Blade Runner Trilogy 25th Anniversary

Okay first of all, yes, advertising this release as being the complete soundtrack is bad form.This is speculation, but I think the release of this 3 disc album broke down something like this:Vangelis's people would have made him aware of the various bootlegs that have sprung up over the past 15 years. (I think it's safe to say that there have probably been more bootleg variation of the Blade Runner soundtrack than any other movie, some 3 dozen of them in fact: go check out such sites as vangelis-rarities for a list of some of the examples.) So what I think happened was this: Vangelis took a look at all this stuff and thought, "Well, if die-hard fans already have all this stuff, or even some of it, then what's the point of me giving them it all over again?!"(The point, of course, is that it would have been 'official' and would have been in digitially remastered sound, but of no moment...)So instead of repackaging all the cues from the bootlegs into an 'official' release Vangelis decided to give the fans almost entirely new music.It's interesting to note that almost all the fans over on the International Vangelis Forum are delighted with this release. Why? Precisely because it's 'all new music'! The ones who are whining are the film's fans who simply want the actual soundtrack as it appears in the movie. (In which case virtually all of these fans already have it, in the form of the widely available bootlegs, such as the Esper Edition and the Deck Definitive release.)Now, mind you, I'm a huge fan of the movie (like most people here I have the 5 disc boxset) and I can understand people's wish to simply have the soundtrack's cues sans sound effects and dialogue, and to that end I would have preferred if Vangelis had removed the dialogue from the first disc of this 3CD release, as opposed to simply including the '94 edition unaltered.It helps, however, to remember this: Vangelis has NEVER revisited the soundtrack to any of the movies he's worked on. Blade Runner is the exception. It's interesting to note that nowhere - unlike ALL of his other official soundtrack releases, including the recent Alexander and El Greco - does the legend 'Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' appear on the '94 release, or for that matter this '07 release, other than that red sticker. This is a 3CD 'album' in celebration of the movie, NOT a soundtrack.Vangelis has NEVER been interested in taking the exact edits of his cues from a movie and packaging them onto a CD. THIS is what Blade Runner's film fans want. Vangelis will never do this (and precisely BECAUSE there are so many bootlegs that do exactly that he no doubt feels, "What's the point, you have all this material already?") Instead Vangelis prefers to have his soundtrack releases stand on their own as legitimate albums, and not merely a collection of cues, to the point where he will often rearrange certain tracks for their official album release. This is clearly evident on 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Alexander, where the tracks are not only shorter - or in some cases even longer - than how they appear in the movie, but in addition they have been subtly rearranged. Both of these movies boast 2CD Complete Score bootlegs. Both of these bootleg releases are inferior to the far shorter official single disc releases. Why? Because they're bland, flat - THEY'RE TOO LONG! They don't stand on their own as albums. Most film cues are only a minute or two long, especially in the case of Blade Runner, and whereas these work terrifically within the context of the actual movie, they rarely stand on their own, or even if they do they simply don't flow properly if ran together with the film's other cues when placed onto an album.Vangelis has always been more concerned with his soundtrack releases maintaining their own sense of cohesion than simply taking the easy route of lazily throwing a whole bunch of cues onto a disc. Sure, this would have delighted the film's fans, but the film and the separate release of the music on CD are two different things, two different mediums.The majority of Vangelis fans are happy with this 3CD release because it gives us two CDs of brand new music which COMPLIMENT the bootlegs which almost all of us already have.And, for those few who don't owned the bootlegs, please don't buy them from eBay. Members of such sites as the yahoo group bladerunner_soundtrack will happily provide them free of charge.Blade Runner's film fans are simply going to have to learn to listen to this release as they would an ordinary album; it's clear that this release was meant for Vangelis fans and not Blade Runner's film fans per se.

Have this on itunes at a good but mere 383kb per second but couldn’t find it on Qobuz in HiRes so I decided to buy cds. (16/44) Wonderful music. From a wonderful composer (Vangelis). If you are a Bladerunner (original film) fan, I highly recommend this.

Co-insiding with the Multi-disc, multi-version of the 25 year old movie re-release that has shaped a lot of peoples imaginations, I was initially expecting a final 'official' release of the Soundtrack, no exceptions, no alterations.What I got was some tracks from the film unheard of on the 'complete' bootlegs that are out there and in essence, two 'remix' albums of Blade Runner from the man who made the music to Blade Runner, so he has every right to do what he likes with his music - even if all the fans just wanted a new release of the film's soundtrack complete!Instead of that I think Vangelis has done something special. There are some really, really nice touches to this new set (and I call it new as a lot of it is what appears to be either unused tracks for the film or stuff that has a clear influence from it, as the third disc is highly reflective of). Sir Ridley Scott does some vocals in the most unexpected turn and throughout you as the listener find yourself back in the dirty, ambient LA of 2019 that the world first saw in 1982. Oft they talk of a sequel to this film. Oft everyone bulks at the thought, yet this is a continuation of that World and it does make you hungry for some visuals to go with it, or makes you think of what they or what could they be.It's difficult to pick something special from the new stuff. "Desolation Path" and "No Expectation Boulevard" really stick in my mind. At the price even if you do have the original BR Soundtrack this is worth it just for the extra stuff, but a full copy of the Soundtrack would be oh so nice next please - we have every version of the movie now on DVD it'd be great to have every track to go with it!

I think it's all great, even if every last note of what was in the film still isn't here, not least the prologue music, for which I must admit I've sorely hankered for many a year.But, at the price, this three disc set is almost worth buying for Disc 3 alone, even if it is new material that wasn't actually part of the OMS. As a complimentary set, it's only a little inferior to the original music ~ the new arrangement of Just One Kiss, Dear is hugely better and more fitting than the original (even though I can't think quite where it might have fitted into the film ~ but then neither did the original, of which no more than the most fleeting few bars featured in the background to some brief bar/cafe scene), whilst Sweet Solitude is sheer magic. I don't care for absolutely everything Vangelis has done (some of it, prior to Chariots Of Fire, is very weird) but, for me, his music for Blade Runner represents pretty well the pinnacle of his career.Purists may carp (they always do) but, for the rest of us, this is a very welcome augmentation to the original single disc issue. The second disc, consisting of atmospheric themes from various scenes in the movie is also very good; not melodies per se, but highly relevant and evocative, bringing back so many strong memories of the film that you wonder how they didn't seem to be serious omissions from the 1994 OMS. But then we had to wait so long just for that CD that we were thankful for what we got.Regardless of whether or not you already own the original single album, this new 3 disc set is a steal, both musically and sonically and a very welcome augmentation to the 1994 single disc. Highly recommended.