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Posted: |
Feb 16, 2010 - 8:17 AM
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By: |
Hurdy Gurdy
(Member)
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I'm comparing the LP release with the CD, of course.
I read with interest, over at the Intrada board, that some fans were hoping the LP/insect title that Intrada put out would be the original LP version of The Swarm.
I've always loved the LP programme that Jerry provided back in 1978.
For me, some of those old programmes cannot be beaten (I'm beginning to sound like Thor!!).
The Swarm was a fantastic 37 minutes of the absolute highlights from the film.
Sure, there was some tremendous music missing from the LP, but it played like a dream.
Like The Fury, Wind and the Lion, MacArthur, Masada...in fact, countless LP's from that period, they were, to me, perfect in every way.
The CD is a fine release, and one of Prometheus' best presentations. It looks really good, despite their inability to license any major artwork from the film. The cover is great!
The liner notes are a little too dense for me, but offer a thorough description of the music and it's place within the film, for those who want such info.
I find the extended Main Title on the CD suffers in comparison to the LP version. Jerry sure knew how to cut the fat off that one (ditto Exact Instructions). Also, I could live without tracks like On Their Way, Old Friends and The Lollipop, to name three. But that's just me.
Another anomaly about The Swarm.
For years, most people have been told that the LP was a re-recording, along the lines of Jaws and The Fury. The CD liner notes also confirm this.
But, Roger (at Intrada) stated that the LP was just a very clever mix of edits and is actually the same recording as the CD.
So, with the LP never having had a CD release, and the CD now a rare, hard to find collectible (it was a limited 3000 pressing), could this film score see another release someday?
And which version would fans want?
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As a rule I prefer expanded reissues -- even if they are too long, they allow you to pick and chose what you want to hear -- HOWEVER, I agree that the original Swarm LP is the best representation of that score. Goldsmith edited and combined a number of cues and made them far more listenable (and this is something you can't really do at home without editing equipment). The LP also had more reverb than the Prometheus CD, giving it a nicer, more spacious sound.
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I will pipe in for the opposing side; I found the SWARM album totally unlistenable; head-ache inducing - save for the end title. Much prefer the cd - though it does go on for a bit... but then, so does the film.
So MORE of the headache inducing music was better than less of it? Bizarre. The power of album sequencing!
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Admittingly, that's so true. Those liner notes about Irwin Allen are a hoot. But the album itself is terrific. I own both the LP and the CD, and I have never been let down once!
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I decided to clean the dust from my LP to compare it to the complete/CD version and indeed the LP includes a lot of editing, but it is possible to recreate the LP version with the CD and an audio editor (I use GoldWave), here are the sections used in the LP - with the possibility that I may not have identified all of the minor edits, but this can help those who do not have the LP and are curious about its program:
Thanks much for putting this list together. My sense is that it is an excellent start, but my experience in trying to do the same thing is that there are some additional micro-edits lurking in there.
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Posted: |
Mar 31, 2014 - 7:01 AM
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By: |
Brad Wills
(Member)
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Everyone should have a copy of the LP if only for the liner notes. I'm still giggling!
Could you post a copy? I'm curious to see them.
Here ya go:
The dim lights of the tiny projection room on the brothers Warner lot begin to glow brightly. A cacophony of sound is fading into oblivion with other echoes of the past.
Seated pensively in the center of the few rows of theatre seats are two men who had just seen the completed cut of Irwin Allen's production of THE SWARM for Warner Bros. sans music.
One is producer-director Allen, an Academy Award winner known in motion picture circles as the "Master of Disaster". He is quiet, soft-spoken, articulate - a filmmaking genius whose reserved demeanor belies the fact that he has cinematically tipped ocean liners, burned down skyscrapers and, in this instance, dumped billions of killer bees on hapless Houston, Texas.
The other is Jerry Goldsmith - master composer-conductor, a veteran maestro of Hollywood's cinema sound stage orchestras - a musical giant with shocking gray hair. "Whew!" exclaimed Goldsmith, "this is a hell of a film. It has everything - love, pathos, crises, high drama, and awesome scenes!" Allen politely thanked Goldsmith and said, "Now for the music."
Producer-director Allen, who nurtured every frame of this colossal production from the book by Arthur Herzog and the screenplay by Stirling Silliphant to the final cut, slowly began detailing the kind of music he was looking for to enhance this gigantic production. With gestures he described musical nuances needed to underscore sensitive moments. With uplifted hands, he inferred bigness for scenes needing crashing crescendoes and orchestral strings to musically jab a high point of drama! He concluded by suggesting that, like the lull before the storm, Goldsmith's music must convey a sense of impending disaster. "That's what THE SWARM is all about!" said Allen
Goldsmith, absorbing every musical suggestion of the man who made THE TOWERING INFERNO and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE boxoffice history, nodded in agreement. The two men shook hands and went their way.
When Goldsmith returned to the studio some ten weeks later, he came fully equipped. With him was a seventy-two piece orchestra composed of some of the greatest musicians ever assembled. And, in his hand, was THE SWARM score. As he snapped the baton on the music stand in front of him, and signaled the downbeat for the main title theme, legions of trumpets, trombones, french horns, kettle drums, violins, and woodwinds responded with the memorable music heard in this album. And it's exactly what producer-director Allen ordered. After all, who would quarrel with the "Master of Disaster"?
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