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[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]

 >> From: Beth Freeman <bfreeman@E.MS.UKY.EDU>
 >> Subject: Vangelis

 >>      I am trying to find the original soundtrack to the movie
 >> Blade Runner by Vangelis. I have been told both that it was never
 >> released, and that it was released but not in this country, only
 >> in Great Britain.  Does anyone have any info about this...

 >     The soundtrack was definitely released in GB because a friend
 > of mine has it.  I do not think it was released in the US.

     Yes, it was. That is, the only version ever released on vinyl
(the "New America Orchestra" schlock version) was released both in a
U.K. edition and in a (still-current, now-CD-too) U.S. edition.
Whether U.K. or U.S., it still stinks compared to the still-unreleased
original soundtrack. Incidentally, there is a complaining letter on
exactly this subject in the latest (August) issue of either Digital
Audio or Stereo Review or one of those mid-fi magazines.  The U.K.
writer complains about having bought the U.K. "soundtrack" LP in a
London shop, only to find that it was the "New America Orch."  rehash.
(That should teach him to read the label before he buys.)
     Trivia extra: Did anyone else notice that in Ridley Scott's
latest movie _Someone_to_Watch_Over_Me_ he uses (and credits)
Vangelis's _Memories_of_Green_ again? In fact, he and his brother Tony
Scott obviously have some mutually favoured pieces of music, which
they've shared in their respective movies and television commercials
over the years. In Tony Scott's _The_Hunger_ the love duet from Leo
Delibes's opera _Lakme_ was heard for the first time in a movie. It
later re-appeared in a series of at least three different _Ridley_
Scott TV commercials for British Airways.  Then it cropped up _again_
in Ridley S.'s _Someone_to_Watch_Over_Me_, and now it can be heard (in
a truly cheapo-sounding synth arrangement) on an imitation-Scott Bros.
commercial for some junky new American-made car (forget which).

 >> If you want the real sound track, the best way to get is to spend
 >> the bucks ($80 maybe?) and get the laser disk version of the
 >> movie.

 >     A lot of people seems to be interested in the 100% REAL
 > soundtrack.  Anyone out there with a disk player willing to make
 > tape-copies (copies for personal use of course... ;-) ?
 > -- clindh@stride.COM

     IED supposes that if someone is really that desperate and that
destitute, he/she can mail a cassette to IED for a dub from laser-disk
to cassette. The problem is, of course, that in the movie, the music
is mixed inextricably with the dialogue.  There are some longish
passages that have virtually no sound aside from the music, but much
of the original is unsuitable from a musical purist's standpoint.
IED's recommendation is to go broke (or into debt) and spring for a
laser-disk player and the CAV letter-box version of _Blade_Runner_.
It's worth it, especially if you can also afford the new Sony 32-inch
XBR Pro TV. (Anyone want to donate one of these to the IEDIHKBRC <aka
IED's In-House Kate Bushological Research Center?  List price is only
about $2700...)

-- Andrew Marvick