One of the benefits of renewing my interest in vinyl is the chance to revisit some albums I have not listened to in years. I've really been enjoying the old albums put out on the Starlog label. There's some great stuff that as far as I know has never showed up on CD, such as some of the music on the Albert Glasser album (and how much fun is that suite from the Big News TV series?). I also had forgotten how great Laurie Johnson's music to Hedda is. In an age when there are multiple recordings of scores like North By Northwest available, including the original tracks, it is hard to understand how exciting it was at the time to have these albums released.
One of the benefits of renewing my interest in vinyl is the chance to revisit some albums I have not listened to in years. I've really been enjoying the old albums put out on the Starlog label. There's some great stuff that as far as I know has never showed up on CD, such as some of the music on the Albert Glasser album (and how much fun is that suite from the Big News TV series?). I also had forgotten how great Laurie Johnson's music to Hedda is. In an age when there are multiple recordings of scores like North By Northwest available, including the original tracks, it is hard to understand how exciting it was at the time to have these albums released.
The television series you're referring to is "Big Town", NOT "Big News".
One of the benefits of renewing my interest in vinyl is the chance to revisit some albums I have not listened to in years. I've really been enjoying the old albums put out on the Starlog label. There's some great stuff that as far as I know has never showed up on CD, such as some of the music on the Albert Glasser album (and how much fun is that suite from the Big News TV series?). I also had forgotten how great Laurie Johnson's music to Hedda is. In an age when there are multiple recordings of scores like North By Northwest available, including the original tracks, it is hard to understand how exciting it was at the time to have these albums released.
The television series you're referring to is "Big Town", NOT "Big News".
Yep, I knew that. I typed this at five in the morning after spending the night writing entries for a book I'm doing on journalists in the movies so had "news" on the brain. Big Town was a radio series and also the subject of four films from Paramount before the television series.
Now, let's talk about the music on those old Starlog albums.
I'm not sure how the rights were handled, but I know at least North By Northwest and The Avengers were done in cooperation with Varese and I know at least the Hitchcock score had a CD release by Varese (and also by Unicorn). I'm not sure about The Avengers, but I'm sure others on the board will know. It's Alive got released by Silva Screen. First Men in the Moon came out on Cloud Nine, but I think the Starlog version was a re-recording and Cloud Nine was original tracks. Captain Kronos on the same album had a complete score release on CD. I can't recall if Rocketship X-M has had a CD release (it seems like something Monstrous Movie Music might have done).
I wasn't familiar with this label - though knew the magazine of course. Seems a cool/kitschy thing to collect from an earlier era in soundtracks.
Is this Discogs.com listing of their releases complete as far as you know? Sometimes with Discogs.com entries, an item will only get logged if a seller is interested in selling it and needs a listing for it or a fan/collector takes the time to create the entry:
The Laurie Johnson stuff was re-issued on a Varese CD. All of the FIRST MEN IN THE MOON LP (with HEDDA, etc.) was on it, along with highlights of THE AVENGERS LP.
