There are times when I'm thinking to myself, "Is this a score for a western or the NFL???"
I love it. There are some scores (Oh, fer instance, Star Wars, The Right Stuff, Conan the barbarian, Under Fire) where you can just tell the composer got into the groove, dug deep, summoned the muse, and, to add one more cliche to the pile, hit it outta the park.
I am not a huge fan of Silvestri's overall body of work in terms of me wanting to reach for his scores and give 'em a whirl. I like several individual themes (i.e. Captain America, which is surprisingly addictive), but not a whole lot of full scores. Young Guns II is a happy exception. I'll be listening to this one a lot.
I regularly listen to this one. It remains one of my favorites by Silvestri, who still had his "80's sound" at the time, blending musical styles in a greatly addictive manner. I was overjoyed when Intrada released that music, 13 years ago !
Until now, I wasn't aware that Rusted Wave re-released the score on vinyl in 2018. I was happy to see on Apple Music that they opted to separate the tracks that were assembled in the Intrada album, giving more "breath" to the flow of the music. Also, sound quality seems to have been slightly improved.
According to Intrada's booklet liner notes, locating all the elements was a difficult task, although successful.
Unfortunately, there's a wonderful guitar overlay still missing from both albums. It should be heard during for the first part of "Small Hands" on the Intrada album, aka the "G.D. Ennio" track on the Rusted Wave program.
It begins with a somewhat comical, slow mexican-like folksy tune before the orchestra kicks in. Then the guitar goes in a wild quasi-flamenco style, giving more flavor and energy to the cue.
You can hear it in that clip, beginning at 1'06 :
If any label plans to revisit this one someday (for its 35th anniversary ?), I'd happily double-dip for an album featuring Rusted Wave's tracklist, a remastered sound, and hopefully, the missing virtuoso guitar part.
Of course the b00t can't be retired completely, as it has his quite brilliant score to MAC & ME on it, plus that great American Anthem track. I absolutely love the MAC & ME score, probably more than Young Guns 2, although YG2 is ace.
Dammit Warner Bros. get straightened out and release American Anthem.
I wonder if the 'take' edern is after is on the good sounding boot that came out of this score (coupled with MAC & ME) before everything else? I'd have to check my copy.
The entire track featuring the unreleased guitar overlay can be found on YouTube. There, it's called "Ride Little Casino". So, I guess it was available in some unofficial form or another.
Interestingly, when comparing this track with the film version of "G.D. Ennio", you can notice that the film mix dials out the guitar track at some point during the scene.
On the same YouTube channel, you can listen to another cue that I can't find on neither album. It's tense music, similar to other suspense pieces of the score. Here, it's called "Tom's Death" but it doesn't seem to match the scene of Tom being killed (that music is on the existing albums). I wasn't able to locate its use in the movie. It could be an alternate version, an unused cue for a deleted scene, I guess ?
...And I'd love to see American Anthem released someday, too !
