Tag: Stu Phillips

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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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Categories
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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Categories
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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Categories
2011 B Battlestar Galactica Soundtracks Television

Battlestar Galactica Volume 2 – music by Stu Phillips

5 min read

Order this CDWhen a studio and/or a network launch a new, heavily-hyped show, you almost expect the music for the pilot episode to kick butt – as with every other aspect of the new show, money is lavished on everything in the hopes that the audience will stick around for later episodes, which will inevitably go through some lean times with tighter budgets. One show that was notorious for never quite getting around to the “tighter budget” part was the notoriously expensive – and popular – original incarnation of Battlestar Galactica. With elaborate space FX sequences constructed in much the same way that similar scenes had been done for Star Wars only a year before Galactica premiered, this was a show that didn’t know the meaning of “coming in under budget.”

Money was also lavished on Galactica’s lush orchestral music, and Stu Phillips clearly had fun with the wide-open canvas at his disposal. This 2-CD set, following on from Intrada’s release of the complete score from the Galactica pilot earlier this year, includes the complete score for the series’ earliest two-part extravaganzas. Portions of the music here have been included on the very-limited-run Battlestar Galactica: Stu Phillips Anthology 4-CD collection released by the now-defunct Supertracks label, but Intrada wasted no time in pointing out that this is the first time the complete scores from both of these two-parters has been released. (Truthfully, even if the scores weren’t complete, the rarity and insane secondary market prices on the Anthology set would still make this set a more attractive deal.)

Another plus is the premiere of the Galactica main titles as heard in the early weekly series episodes: following the bold main title with which everyone’s familiar through countless releases and re-recordings (and, in certain places in the new Galactica series, re-interpretations), the early episodes immediately launched into a secondary fanfare accompanying brief glimpses of that week’s guest stars. The fanfare, which wasn’t shy about proclaiming (sometimes quite rightly) that these big-name guests were a Big Deal, then slid down a few keys for a refrain of the Galactica theme, over which we’d see the credits for the writers, producers and director – and then things would come to a full stop for the beginning of the story. This piece of unapologetically bold music hasn’t been released before, and I’d forgotten how much I liked it. It’s kind of like old-school studio-system Hollywood breathing its last, and doing so loud.

Both discs feature quite a bit of musical material in common with the pilot, but each episode has its own unique themes. Lost Planet Of The Gods gets some fine mysterioso music (“The List / Critical / Phony Battle”) as well as a grand choral theme for Kobol (befitting the impressive second-unit scenes filmed in long-shot with extras costumed as Adama, Apollo and Serina, shot on location in Egypt). The choral music may seem a bit cheesy when held up to today’s sensibilities, but again there’s an old-school Hollywood aesthetic to it: this used to be the sound of epic. And it’s really not bad.

The music for The Gun On Ice Planet Zero finds its niche by exploring variations of the show’s recurring themes. Though established in the pilot, some of the themes go through some interesting permutations, including a low string version of the Cylon Basestar motif (normally blared by low brass), accompanying the Cylons’ plotting to destroy Galactica. If you’re a fan of the show’s major themes, this one’s a treat.

3 out of 4Where many series scale down their expectations after the pilot, in one respect classic Galactica does follow suit: Intrada lowered this limited edition to a run of 1,500 copies (down from 3,000 copies of volume one), but this may have been a miscalculation on the label’s part. The score for the pilot, whether complete or not, has been issued in many permutations over the years (the original LP, the German CD of that LP, a from-the-ground-up re-recording on Varese for the show’s 25th anniversary, the Stu Phillips Anthology). The music from subsequent episodes is much harder to come by (the Anthology was the only game in town prior to these Intrada releases), so there’s an argument that they probably could’ve sold 3,000 copies of this. The speed with which this volume has already sold out may change the quantities of future volumes. It’s nice to finally see this show’s lush music getting as much attention as the music for its latter-day remake.

    Disc 1: The Lost Planet Of The Gods
  1. Main Title – Parts 1 & 2 (1:48)
  2. Imperious Leader & Baltar (1:28)
  3. Athena Vamps/Patrol Two Launch (1:36)
  4. Baltar – The Leader (2:04)
  5. The Abyss Part 1 (1:31)
  6. The Abyss Part 2 / Escape From The Void (2:56)
  7. Cylon Outpost (2:12)
  8. Virus 1A / Virus 1B / Virus 2 / Virus 3 (2:14)
  9. Virus 4 / Adama’s Medal / Top Of The Class / Ancient Writings (2:54)
  10. The List / Critical / Phony Battle (2:30)
  11. Captain’s Opinion / Launch When Ready (0:56)
  12. More Cylon Lair (1:53)
  13. Good Guys 1, Bad Guys Zero (4:25)
  14. We’re Going In (1:53)
  15. The Medallion / Starbuck In Trouble (1:43)
  16. Marry Me (1:05)
  17. The Wedding / Starbuck Captured (3:36)
  18. Ancient Ruins (1:28)
  19. Discovery Of The Tomb (2:44)
  20. Baltar Appears (1:24)
  21. Love & The Sphinx (0:43)
  22. To Light The Way / Blue Squad Reporting (4:28)
  23. Not The Last Of Baltar / Serina Dies / Boxey & Apollo (5:25)
  24. End Credits (0:30)
    Disc 2: The Gun On Ice Planet Zero
  1. Main Title (1:48)
  2. Environment: Hostile (1:41)
  3. March Of The Centurions (2:32)
  4. Four Specialists (1:11)
  5. Cree Captured (1:05)
  6. Launch Bay Alpha (1:19)
  7. Blizzard (2:07)
  8. Death Point (3:15)
  9. Cold Journey (3:32)
  10. Bad Situation (1:37)
  11. Ravashol (3:35)
  12. Rough Ride (1:21)
  13. Icy Planet Lab (1:38)
  14. Cree To The Cold Cell (0:44)
  15. Cold Planet (1:58)
  16. Fire The Pulsar (2:58)
  17. Getting Closer (8:03)
  18. Pulsar Destroyed (1:53)
  19. Starbuck Loses (1:41)
  20. End Credits (0:30)

Released by: Intrada
Release date: 2011
Disc one total running time: 53:49
Disc two total running time: 43:41

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Categories
1979 B Soundtracks Television

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century – music by Stu Phillips

6 min read

Order this CDTeamed with Glen A. Larson for the second time in as many years, composer Stu Phillips created an interesting sound for Larson’s second swipe at big-budget television space opera. Buck Rogers shared many things with Battlestar Galactica – sets, props, special effects, and a tendency to decline after the show’s first season – but Larson’s new space adventure show got a different musical treatment. Where Phillips had unabashedly done a very serious pastiche of John Williams’ Star Wars stylings for Galactica, his music for Buck Rogers is, rather like the show, more lighthearted. When action or emotional scenes are called for, Phillips calls on a somewhat different feel than Galactica’s dramatic moments – a little more romantic and melodramatic in places – but even in action scenes, Phillips injects a little more “bounce” into the proceedings than one might expect. Buck Rogers dates back to 1930s radio serials, and in some ways, Phillips seems to be keeping that in mind – the music is frequently bold, brassy, and endearingly over-the-top.

First off, let’s not forget the opening theme song with lyrics (by Larson himself), sung by Kip Lennon; bearing in mind that this LP is really the soundtrack to the Buck Rogers pilot movie, this is how that particular installment started, and the opening title music that you might be more familiar with isn’t found on this album. “Suspension” is the same tune as the opening and end credits of the weekly series, but mellowed out until it’s in Manilow territory.

“The Draconia / Buck Awakens” follows, and is the first exhibit in my case for Phillips keeping an eye and an ear on the roots of Buck Rogers. Loud, busy, boisterous blasts of brass herald the arrival of a menacing warship, and even if you’re not looking at the screen, the music really hits you over the head with the message that something not good is going on. Princess Ardala gets an interestingly sinewy theme that still has an underlying menace, while “Buck’s Heroics” is a James Bond-worthy, brassy action theme with a great rhythm. Apparently this latter track impressed the show’s producers too, because you can hear various bits of it excerpted for the pre-show highlights teaser that appears before the opening titles of every subsequent episode.

My favorite non-action cue here is “Introducing Twiki And Dr. Theo”, which sets up a theme that would recur throughout the series even when composers other than Phillips handled the scoring duties on weekly episodes. Whimsical synthesizers introduce a lighthearted theme for everyone’s favorite 70s TV robot, and that theme is then handed off to pizzicato strings and segues to full orchestra, which then transforms the piece into a gorgeous passage covering a travelogue-style scene of New Chicago. Even with the whimsical elements dating it a bit, the latter half of this track is beautiful stuff.

The next real highlight is “Dead City / Attack Of The Mutants”, a dark, suspenseful piece underscoring Buck’s nearly-fatal trip outside of the protective walls of New Chicago. Phillips sounds like he’s trying to strike a balance between John Williams-style lyricism and Jerry Goldsmith’s brutally atonal music from Planet Of The Apes, leaning more toward the former, but for late 70s TV it’s not bad.

And then…there’s the music that dates the score almost as much as the copyright date on the back of the album cover. Well, this isn’t much of a surprise after the disco-fied “Love, Love, Love” cue from the Galactica soundtrack, but what is a surprise is that Phillips was at least a little bit more forward-looking this time around, concocting a funky synthesizer cue that anticipated just a little bit of the new wave sound that was already emerging in the late 70s with artists such as Gary Numan, Kraftwerk and Lene Lovich. Please don’t mistake this for a comparison between the “Something Kinda Funky” cue and those acts’ best works, but simply a statement that, while the material does date itself, it was at least – in its day – a little more ahead of its time and a little less of its time. (Subsequent viewing of the TV series beyond the pilot, however, reminds me that future scenes with source music – i.e. music that the characters can hear, as opposed to underscore – did slip back into a disco mode.)

More action music follows in “Buck Vs. Tigerman”, which continues to develop the action motif from “Buck’s Heroics”. “Fanfare And Appearance Of Draco” has the amusing distinction of being the music for one of the pilot’s most disposable scenes, featuring Joseph Wiseman (of Dr. No fame) in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as the never-seen-again but oft-mentioned Emperor of Draconia. The action motif returns in a more desperate arrangement in Tailpipe Torpedo, though the final big action scene – and probably the pilot’s biggest concession to the then-recent musical influence of Star Wars – comes in “Wilma Saves Buck”, with “What An Ending” tacking on the kind of freeze-frame-the-final-shot-under-the-Glen-Larson-credit ending that became the de facto conclusion for every episode that followed.

3 out of 4So, with this title more than 25 years out of circulation, why are we even talking about it, aside from the fact that Buck Rogers was recently released in its entirety on DVD? There are rumblings on the ‘net from none other than Stu Phillips himself that the Buck Rogers soundtrack may at some point soon be released on CD for the first time (fair warning: any Buck CDs you’ve seen are bootlegs), though despite the slight resurgence in interest in the TV series that came with that DVD release, Phillips may release it as a “composer promo,” which is usually only a few steps removed from a bootleg. We’ll keep you updated on the release status for the soundtrack, because it’s one of those things that, if you were there, you remember the music pretty fondly. I know I do.

  1. Cosmic Forces (0:35)
  2. Suspension (Song From Buck Rogers) (2:59)
  3. The Draconia / Buck Awakens (2:05)
  4. Princess Ardala / Seduction (2:40)
  5. Buck’s Heroics (1:42)
  6. Introducing Twiki And Dr. Theo (1:05)
  7. Pirate Attack (2:21)
  8. Buck Returns To Earth (2:35)
  9. Dead City / Attack Of The Mutants (3:47)
  10. Something Kinda Funky (3:05)
  11. Buck Vs. Tigerman (2:43)
  12. Fanfare And Appearance Of Draco (2:09)
  13. Tailpipe Torpedo (2:10)
  14. Wilma Saves Buck / What An Ending (2:41)
  15. Suspension (Reprise) (2:20)

Released by: MCA
Release date: 1979
Total running time: 35:08

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