Please Release Me (let me go) - Part 2

A few more scores that could do with a little more of them legitimately available on disc:


Starship Troopers - Basil Poledouris

I'm sure Basil Poledouris would be thrilled to see the continued interest in his music since his untimely death a few years ago; the re-recording of Conan is a measure of the esteem in which his music is held. Great though the re-recording is, it's something of a shame the composer wasn't around to wield the baton himself. It's passed into film music folklore than the original release of Starship Troopers almost sent Varese Sarabande broke due to the enormous re-use fees on the score which was (I believe) recorded by two different LA orchestras. Of course, collectors still bitched. Typical. With the far more sane re-use fee arrangements of recent years an expanded disc seems a far more realistic prospect, plus sci-fi scores always do well. Here's hoping.


The Disney scores of Alan Menken & Hans Zimmer

It's never going to happen, Disney are far too precious about their properties to let some small minority group have their way when they can re-re-re-re-release their classic soundtrack albums with yet another shit pop arrangement of the spin off pop song. However, longer versions of Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Lion King would be rather splendid. The latter two, in particular, are missing considerable amounts from their official CD releases. Zimmer's music for The Lion King got him an Oscar (not that it really counts for much; looking at you Gustavo Santaolalla) but Zimmer only gets a miserly handful of cuts on disc. With any lucky we'll get a re-re-re-release with 46 new versions of the Elton John songs too. On second thoughts...


A Bug's Life - Randy Newman

An unlikely entry, I'm sure you're thinking, but some of the most delightful cues were missed off the official album. One reason (a hunch) is that they were dropped because of the choir (notably Building the Bird and the finale, All is Well which are both marvellous) and Disney didn't want to pay extra for those tracks. In any event, it stands as Newman's finest score for Pixar to date, a terrific, intricate, thematically rich, pseudo-western which deserves to be heard in its entirity.

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Danny Elfman

Another unlikely candidate. The obscenely expensive Elfman/Burton boxed set (which I should hopefully be getting in February 2011) contains extra tracks but is sold out and hardly a realistic prospect for the average fan. The existing release is beautifully presented, but a few more underscore tracks to give balance to the above average number of songs would be most welcome. Might be fun to have a bonus disc of orchestra-only versions of the songs too (same applies to the Menken scores too). Here's hoping.

Scrooged - Danny Elfman

OK, OK, I've never seen the film (but have it on my DVD rental list) but the suite on Music for a Darkened Theatre is a delight and it's probably the most high profile thing by Elfman never properly released. Indeed, it's quite possibly the only studio score he's done that's never had a proper release.