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Posted: |
Sep 6, 2010 - 1:52 PM
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By: |
BasilFSM
(Member)
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I mean... how can you NOT love this record label?
They single-handedly started up the entire soundtrack score market in the late 70s, releasing LPs for about 10 years and then releasing CDs ever since then... and they're still going strong.
Their release discography is the largest for any soundtrack label that I've seen, with hundreds upon thousands of CDs and LPs released.
I don't care if many of their 90s albums averaged 30 minutes in length - without Varese, we wouldn't have all of the score album releases that we have, and a lot of us 80s / 90s / 00s score fans wouldn't have our holy grails from this era of film music. I say having 30 minutes available on CD is better than having no minutes available on CD.
And with the revelation that some of these scores are now lost (Terminator 2, Revenge of the Ninja, Link and Conan being prime examples), we're lucky at all that Varese got to handling the masters for these scores when their films were released, and putting as much of it on album as they could.
Forget their audio glitches or problems with releases like Hellboy or G.I. Joe... their accomplishments in film music preservation over the decades are FAR greater than their mistakes.
Not to mention the fact that Varese CDs are easy to distinguish from the rest by their red, or white and red spines when browsing through CD racks in thrift stores and the like... I most often see their 1990 release of Ghost in the CD and thrift shops most frequently.
Tom Null, Richard Kraft, Chris Kuchler, Scot Holton, Robert Townson, Bruce Kimmel, Matthew Joseph Peak... and everyone else involved at Varese over the years... I can't thank you enough for your hard work and efforts. It really is quite mind-boggling to see the sheer amount of releases that you guys have done, and the 170 or so CDs in the Screen Archives clearance sale is really only a very small percentage of what's been released by you guys.
Keep on going strong!
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I got nothing but love for them as well as the other labels who have to mess with all the who owns what and legal issues with these scores. I can't even imagine how much a headache it is for some of these releases to see the light of day. Then you have to wait for this person to approve this artwork and that artwork, then they don't respond and you have to nicely keep asking them to OK it, yikes, what a stressful job.
Thank you guys for ALL the hard work you do, we all appreciate it!!
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I mean... how can you NOT love this record label?
They single-handedly started up the entire soundtrack score market in the late 70s, releasing LPs for about 10 years and then releasing CDs ever since then... and they're still going strong.
Their release discography is the largest for any soundtrack label that I've seen, with hundreds upon thousands of CDs and LPs released.
I don't care if many of their 90s albums averaged 30 minutes in length - without Varese, we wouldn't have all of the score album releases that we have, and a lot of us 80s / 90s / 00s score fans wouldn't have our holy grails from this era of film music. I say having 30 minutes available on CD is better than having no minutes available on CD.
And with the revelation that some of these scores are now lost (Terminator 2, Revenge of the Ninja, Link and Conan being prime examples), we're lucky at all that Varese got to handling the masters for these scores when their films were released, and putting as much of it on album as they could.
Forget their audio glitches or problems with releases like Hellboy or G.I. Joe... their accomplishments in film music preservation over the decades are FAR greater than their mistakes.
Not to mention the fact that Varese CDs are easy to distinguish from the rest by their red, or white and red spines when browsing through CD racks in thrift stores and the like... I most often see their 1990 release of Ghost in the CD and thrift shops most frequently.
Tom Null, Chris Kuchler, Robert Townson, Bruce Kimmel, Matthew Joseph Peak... and everyone else involved at Varese over the years... I can't thank you enough for your hard work and efforts. It really is quite mind-boggling to see the sheer amount of releases that you guys have done, and the 170 or so CDs in the Screen Archives clearance sale is really only a very small percentage of what's been released by you guys.
Keep on going strong!
None of us would be doing what we're doing if not for Varese. But you must add Richard Kraft and Scot Holton to the credit list, especially Richard - Varese would not be where they are today without Richard.
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I love to look at my CD collection and bask in the warm glow of dark maroon/mud brown, and sometimes dark maroon/mud brown and white. 
If it weren't for Varese, literally months of pure film score listening bliss would be deleted from my life.
They provided me with my first Goldsmith (Total Recall), my first CD (The Running Man) and were huge proponents of Marco Beltrami (my favorite composer) early in his career with a staggering amount of Beltrami releases from around 1999-2005. If it weren't for Varese, my Beltrami collection would be cut by about half. Thanks to them, I had access to early Beltrami gems such as The Watcher, Minus Man, Joy Ride, Scream, Terminator 3, Hellboy and they miraculously released a Beltrami score that could have easily slipped through film score cracks (In the Electric Mist).
They released virtually all of my grails growing up (Aliens, The Abyss, Die Hard, Commando, Predator, at least some Scream Trilogy music...) and doled out countless samplings of wonderful Goldsmith scores (Chain Reaction, Executive Decision, US Marshals, Small Soldiers, Air Force One, Gremlins 2, Rambo 2, Leviathan, and on and on...)
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you...
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I'll always appreciate them for championing Pino Donaggio during his Golden Years.
Not just his thriller scores like Dressed To Kill, Piranha, Crawlspace and Tourist Trap, but his more varied scores like Zelly & Me and Home Movies.
I too prefer their distinctive red spines and wish they had kept it.
Looking back, especially at my LP collection, so many 'gambles' that I took that turned out to be pure gems. Stuff like Silver Bullet (Chattaway), In A Shallow Grave (Sheffer), The Boy Who Could Fly (Broughton) and Triumph Of The Spirit (Eidelman).
Thanks indeed 
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I still love those early black back covers with the tracks printed in that bold font and I always found their logo to be cool and fitting to the material. You can't have a soundtrack collection and not own at least one of their titles or browse through a store's soundtrack section without coming across one of their titles. That says a lot.
Hey scoresalot, send dmd a note ok, filmscoremonthly@gmail.com. Btw, you on facebook?
Thanks Peter
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