I like movie and TV soundtracks. SOME movie and TV soundtracks. Aside from my collection of Bear McCreary masterworks, seems like I keep buying copies of the same thing over and over as the years pass, trying to find the ultimate, perfect, uber-complete version. Life would be simpler if the studios/composers just released the whole nine yards when the movies were first released, but alas, it remains the collector's fate to haunt movie memorabilia shows when that ultimate masterpiece remains just out of reach. Here are a few I've been amassing over the years...
BLADERUNNER. For whatever reason, composer Vangelis decided not to release his original score at first, so for a long time the only official release was a re-scored orchestral version by the "New American Orchestra." I've heard that one so many times, there are actually a couple moments I prefer to the real thing -- specifically, I'm partial to the re-do's versions of the movie's love theme, "One More Kiss Dear" -- but the subtle musicality of the original is still the best. Various gray market types have unleashed versions over the years ("The Esper Edition", whatever that means, was really good), and Vangelis himself put out a truncated single CD edition awhile back, but until recently the very BEST edition has been a two CD "gray market" release on the "Off World" label with every friggin' shred of music from the movie, even the Ladd Company logo, 103 minutes total. However, now even that's been eclipsed by a new 3 CD, legit edition that includes the Vangelis release, all the other music plus a third disc of Vangelis "inspired by the 25th anniversary." Insane...
THE KEEP. An obscure Michael Mann horror film, I saw this at a special screening on a huge screen when it was first (briefly) released, and I was knocked out by the visual look and the moody Tangerine Dream soundtrack. The movie is pretty wild in a "what were they thinking?" way, and just about as hard to find as the soundtrack (I have the widescreen laserdisc version, as far as I know it's still not out on DVD). The soundtrack was never officially released, but that hasn't stopped various enterprising individuals as desperate as yours truly from cobbling together multiple editions from God knows what sources. I must have six different versions, but so far the best is a single CD edition on the Skull and Crossbones "label" which has the cleanest sound.
FLASHPOINT. Another uber-moody Tangerine Dream soundtrack, this saw a limited release on Virgin records way back in the late 80's/early 90's, and that was fine except the CD quickly went out of print and my copy was an early victim of "laser rot". (Sidenote, out of maybe 12000 CDs, I've only had five go bad from laser rot over the last twenty-some years. Of course, they were all stuff I really liked...) This CD also features one of my absolute favorite soundtrack song genres, the "lyrics that tell the story of the movie" tune. These were very popular in Westerns back in the 50's and 60's (my favorite is still the theme for "The War Wagon" with John Wayne, which some punk band should cover!), so the Flashpoint theme feels like a bit of an anomoly this late in the game. But it's great in a really terrible way. Anyhow, One Way Records re-released the bare bones version of the soundtrack in 1995, but that's also long out of print and goes for $100+ on ebay. I just hope my copy of THAT doesn't succumb to laser rot.
