pushing the bounds of both the show’s creative parameters and its music budget, and aside from scoring a couple of late ’90s computer games, Star Trek has been a thing that’s in Jones’ past…until he composed an original three-part concert suite that, free of having to match the timing or editing of film, simply conveys the spirit of Trek as Jones interpreted it. That music makes its debut as a recorded piece here, tacking a new coda onto Jones’ musical legacy with the franchise.

Discs three and four stay with TNG, offering highlights or nearly-complete scores from such episodes as Coming Of Age, Symbiosis, Contagion, The Bonding, The Hunted, Qpid, Tapestry, Parallels, and even the McCarthy-arranged cutdowns of Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme. There’s a nice slice of unreleased tracks from Jay Chattaway’s sophomore TNG effort, Tin Man (a score which, in many ways, he never topped); combined with the tracks released on CD by GNP Crescendo in the 1990s, you now have the entire score from Tin Man. The original synth demos for the Deep Space Nine and Voyager themes are heard for the first time, as well as the premiere of Jay Chattaway’s music from the “Klingon Encounter” ride at the much-missed Star Trek: The Experience attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton. A variety of source music is also made available – Q’s mariachi band from Deja Q, the Brahms string quartet piece from Sarek, and oddball source music from Voyager and Enterprise.

4 out of 4If nothing else on this box set has convinced you what a delightful dive into Trek’s musical deep cuts it is, the last track of the last disc should do it: it’s “Comminique (C)”, the piece of 1988 library techno music that graced TNG’s “next week” trailers in the early 1990s. Were thousands of Trek fans clamoring for this? Probably not, but La-La Land identified and licensed it for this set anyway.

The Star Trek 50th Anniversary Collection probably isn’t for the casual fan of Star Trek soundtracks. It’s for the obsessives, the diehards – the people who are still in “maximum Trekkie” mode and still can’t get enough of it.

Order this CDDisc 1 – Star Trek: The Original Series

  1. Third Season Theme Music – Main Title/End Title (soprano version, stereo) (1:14)
  2. Love Scene (1:15)
  3. Ship in Orbit (Big) (0:40)
  4. Sad and Thoughtful on Captain’s Theme (2:30)
  5. Captain Playoff No. 1 (Heavy) (0:08)
  6. Smooth Neutral Ship Theme (0:41)
  7. Playoff on M.T. Theme (0:23)
  8. Fight on Captain’s Theme (1:50)
  9. Captain Playoff No. 2 (Neutral—Slightly Ominous) (0:12)
  10. Stingers (0:51)
  11. New Sexy Exotic (2:17)
  12. Captain Playoff No. 3 (Sad and Alone) (0:20)
  13. Prime Specimen (“The Cage”) (3:13)
  14. Monster Illusion (“The Cage”) (2:34)
  15. Mr. Spock (“Captain’s Wig” From “The Naked Time”) (3:27)
  16. The Big Go (“The Naked Time”) (2:30)
  17. Mudd’s Perfidy (0:33)
  18. Zap the Cap (1:34)
  19. Zap the Cap take 1 (0:08)
  20. Zap the Cap take 2 (0:06)
  21. Zap the Spaceship (1:28)
  22. Zap the Spaceship (0:34)
  23. Zap the Spaceship (0:08)
  24. Ruk Attacks (1:41)
  25. 2nd Ruth (2:35)
  26. No Mind / Tense Meeting / Tracking the Alien / The Question (2:31)
  27. Survivors (1:42)
  28. Bottled (1:52)
  29. Monster Illusion (2:46)
  30. Monster Illusion (tag) (0:10)
  31. The Kibitzers (0:41)
  32. Vina’s Punishment (1:54)
  33. Vina’s Dance (1:53)
  34. Wrong Think (0:43)
  35. Act 1 Card (0:38)
  36. Crippled Ship (0:55)
  37. Speedy Reader (1:06)
  38. End Title (0:24)
  39. First Goner take 3 (0:48)
  40. First Goner take 4 (0:49)
  41. Dressing Down (0:08)
  42. Monitor Gizzard (0:14)
  43. Monitor Gizzard (0:09)
  44. Lazer Dazer (2:44)
  45. Dodo Girl (0:09)
  46. Drugged (1:23)
  47. Mace Fight (0:59)
  48. Mace Fight (0:18)
  49. Down the Throat (1:13)
  50. Arrows (1:25)
  51. Bumper (broadcast edit) (0:06)
  52. Bumpers (alternates) (0:25)
  53. Paramount Television I.D. (0:05)
  54. Paramount Television I.D. (alternate) (0:04)
  55. Inner Workings (alternate mix) (4:03)
  56. Star Trek II Epilogue / End Title (sans narration) (8:41)

Disc 2 – Star Trek: The Animated Series

  1. Title Theme (1:01)
  2. Captain’s Log (1:19)
  3. Something Ahead (0:54)
  4. Evasive Maneuvers (1:07)
  5. Sensor Data (1:07)
  6. Intercept Course (0:14)
  7. Fire Phasers (0:50)
  8. Enterprise Attacked (1:32)
  9. Illogical (0:13)
  10. Briefing (0:43)
  11. On the Viewscreen (1:02)
  12. New Heading (0:19)
  13. Scanning (0:54)
  14. Deflector Shields (0:19)
  15. Red Alert (0:33)
  16. Battle Stations (0:41)
  17. Surprise (0:07)
  18. Supplemental Log (0:49)
  19. Kirk’s Command (1:11)
  20. Sickbay (0:28)
  21. Library Computer (0:44)
  22. Full Power (0:28)
  23. Approaching Coordinates (0:08)
  24. The Bigger Meaning (1:15)
  25. Trouble in Engineering (0:29)
  26. Spock’s Analysis (0:42)
  27. Enterprise Wins the Space Race (0:43)
  28. McCoy’s Summary (0:16)
  29. Just Another Stardate (0:39)
  30. Ongoing Mission (0:18)
  31. Title Theme (alternate mix) (1:01)
  32. Sensor Data (alternate mix) (1:02)
  33. Enterprise Attacked (alternate opening) (1:42)
  34. Scanning (alternate mix) (0:54)
  35. Turbolift Music (0:29)
  36. Mr. Arex Lends an Extra Hand (0:38)
  37. Fascinating (0:17)
  38. Don’t Mess With M’Ress (0:22)
  39. Oh My (0:17)
  40. Spock’s Quick Analysis (0:22)
  41. Yellow Alert (0:26)
  42. Off Duty (0:15)
  43. Suite: Stingers and Act-Out Music (2:03)
    Music inspired by Star Trek – Ron Jones
  44. The Ascent (7:43)
  45. Meaning (2:27)
  46. Pathway to the Stars (3:17)
    Star Trek: Borg – Dennis McCarthy
  47. Main Theme (1:02)
  48. The Legend of the Borg (1:24)
  49. Battle at Wolf 359 (2:58)
  50. The Battle Rages (0:58)
  51. Club Q (0:55)
  52. I Am Berman of Borg (1:36)
  53. Goldsmith Has Been Assimilated! (1:37)
  54. Welcome to the Collective Cadet (2:22)
  55. Searching the Borg Ship (2:20)
  56. Time Is Running Out (1:17)
  57. Escape From the Borg Collective (1:42)
  58. Borg Hell (2:03)
  59. You Will Be Assimilated, Have a Nice Day (2:21)
  60. “Resistance Is Futile, My Ass!” / Finale (7:25)
  61. End Titles (1:03)

Disc 3 – Star Trek: The Next Generation

  1. Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Title (1st season, alternate take) (1:48)
    Coming Of Age
  2. Physics / Shuttle Fuss (3:35)
  3. Air Bounce (2:04)
  4. Competition (2:14)
  5. Decisions (2:04)
    Symbisos
  6. Flares (3:04)
  7. Precious Cargo (2:10)
  8. Four Out of Six (1:03)
    Unnatural Selection
  9. Searchin’ (1:10)
    The Measure Of A Man
  10. Memories (1:19)
    Contagion
  11. U.S.S. Yamato / Vaporized (1:22)
  12. Floral Tea / Otis’ Revenge (2:07)
  13. Romulan Misfire / Phasers / Escape / Goodbye Iconia (2:27)
    The Survivors
  14. Diversion (2:16)
    The Bonding
  15. Dad / Mom’s Double (2:04)
  16. Release / Ceremonial Worf / Off Into Space (4:01)
    The Enemy
  17. Into the Pit (3:01)
    The Hunted
  18. Escape Artist / Melee (3:28)
  19. Breakout (0:32)
  20. Phased / Geordi (4:14)
  21. Confronted / To the Stars (3:30)
    Sins Of The Father
  22. Condemned (1:22)
    Transfigurations
  23. Lookin’ Fine (1:44)
  24. Lazarus (3:48)
  25. Choke Hold / Explanatory / El Ascencio (5:11)
    Future Imperfect
  26. Delusionary (4:08)
    Tapestry
  27. Saint Q (2:05)
  28. It’s a Wonderful Life / Deja Vuosity / War Stories (3:18)
    Parallels
  29. Instant Family (2:42)
  30. Wolfman Riker (3:09)
    Trailer music
  31. Theme From Star Trek: The Motion Picture (30-second version) (0:33)

Disc 4

    Theme From Star Trek (“Gene Roddenberry 1921–1991” unused alternate) (0:10)
    Tin Man

  1. Soft / Student (1:04)
  2. Unique / Welcome / Data (0:48)
  3. Problems / Land of Living (1:41)
  4. Scared (broadcast version) (0:47)
  5. One Way Trip (1:08)
  6. All of It (0:57)
    Deja Q
  7. Tractor Moon / Hoisted (2:58)
  8. La Paloma (traditional) (1:13)
  9. Coffin Spike (0:45)
    Captain’s Holiday
  10. Planet Vegas (1:12)
    Qpid
  11. Hat Trick / Sir Guy / Nottingham Castle / Maid Marian (unused) / Betrayed (3:21)
  12. To the Block / Swordplay / Game’s Over (4:16)
  13. Adieu (1:04)
  14. Plucking Three (0:13)
    Elementary, Dear Data
  15. Sherlock Tones (0:55)
  16. Dead End / Turtleback (2:36)
  17. Short Goodbye (1:21)
    Ship In A Bottle
  18. Holo Tolodo! (4:02)
    Clues
  19. Peace Dividends / Gloria / Blown Away (1:39)
    Manhunt
  20. Juke Boxer (3:29)
  21. How High the Moon (3:36)
    Star Trek: First Contact
  22. Moonlight Becomes You (2:55)
    Unification II
  23. Andorian Blues (0:37)
  24. Aktuh and Maylota (0:49)
  25. Melor Famigal (0:58)
    Lessons
  26. Picard and Nella, Date #1 (Picard’s Cabin) (2:43)
  27. Picard and Nella, Date #2 (Jefferies Tube) (2:22)
    Sarek
  28. Sextet #1 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 (II, Andante) (1:53)
    Star Trek: The Experience
  29. Klingon Encounter (4:24)
  30. Borg Invasion 4D (7:22)
    Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  31. Main Title Demo (1:59)
  32. Single Bridge Demo (2:24)
    Star Trek: Voyager
  33. Main Title Demo (1:51)
  34. Lookover / Maiden Voyager (1:34)
  35. Opera Alla Alienosity (1:11)
    Star Trek: Enterprise
  36. Dance-O-Matic (2:28)
    Trailer music
  37. Communique (C) (2:33)

Released by: La-La Land Record
Release date: November 25, 2016
Disc one total running time: 1:16:13
Disc two total running time: 1:17:23
Disc three total running time: 1:18:57
Disc four total running time: 1:18:57
Box set total running time: 5:16:50

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Categories
1998 2013 Film S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Trek Year

Star Trek: Insurrection (Newly Expanded Edition)

3 min read

GNP Crescendo’s final remastered score from one of the TNG-era Star Trek movies, Star Trek: Insurrection is a boisterous score to a movie that was trying so hard not to be a traditional action movie. Despite that (or perhaps because of it), Jerry Goldsmith was now the default option when it came to Star Trek movie music, having scored the previous feature film (1996’s Star Trek: Final Conflict to much acclaim. Goldsmith, this time operating on his own (First Contact had included significant input from his son, Joel Goldsmith), turned out a score with pastoral elements not unlike the main theme of First Contact, as well as the brand of pulsating action music which had been one of his hallmarks throughout his career.

The expanded release covers all the ground of Crescendo’s roughly-45-minute release from 1998, and fills in the blanks by completing the score and offering a few alternates and early takes on cues that were revised at the studio’s request. The difference between early drafts and final versions isn’t huge, as it turns out, but they offer some insight into the process of creating the movie’s music. Among the unreleased material, there’s quite a bit of repetition of the movie’s main action motif as well as its more serene themes for the peaceful Ba’ku, but at this point in the saga, the previously unreleased material isn’t as revelatory as it was with, say, Star Trek: The Motion Picture or Star Trek II. Goldsmith completists and Trek completists will be happy to have the unreleased segments of the score, but other than the upgrade in sound quality, there’s not much here to compel owners of the original 1998 release to upgrade.

One thing I noticed in listening to the full score: from an audio engineering standpoint, the entire score seems to be drenched with what can be most charitably described as an obnoxious amount of reverb. The orchestra is simply too echo-ey – it’s almost as if the microphones placed over specific instrument groups 3 out of 4didn’t record a signal, leaving the recording engineers with nothing but the wide-area room mic. At about 20 minutes in, I was growing very tired of that element of this soundtrack. I don’t recall if Insurrection always sounded this way, or if the shorter length of the 1998 release didn’t give the effect time to sink in. Insurrection is music that any action film would be happy to have, but by the high standards set by his other work in the franchise, it’s probably the dimmest corner of Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek constellation.

Order this CD

  1. Ba’ku Village (6:56)
  2. Out of Orbit / Take Us In (1:45)
  3. Come Out (2:36)
  4. In Custody (1:16)
  5. Warp Capability / The Planet / Children’s Story (2:27)
  6. The Holodeck (4:36)
  7. How Old Are You / New Sight (6:11)
  8. Lost Ship / Prepare the Ship (2:40)
  9. As Long As We Can (1:35)
  10. Not Functioning / Send Your Ships (2:48)
  11. Growing Up / Wild Flowers / Photon Torpedo (2:43)
  12. The Drones Attack (4:12)
  13. The Riker Maneuver (3:10)
  14. Stay With Me (1:44)
  15. The Same Race (2:52)
  16. The Collector (1:10)
  17. No Threat (4:11)
  18. Tractor Beam (0:40)
  19. The Healing Process (revised) (5:04)
  20. The Healing Process (original version) (7:15)
  21. End Credits (5:29)
  22. Ba’ku Village (alternate ending) (3:52)
  23. The Holodeck (alternate ending) (1:33)
  24. Growing Up (alternate) (1:18)
  25. Tractor Beam (alternate) (0:41)

Released by: GNP Crescendo Records
Release date: August 6, 2013
Total running time: 1:18:44

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Categories
S Soundtracks Star Trek Video Game / Computer Game

Star Trek: Music From The Video Games

3 min read

BSX Records has made something of a niche for itself with its series of re-arrangements (or more sweeping reinterpretations) of soundtrack music, whether its albums fixate on specific franchises such as Battlestar Galactica or Twilight, or the works of specific composers. One of BSX’s primary collaborators on these “cover” albums, synth wizard Dominik Hauser, turns his attention to the playable side of the Star Trek franchise with Star Trek: Music From The Video Games.

A long overdue side-step into the non-televised Trek universe, this collection focuses primarily on the games’ theme music, with only one game (Star Trek: Borg, composed by Trek TV composer Dennis McCarthy) deemed worthy of wider exposure. This is a bit of a pity: the original recordings of Star Trek: Borg‘s entire score have already been released by McCarthy, while games with very nice scores (Elite Force springs instantly to mind, since its theme music is represented here) still have no official score release. Hauser’s modern takes on McCarthy’s Borg soundtrack are quite nice, since he’s working with better synths and samples than McCarthy had at his disposal in the 1990s, but some of the other games’ scores could’ve used some of the same TLC.

Another oddity I have to question is the Star Trek: Bridge Commander theme – it’s basically the end credit suite from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with no original material specific to the game. Surely something that isn’t already in wide release could have filled that space.

3 out of 4BSX could mine this corner of the Star Trek universe again easily. Most of the Star Trek video and computer games have fine scores that have not been released in any way that the average Trek music fan can access, leaving a rich vein of material to choose from. Despite my reservations about this release, though it’s expertly arranged and performed, I hope it is but the first of a series whose future volumes may prove to be much more interesting.

Order this CD

  1. Star Trek: Online Main Title (2:41)
  2. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Main Title (4:08)
  3. Star Trek: Starfleet Command Main Title (3:53)
  4. Star Trek: Starfleet Command III Main Title (1:11)
  5. Star Trek: Legacy Main Title (2:24)
  6. Star Trek: Legacy – Kirk’s Theme (2:34)
  7. Star Trek: Aramada II Main Title (2:03)
  8. Star Trek The Next Generation: Birth of the Federation (1:19)
  9. Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Main Title (1:50)
  10. Star Trek: Away Team – Introduction (1:47)
  11. Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard – Kelshar (2:44)
  12. Star Trek: Klingon – Warrior’s Poem (2:19)
  13. Star Trek: Bridge Commander Main Title (4:07)

    Complete score from Star Trek: Borg

  14. Main Title (1:05)
  15. Legend of the Borg (1:25)
  16. Battle at Wolf 359 (2:57)
  17. The Battle Rages (0:58)
  18. Club Q (1:00)
  19. I Am Berman of Borg (1:39)
  20. Goldsmith Has Been Assimilated (1:38)
  21. Welcome to the Collective, Cadet (2:25)
  22. Searching the Borg Ship (2:23)
  23. Time is Running Out (1:19)
  24. Escape from the Borg Collective (1:45)
  25. Borg Hell (2:02)
  26. You Will be Assimilated. Have a Nice Day (2:24)
  27. Resistance is Futile, My Ass! (2:57)
  28. Finale (4:33)
  29. End Title (1:04)

Released by: BSX Records / Buysoundtrax.com
Release date: 2013
Total running time: 64:34

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Categories
Film S Soundtracks Star Trek

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Newly Expanded Edition)

7 min read

The moment that it became crystal clear that all of the Star Trek movies soundtracks would be getting a remastered reissue that included every note of music heard in the movie, one question seemed to be dominating the conversation: “when do we get Star Trek: The Motion Picture?” As various soundtrack boutique labels marched through the Kirk-era Trek film scores, beginning with Star Trek II, that insistent chorus only got louder, usually taking on a disbelieving “Seriously, you’re releasing the soundtrack from [insert Star Trek movie title here] before you do The Motion Picture?”

The answer came only after the rest of the Kirk-era movies’ scores (and the music from the TNG-era movie Star Trek: First Contact had been reissued, and the results were grander than anything fans could’ve asked for, as La-La Land rolled out a lavishly packaged 3-CD extravaganza containing the cues that many fans have been waiting for since 1979.

In the larger context of Goldsmith’s music – whether for film in general or for genre movies in particular – Star Trek: The Motion Picture represents a return to the experimental Goldsmith. After experimenting with synthesizers in the soundtracks of movies such as The Illustrated Man and Logan’s Run, Goldsmith grew disillusioned with what he felt was a limited palette of colors from the new instrument. Trek saw the composer do an abrupt about-face, to the point that some of his later work in the ’80s would be all synth (such as the rejected Alien Nation score), a surprising development for a composer who was famous for making best use of his orchestral resources.

Key to Goldsmith embracing electronics alongside the orchestra once more was the Blaster Beam, a 16-foot machined aluminum slab with strings running its entire length, like a giant guitar fretboard. Struck with an metal artillery shell casing and driven through an amplifier, the Beam lent Trek its most striking sound, a gut-rattling, unearthly reverberation somewhere between an electric guitar and the end of the world. The Beam was built and played by Craig Huxley, nee Hundley, a new age music enthusiast whose previous life as a child actor had included two guest starring roles on the original Star Trek. Also bringing things full circle – out of necessity – were Goldsmith’s two orchestrators, Alexander Courage and Fred Steiner, both of whom had worked extensively on the original TV series.

As pointed out in the extensive liner notes by “The Music of Star Trek” author Jeff Bond, Goldsmith originally had very little actual film to work with, composing material with an absolute lack of any effects sequences. In a way this was freeing, but also frustrating: all the esteemed composer had to work with were timings from the film’s editors. Then, once the effects were completed, there was an incredible time crunch to finish the movie – and its music – in time for the set-in-stone December 1979 premiere. Goldsmith had to rely on Courage and Steiner to “ghost write” sequences in the style Goldsmith had already established. This material included Goldsmith-style renditions of the original Star Trek TV theme arranged by its original composer, Alexander Courage, oft-requested but never released on any of the prior CD releases of Trek‘s soundtrack. The previously released editions (this is the third) leaned almost entirely on material that Goldsmith had originated, so this set marks the first release for nearly half of the movie’s soundtrack.

And it keeps getting better. The second disc features rejected music for the first 1/3 of the over-two-hour movie – the bulk of it originating from the early sessions where Goldsmith had no visuals to work with. In these early pieces, the Enterprise theme is not fully formed, and the drydock sequence features delicate, almost-fairy-like music that runs completely counter to the power and majesty of the music that would finally grace that pivotal scene. Filling out disc two is a remastered version of the original 1979 soundtrack LP release, much of which draws from “takes” that were not used in the movie itself.

The third disc features alternates, out-takes and raw studio tapes, including the first-ever recording of the theme that Goldsmith composed in the wake of director Robert Wise’s complaint that his film had no discernable main theme. That the resulting piece of music went on to represent Star Trek in future film installments and as the main theme of Star Trek: The Next Generation is significant; despite its fleeting appearances in this movie’s score, Alexander Courage’s ’60s-flavored television theme had been supplanted, and the entire franchise had new theme music.

Trek was released in 1979, and, like Star Wars before it, was undeniably a disco-era movie. The producers of this soundtrack gleefully embrace that with two slices of ’70s-style ephemera that were released at the same time as the movie itself: Bob James’ disco-fied jazz-with-synthesizers cover of Goldsmith’s main theme, and the gloriously cheesy train wreck that is teen crooner Shaun Cassidy’s earnestly-performed “A Star Beyond Time,” featuring schmaltzy love song lyrics laid over the love theme for Lt. Ilia (a character whose storyline in the movie didn’t really merit a love theme, but Paramount brass had decreed that the movie would have a love theme in the vein of “Princess Leia’s Theme” from Star Wars). Cassidy’s contribution to the Star Trek music archives is endearingly over-the-top – it’s so bad I almost find myself liking it.

Fans have been clamoring for the complete, unshortened score to this entire movie practically since the movie was in theaters, and while the original 1979 soundtrack was nothing to sneeze at – actually, it’s 5 out of 4one of the best-judged assemblies of highlights from a movie score ever to see release, even in its abridged original form – this new set leaves the fans nothing to ask for. (I’d say it leaves them nothing to complain about, but hey, we’re talking Star Trek fans here.) There’s an embarrassment of riches of new material, all of which demonstrates the staggering pressures and considerable talent brought to bear on the music for Star Trek’s first big-screen outing. Somehow, the pressure cooker and the incredible instincts of Jerry Goldsmith and his cohorts resulted in a soundtrack that’s arguably better than the movie it comes from, and a soundtrack that still towers over the landscape of film music today. There’s never been anything quite like it since.

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    Disc One
    The Film Score
  1. Overture (1:43)
  2. Main Title / Klingon Battle (7:01)
  3. Total Logic (3:54)
  4. Floating Office (1:08)
  5. The Enterprise (6:02)
  6. Malfunction (1:30)
  7. Goodbye Klingon / Goodbye Epsilon Nine / Pre-Launch (2:10)
  8. Leaving Drydock (3:32)
  9. TV Theme / Warp Point Eight (0:50)
  10. No Goodbyes (0:53)
  11. Spock’s Arrival (2:03)
  12. TV Theme / Warp Point Nine (1:49)
  13. Meet V’Ger (3:06)
  14. The Cloud (5:05)
  15. V’Ger Flyover (5:01)
  16. The Force Field (5:07)
  17. Micro Exam (1:13)
  18. Games/Spock Walk (9:51)
  19. System Inoperative (2:03)
  20. Hidden Information (3:58)
  21. Inner Workings (4:04)
    Disc Two
  1. V’Ger Speaks (4:04)
  2. The Meld/A Good Start (5:37)
  3. End Title (3:16)

    The Unused Early Score

  4. The Enterprise early version (6:05)
  5. Leaving Drydock early version (2:39)
  6. No Goodbyes early version (0:55)
  7. Spock’s Arrival early version (2:00)
  8. Micro Exam early version (1:15)
  9. Games early version (3:49)
  10. Inner Workings early version (4:43)

    The 1979 Soundtrack Album

  11. Main Title / Klingon Battle (6:50)
  12. Leaving Drydock (3:29)
  13. The Cloud (5:00)
  14. The Enterprise (5:59)
  15. Ilia’s Theme (3:00)
  16. Vejur Flyover (4:56)
  17. The Meld (3:15)
  18. Spock Walk (4:17)
  19. End Title (3:16)
    Disc Three
    Alternates
  1. Overture long version (2:50)
  2. Main Title alternate take (1:44)
  3. Total Logic alternate take (3:49)
  4. Malfunction early take (1:28)
  5. Goodbye Klingon alternate take (0:35)
  6. No Goodbyes alternate take (0:53)
  7. Spock’s Arrival alternate take (2:01)
  8. The Force Field alternate take (5:04)
  9. Micro Exam alternate take (1:14)
  10. Games early synthesizer version (3:48)
  11. Games alternate take (3:48)
  12. Inner Workings alternate take (4:05)
  13. V’Ger Speaks alternate take (4:03)
  14. The Meld film version (3:16)
  15. A Good Start discrete (2:27)
  16. Main Title album take (1:44)

    Additional Music

  17. Main Title first raw takes (7:21)
  18. The Force Field / The Cloud excerpts (2:33)
  19. Beams and Synthesizer for V’Ger 4:04)
  20. Beams and Synthesizer for Ilia 0:59)
  21. Synthesizer for Main Theme 1:44)
  22. Main Theme From Star Trek: The Motion Picture performed by Bob James (5:24)
  23. A Star Beyond Time performed by Shaun Cassidy (2:43)
  24. Ilia’s Theme alternate (3:33)
  25. Theme From Star Trek: The Motion Picture concert edit (3:25)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: 2012
Disc one total running time: 72:06
Disc two total running time: 74:31
Disc three total running time: 74:37

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Categories
1984 2011 Film G Soundtracks

Gremlins – music by Jerry Goldsmith

5 min read

Order this CDHorror and comedy are two film genres that many have tried to mix, but few have managed to meld successfully. Part of the problem is that horror films tend to fall into one of two categories: so overbaked as to be almost unintentionally funny, or so repulsive as to strip even the slightest opportunity for humor out of the proceedings. If you try to add “widespread popular appeal” to the mix, you’re begging for trouble, because that all but violates the Prime Directive of making a horror flick. One of the very few movies to have landed right in the middle of that improbable Venn diagram was 1984’s Gremlins, directed by Joe Dante and produced by Steven Spielberg. Gremlins manages to be funny – and even endearingly sweet – and scary all at the same time. And as for popular appeal, the last time my son and I ventured through the toy aisle, we spotted freshly-minted, newly-produced Gremlins figures on the store shelves. Not bad for a movie that’s nearly 30 years old, even if I did have to explain that the movie that they’re from is too rich for his blood since he’s only 4 years old.

Helping to sweeten the movie’s cute moments and lend bite to the scarier scenes was an outstanding Jerry Goldsmith score. Always experimenting with unconventional instrumentation and electronics, Goldsmith was firmly into a phase of adding off-the-shelf synthesizers to the usual orchestral palette. Early samplers were also in play here, adding strange howling-cat noises and an almost-funny “Gremlin chorus” to numerous scenes where appropriate. Film Score Monthly’s 2-disc set corrects one of the longest-standing gaps in commercially-available film music by presenting the full score, alongside the remastered-for-CD “mini-album” released in 1984 which was previously the only way to hear any of the movie’s score. (As it turns out, even the barely-adequate mini-album has its charms, of which more in a moment.)

Goldsmith’s music for Gizmo, the adorable Mogwai who was the movie’s most marketable image, reinforces the adorable part,

Of course, once Gizmo’s kids have their fateful post-midnight snack, Goldsmith gets into more, well, Goldsmithian material. The first strains of the “Gremlins Rag” – heard in full in the movie’s end Gremlinscredits – are heard in an off-kilter, almost toy-piano style as Billy’s mother gets her first look at the grotesquely mutated pods. Once these hatch, all hell breaks loose and Goldsmith upends his entire toybox on us, frequently using the unearthly cat-howl sample mentioned earlier. That occurs through several vignettes early in the Gremlins’ spree of mischief, but once that becomes an all-out reign of terror that threatens to raze the entire town to the ground, the music officially goes balls-to-the-wall. “Too Many Gremlins” would be an epic orchestral music cue for any horror movie, but it helps to sell the Gremlins as a serious threat here (don’t forget, the movie was made in 1984, and its effects were limited to the state of the art of puppetry and animatronics in 1984 – the music had a lot of work to do in making the Gremlins a credible hazard). (That being said, I’m glad that Gremlins has been neither remade nor – shudder – CGI “enhanced” in the years since it was made.)

The second disc will either be a jolt of harmless ’80s nostalgia, or a collection-completer. It’s hard to trawl through theLogBook.com’s music reviews without picking up on me being a Peter Gabriel fan, and the inclusion of “Out Out” may just be that song’s first official appearance on CD, and it’s a notoriously hard-to-find piece from Gabriel’s early career, not having appeared on any of his albums to date, right in the middle of the four-year gap between Security and So. For that alone, this is one “contractually obligated re-release of the original album” (a bugbear of these classic soundtrack remasters) I’ll let them skate by with.

4 out of 4It’s amazing that so much of one of Jerry Goldsmith’s most memorable scores had to wait this long for an official release, but the sound quality and the abundance of previously unreleased material make Gremlins worth the wait.

    Disc One: The Film Score
  1. Fanfare in C / The Shop / The Little One (4:30)
  2. Late for Work (1:46)
  3. Mrs. Deagle / That Dog (2:22)
  4. The Gift (1:45)
  5. First Aid (2:17)
  6. Spilt Water (3:02)
  7. A New One (1:10)
  8. The Lab / Old Times (2:35)
  9. The Injection (2:56)
  10. Snack Time / The Wrong Time (1:49)
  11. The Box (1:24)
  12. First Aid (1:39)
  13. Disconnected / Hurry Home (1:03)
  14. Kitchen Fight (4:06)
  15. Dirty Linen (0:43)
  16. The Pool (1:07)
  17. The Plow / Special Delivery (1:16)
  18. High Flyer (2:22)
  19. Too Many Gremlins (2:06)
  20. No Santa Claus (3:27)
  21. After Theatre (1:39)
  22. Theatre Escape / Stripe Is Loose / Toy Dept. / No Gizmo (4:36)
  23. The Fountain / Stripe’s Death (5:42)
  24. Goodbye, Billy (2:56)
  25. End Title / The Gremlin Rag (4:10)

    Bonus Tracks

  26. Blues (2:17)
  27. Mrs. Deagle film version (1:27)
  28. God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen (1:12)
  29. After Theatre (With “Silent Night”) (1:36)
  30. After Theatre (Without “Silent Night”) (1:36)
  31. Rabbit Rampage composed by Milt Franklyn (0:47)
  32. The Gremlin Rag full version (3:35)
  33. Gizmo’s New Song (0:35)
  34. Gizmo’s Trumpet (0:30)
    Disc Two: 1984 Soundtrack Album
  1. Gremlins…Mega Madness performed by Michael Sembello (3:52)
  2. Make It Shine performed by Quarterflash (4:11)
  3. Out Out performed by Peter Gabriel (7:02)
  4. The Gift (4:58)
  5. Gizmo (4:14)
  6. Mrs. Deagle (2:54)
  7. The Gremlin Rag (4:13)

Released by: Film Score Monthly / Retrograde Records
Release date: 2011
Disc one total running time: 76:01
Disc two total running time: 31:25

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Categories
1969 Film I Soundtracks

The Illustrated Man – music by Jerry Goldsmith

3 min read

Order this CDIn 1969, the thought of dramatizing the short stories of renowned speculative fiction master Ray Bradbury was still relatively new, and the thought of trying to cohesively film a short story collection was probably daunting in itself. Put the two together, and you have a recipe for a movie that probably won’t meet anyone’s expectations. Despite the talent and star power brought to bear on it, The Illustrated Man is considered a valiant attempt, but still a flop at the box office.

Among that talent was Jerry Goldsmith, who had just shaken up movie audiences the previous year with his paradigm-shifting soundtrack from Planet Of The Apes. Setting a pattern that would continue for much of the rest of his life and career, Goldsmith was now being sought out as a composer who “got” science fiction – and, more importantly, could lend it sonic support that would help the audience “get” it too. His score for The Illustrated Man, essentially four separate but linked scores for the price of one, continued Goldsmith’s streak as a cerebral, forward-thinking composer.

The framing story (involving the Illustrated Man of the title) gets a deceptively pastoral sound, introducing the movie’s only real theme. As the framing story’s characters reveal their true nature, the music grows more uneasy, reaching a disquieting climax as the first story within the story opens. For the sequence based on Bradbury’s “The Veldt”, Goldsmith leans almost entirely on synthesizers for the setting of a futuristic house, anticipating his work on Logan’s Run (which was still seven years away). As this story closes, Goldsmith generates some real shock value by pairing the full orchestra with the synths for the climax.

After a brief segue back to the movie’s framing device, the music for the dramatization of “The Long Rain” presents a more traditional orchestral setting, but a languid, hopeless and droning one, ideal music for saturation.

“The Last Night Of The World” continues the cheerless feel, in a somewhat simpler, plainer vein, at least until Bradbury’s cruel twist ending catches up with the story’s characters. This leads into a flashback and a return to the framing story, which itself has a sting in the tail before the movie (and soundtrack) are over.

4 out of 4Goldsmith was an ideal composer to pair with the works of the late Ray Bradbury. More intellectual and adventurous than worried about what constituted “proper” music in a classical vein, Goldsmith – with his music – was willing to step outside the same bounds that Bradbury’s words did. It’s a pity that the result on film wasn’t as good as the musical collision of their respective worlds.

  1. Main Title (3:28)
  2. The House (2:50)
  3. The Illustrations (2:25)
  4. Felicia (1:40)
  5. The Rose (1:55)
  6. The Lion (0:51)

    “The Veldt”

  7. 21st Century House (1:56)
  8. Angry Child (1:49)
  9. Quiet Evening (2:50)
  10. Skin Illustrations (1:22)
  11. The Rocket (1:19)

    “The Long Rain”

  12. The Rain (1:34)
  13. The Sun Dome (1:24)

    “The Last Night of the World”

  14. Almost a Wife (6:05)
  15. The Morning After (2:00)
  16. The House Is Gone (3:46)
  17. Frightened Willie (4:29)

Released by: Film Score Monthly
Release date: 2001
Total running time: 42:02

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Categories
2005 A Film Soundtracks

Alien Nation – music by Jerry Goldsmith

2 min read

Order this CDThe differences between Alien Nation‘s movie and TV incarnations are so significant that they almost shouldn’t share the name. Both had shortcomings: the TV series delved into the concept more fully, but was often cutesy in an ’80s-family-drama kind of way; the movie was a bit edgier, but ultimately less successful in fleshing out the concept.

The soundtrack of Alien Nation (the movie) wasn’t one of the things that made it edgier. It was also the second soundtrack the film went through: Jerry Goldsmith had originally been hired to score Alien Nation, and created an all-synth score which was subsequently rejected and replaced by the Curt Sobel score that was ultimately heard in theaters. The liner notes of this release paint this as the movie’s loss, but it may be a toss-up as to which composer would have serviced the movie better.

Here’s the problem: frankly, the TV series had better music, because it dared to give its alien characters alien music. There seem to be a few hints that Goldsmith had thoughts about going in that direction, but most of those hints take the form of unearthly noise sweeps at the beginning of some tracks. But for the most part, as unlikely as it may seem to describe anything composer by Jerry Goldsmith this way, Alien Nation a la Goldsmith is unremarkable.

2 out of 4It’s no better and no worse than any other synthesized score, but the music itself seems remarkably tame for what was meant to be an adventurous, high-concept new take on a classic genre. It almost sounds like a demo rather than a finished score, which may or may not have been the intention. And in any case, Goldsmith would go on to create better music for better projects than Alien Nation. Maybe the material just didn’t inspire him.

  1. Alien Landing (3:47)
  2. Out Back (2:01)
  3. Are You Alright? (1:50)
  4. Take It Easy (2:53)
  5. The Vial (2:13)
  6. Jerry’s Jam (1:51)
  7. Alien Dance (1:57)
  8. Are You There? (2:01)
  9. The Beach (3:42)
  10. Tow Truck Getaway (1:52)
  11. 772 / I Shall Remember (4:08)
  12. Tell Them (1:29)
  13. A Game Of Chicken (2:36)
  14. Overdose (2:26)
  15. Got A Match? (2:53)
  16. A Nice view (2:34)
  17. Just Ugly (1:57)
  18. The Wedding (4:43)

Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 46:43

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Categories
1996 2012 Film S Soundtracks Star Trek

Star Trek: First Contact (Newly Expanded Edition)

6 min read

Though it really shouldn’t have been surprising after the recent glut of remastered soundtracks from the Kirk-era Star Trek movie franchise, the sudden announcement of a complete and remastered Star Trek: First Contact soundtrack took many by surprise. It came from a label that had been dormant for years – GNP Crescendo had a seemingly absolute lock on all Star Trek soundtrack releases throughout the 1990s – and it was the first remastered soundtrack from the shorter big-screen run of the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew.

Of course, First Contact was the first (and arguably only) undisputed success among the TNG-era films, and marked the return of Jerry Goldsmith to the Star Trek film franchise, so it’s an obvious starting point for the TNG movie soundtrack remasters. (Three TNG-era movies’ soundtracks remain to be remastered and expanded, and two of them – Generations and Insurrection – were previously released by Crescendo, making it almost certain that Crescendo will be releasing the expanded editions.)

The original 1996 soundtrack release of First Contact was hampered by two factors: the punishing cost of licensing more than 40 minutes of music recorded by a union orchestra for a soundtrack release, and a somewhat arbitrary decision to slant the original soundtrack heavily in favor of music by Jerry Goldsmith. Almost a quarter of the movie was actually scored by Joel Goldsmith, who would later make his mark on the genre by scoring the vast majority of the Stargate TV franchise, due to Jerry Goldsmith’s busy schedule. The liner notes even point out that executive producer Rick Berman and director/co-star Jonathan “Riker” Frakes greeted this development by pointing out that they’d paid for Jerry Goldsmith to score their movie. As it so happens, the elder Goldsmith played a thundering action cue that impressed everyone in the room – and then revealed that his son had written it. But that didn’t mean that Joel’s music would find its way onto the original soundtrack release: the same silly argument cropped up. The CD cover said “music by Jerry Goldsmith,” and album producer Neil Norman was determined to deliver on that. The payoff there is that Joel Goldsmith was responsible for the music to the one scene in the movie that everyone bought a ticket to see, the first warp flight by Zefram Cochrane. That was, without a doubt, First Contact‘s money shot. I remember seeing the movie in the theater the first time with my friend Mark, who said “Holy shit!” out loud when the Phoenix deployed its warp engines from its Titan missile casing. It was built up as the movie’s “holy shit!” moment from the word go, and it got “holy shit!” music from the junior Goldsmith – which Crescendo then proceeded to omit from the album on the ground that the cue wasn’t composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

That cue, “Flight Of The Phoenix”, has been… obtainable, for the lack of a better way to put it, as part of a bootleg First Contact score that’s been circulating since the Napster days. However, this single-disc release has been remastered by the same team responsible for the previous Trek movie score remasters, and it’s never sounded this good. With all due respect to the now-departed “dean of movie music,” as Trek TV composer Dennis McCarthy once called him, “Flight Of The Phoenix” is the highlight of the restored full-length soundtrack, just as it was in the movie itself. It’s ironic that arguably the most iconic piece of music in a score attributed to Jerry Goldsmith was composed by his son. Stargate fans will also want to check out Joel’s cues here as a precursor to the up-and-coming composer’s body of work for that franchise (SG-1 was about a year away from premiering at the time of First Contact‘s release).

For those who, like the label circa 1996, are more interested in Goldsmith Sr.’s work, there are unreleased cues by him as well. One of the more intriguing ones is “Borg Montage”, a brief, menacing cue covering several shot Borg-related interludes aboard the Enterprise-E, culminating in a hapless security team wandering into a dimly-lit space which is then illuminated by the laser sights of several approaching Borg. There are two versions of this cue – one used in the movie, and a significantly different one with a more martial approach – and both are vintage Goldsmith with a big brassy flourish at the end.

If you want Steppenwolf or Roy Orbison this time around, there are other sources for those tracks, and in the intervening years they’ve almost certainly been remastered too.

The return of Crescendo Records to the soundtrack arena, especially with the full release of First Contact in hand, is a welcome one, especially when some of the soundtrack specialty labels are calling it a day in the current economy (Film Score Monthly) or beginning to split their release schedules between classic remasters and brand new releases (Intrada). The liner notes booklet – both the printed one with the disc and the downloadable PDF “booklet” (more like one giant, unending vertical strip, possibly representing the first-ever soundtrack liner notes wall 4 out of 4scroll) – looks like it just woke up from ’96, however. The cover layout also shows no attempt to mesh with the general cover design that’s been established for the other Star Trek movie score remasters to date, so maybe a visual rethink might be in order before Crescendo turns out another remastered Trek soundtrack. In the end, though, it’s the music that matters, and this release delivers an increase in both sound quality and quantity. Hopefully it delivers enough sales to Crescendo’s doorstep to merit upgraded releases of Generations and Insurrection.

Order this CD

  1. Main Title / Locutus (4:18)
  2. How Many Ships (0:31)
  3. Battle Watch (1:13)
  4. Red Alert (2:16)
  5. Temporal Wake (2:11)
  6. Shields Down (1:48)
  7. The Phoenix (1:04)
  8. They’re Here (0:28)
  9. 39.1 Degrees Celsius (4:48)
  10. Search For The Borg (1:53)
  11. Retreat (4:01)
  12. No Success (1:33)
  13. Borg Montage (1:03)
  14. Welcome Aboard (2:43)
  15. Stimulation (1:08)
  16. Smorgasborg (1:30)
  17. Getting Ready (1:36)
  18. Fully Functional (3:22)
  19. The Dish (7:09)
  20. Objection Noted (1:57)
  21. Not Again (2:44)
  22. Evacuate (2:24)
  23. New Orders / All The Time (3:52)
  24. Flight Of The Phoenix (6:23)
  25. First Contact (6:03)
  26. End Credits (5:32)
  27. The Phoenix [alternate] (1:10)
  28. Borg Montage [alternate] (1:20)
  29. Main Title [alternate] (2:54)

Released by: GNP Crescendo Records
Release date: 2012
Total running time: 78:54

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