Originally Posted By JeffG As some of you may know, I'm a long time film score enthusiast. Today, the Varese Sarabande label announced the upcoming release of an album that I've wanted badly for nearly 22 years. At long last, they are releasing a score-only album of Elmer Bernstein's music from the 1984 blockbuster "Ghostbusters". The CD, which will start shipping on March 16th, is limited to 3,000 copies and is only available by mail order via their website. <a href="http://www.varesesarabande.com/Category.asp?category_id=1220" target="_blank">http://www.varesesarabande.com /Category.asp?category_id=1220</a> While the soundtrack album to the film is still in print and generally is one of the most successful soundtracks of that time period, it only contained two tracks of Bernstein's score, adding up to around 6 1/2 minutes. The announced running time for this new CD is just under 68 minutes in length, containing nearly all the music that Bernstein wrote for the film. During the late 70s and much of the 80s, Bernstein became the composer of choice for comedy films. That started when he was, somewhat unexpectedly, hired to score "Animal House" and delivered pretty much the exactly right score for the film. His main strength as a composer for that type of film was that he pretty much took them completely seriously. He didn't try to score the films with funny music, instead simply supporting the films with rousing and exciting music, while letting the writing and acting deliver the laughs. His approach worked perfectly and pretty much established a new standard for comedy scoring. In many ways, his score for "Ghostbusters" was the pinnacle of that stage of his career, just as the film was generally the high point for the SNL-inspired comedies of that era. Bernstein's score is at turns rousing, mystical, whimsical, and even a bit scary, when needed. It also blends exceptionally well with the well-selected song score. For quite some time now, this has been one of the "holy grails" for film score fans and I'm very excited that it is finally coming out. Due to the limited edition release (which is likely a result of rights issues and/or orchestra union compensation rules), this one is pretty likely to sell-out completely within a few days. If anyone is at all interested in a copy, and doesn't want to spend lots of money on Ebay, it would be wise to order it right away. -Jeff
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Great to hear, Jeff. I think when a movie has an original score, it gives the movie an added level of sophistication. Even silly comedies like 'Silver Streak' has a great theme song and score by Henry Mancini. 'Tommy Boy' has an original score by David Newman. Today, they just seem to use pop music that sort of fits the movie.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Speaking of movie music, I was watching an episode of the new 'Battlestar Galactica' on SciFi Channel this morning. During the final scene, I was listening to the background music, and although it was a slightly updated version, it was 'Cavatina' -- from the movie 'The Deer Hunter.' I wonder how that works licensing-wise?
