I already knew and enjoyed the Yellowjackets before The Voyage Home, and was glad they worked together, and so well, with Rosenman. That's the way to do it.
Hiroshima more so, I kinda knew who they were, but their song did interest me, so I followed up. And yes they are very firmly in the smooth jazz camp, and with many vocals (I prefer instrumental music in all genres). But every once in a while I enjoy sampling some of their work, there's a nice range.
I liked the Rihanna song for what it was. All of these are commercialism. Yellowjackets more defensible for the movie than others.
Does this count? One day I heard over mall speakers a song with lyrics and a tune that I knew I had heard before ... realizing it was "Ballad of the Whale" with lyrics. Many decades later, motivated by the expansion of "The Voyage Home", I set about to find that vocal version, locating Full Swing's 'The End of The Sky' album (1989) containing a song called "Another Life" ... the "Ballad" with lyrics. During that same search I also found Tim Weisberg's cover of "Ballad" on his 'Undercover' CD.
In this thread there is an earlier, indirect mention of "A Star Beyond Time", which I know nothing about apart from the liner notes of Mssrs. Bond and Matessino in LLL's spectacular STTMP 3-CD. While it runs a bit short to play with the end credits, the arrangement (I thought) did justice to Goldsmith's composition, especially in the bridge beginning around 1:16. Curious if there was ever any thought of casting Shaun Cassidy as a young lieutenant in STTMP to draw in his fans (but I guess he was busy with his ABC show at the time of principal photography).
Oh my lord, LordDalek! I owned their second album, A Career in Dada Processing, which I picked up in 1984 because I loved Mark Isham's Vapor Drawings. Forgot all about this until today.
I didn't get the Search for Spock album until 1991 or so, and kinda skipped over the kitschy arrangement, not that I didn't enjoy it for what it was.
But I would never in a million years have guessed that Isham and Patrick O'Hearn were 2/3 of this group.
