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The music from the Star Wars trilogy alone would qualify John Williams as a genius. The music from Superman confirms this, as do many other of his works. One of these days, despite the pop culture roots of his work, Williams will overcome all the naysayers’ claims that he’s merely been running Wagner, Holst and Korngold through a musical cuisinart.

Need proof? One need look no further than Williams’ score for the 1978 Richard Donner opus Superman, that rare commodity known as A Good Superhero Movie. (Indeed, as far as this viewer is concerned, the next Good Superhero Movie was 2000’s X-Men, but that’s a whole other article.)

While it shares a few common musical threads with the music from Star Wars, Williams’ accompaniment for the world’s most famous superhero has, in places, an inexplicably more down-to-earth feel. The main theme is just as well known as the signature tune of Star Wars, yet the rest of the score has some true gems as well, including “The Trip To Earth”, “The Death Of Jonathan Kent” and “Leaving Home” (these two are practically joined at the hip), “The Big Rescue” and “Turning Back The World”. Many of these pieces, surprisingly, were not on the original soundtrack album, but fortunately the entire score was located and remastered for this 2-CD release (which preceeded the DVD release of the movie by several months). The sound is excellent, the liner notes booklet is positively brimming with a wealth of fascinating information on both movie and music, and for those who actually want to hear “Can You Read My Mind?”, there are no fewer than four different versions here, two of them featuring the poetic reading of the lyrics by one Margot “Lois Lane” Kidder. (For those who actually want to hear all four of these, knock yourself out - I must admit, I don’t listen to ‘em too often.)

Disc one
1. Prelude and Main Title March (5:29)
2. The Planet Krypton (6:40)
3. Destruction of Krypton (7:52)
4. Star Ship Escapes (2:21)
5. The Trip To Earth (2:28)
6. Growing Up (2:34)
7. Death of Jonathan Kent (3:24)
8. Leaving Home (4:51)
9. The Fortress of Solitude (9:17)
10. Welcome to Metropolis (2:11)
11. Lex Luthor’s Lair (4:47)
12. The Big Rescue (5:55)
13. Super Crime Fighter (3:20)
14. Super Rescues (2:13)
15. Luthor’s Luau (2:47)
16. The Planet Krypton alternate (4:24)
17. Main Title March alternate (4:36)

Disc two
1. Superman March alternate (3:48)
2. The March of the Villains (3:36)
3. The Terrace (1:34)
4. The Flying Sequence (8:13)
5. Lois and Clark (0:50)
6. Crime of the Century (3:23)
7. Sonic Greeting (2:21)
8. Misguided Missiles and Kryptonite (3:26)
9. Chasing Rockets (4:55)
10. Superfeats (4:52)
11. Super Dam and Finding Lois (5:11)
12. Turning Back The World (2:06)
13. Finale and End Title March (5:42)
14. Love Theme from Superman (5:05)
15. Can You Read My Mind - alternate (2:58)
16. Flying Sequence / Can You Read My Mind (Margot Kidder - vocals) (8:10)
17. Can You Read My Mind (instrumental) (2:56)
18. Theme from Superman (concert version) (4:24)

Released by: Rhino
Release date: 2000
Disc one total running time: 75:09
Disc two total running time: 73:30

Pete Yorn is one of the best songwriters I have ever heard; the 14 songs on his debut album musicforthemorningafter are some of the best-constructed pieces of music you’ll ever have the pleasure of listening to. Yorn combines a number of guitars, synths, drums and other instruments to create layers of sound supported by catchy melodies that are full of energy and feeling. The opening track (and first single) “Life On A Chain” starts with a crackling, sounds-like-it’s-being-played-on-a-turntable acoustic guitar intro, kicks in with the drums and the electric guitars 30 seconds in, then ups the tempo again with some nice bass work after another 30 seconds. The song’s complexity and tempo keep it charging forward, kept on track by the crisp percussion. Whenever I hear the song, I wish I could play an instrument, because I want to get in on the fun - as it is I just settle for attracting stares on the bus with my not-quite-in-tune air guitar and air drum playing.

“Life On A Chain” is the best song on the album - hell, it might be the best song of the year, although R.E.M.’s “The Lifting” would give it a run for the money - but this album is not a one-hit wonder. “For Nancy (’Cos It Already Is)”, “Murray” and “Closet” are very satisfying up-tempo rock/pop songs with many of the same strengths as “Life”. On slower tracks like “Just Another” and “Lose You” the music amplifies and echoes the pessimism and melancholy of Yorn’s lyrics. The guitars on “Sense” wrap around each other to create a palpable sense of yearning; Yorn’s downcast, almost-mumbling vocals are at their best on this song. “On Your Side” is a lush, serene song that uses strings, synths and acoustic guitar to create a dream-like effect; I may wake up before dawn some time soon because this is the kind of song that was made to be heard while watching a sunrise.

The lyrics on musicforthemorningafter are a bit incomprehensible - they’re fragments of meaning, the kind of poetry that would either occupy an advanced high school lit class for a week or have everyone throwing up their hands in frustration. Since the lyrics don’t convey a straightforward narrative or even a single clear emotional theme, the bits and pieces blend in with the music, which creates a satisfying listening experience that also lets the listener project specific meanings onto the songs. Yorn also constructs the lyrics in such a way that key phrases are repeated throughout the song, with a word or two changed at the end to suggest a shift in perspective or meaning. It’s an effective technique, and one that makes the lyric sheet worth reading.

musicforthemorningafter ranks with R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People, dada’s Puzzle and Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend as a top-notch modern rock album that’s well worth a listen, or five, or more…

1. Life on a Chain (3:45)
2. Strange Condition (3:57)
3. Just Another (3:14)
4. Black (4:11)
5. Lose You (4:35)
6. For Nancy (’Cos It Already Is) (3:30)
7. Murray (3:45)
8. June (2:34)
9. Sense (3:53)
10. Closet (3:03)
11. On Your Side (5:02)
12. Sleep Better (4:28)
13. EZ (4:41)
14. Simonize (2:54)

Released by: Sony
Release date: 2001

A little bit more manic than Blue Turtles, this album begat the singles “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” and “Fields Of Gold”, but the fun doesn’t stop there. In fact, there are songs which are vastly superior to those singles, my favorites of which are “Heavy Cloud, No Rain” (possibly the closest Sting has ever come to returning to the jazz style heard on Turtles) and the starkly somber “Shape Of My Heart”. I strongly advise those who really liked Turtles to give this one a listen.

1. If I Ever Lose My Faith In You (4:25)
2. Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven) (5:09)
3. Fields Of Gold (5:40)
4. Heavy Cloud, No Rain (5:46)
5. She’s Too Good For Me (2:30)
6. Seven Days (4:39)
7. Saint Augustine In Hell (5:17)
8. It’s Probably Me (5:08)
9. Shape Of My Heart (4:38)
10. Something The Boy Said (5:28)
11. Epilogue: Nothin’ ‘Bout Me (3:41)

Released by: A&M
Release date: 1993
Total running time: 52:21

When is a Doctor Who soundtrack not a Doctor Who soundtrack? When it’s a tiny portion of a collected works CD by an artist renowned for work other than his three scores for the Time Lord’s 1970s adventures.

British composer Carey Blyton’s best-known television work may, in fact, be what your toddlers were humming about four or five years ago, for it was Mr. Blyton who was responsible for the theme song to Bananas In Pajamas. But before you dismiss him as a man who created music for a couple of elongated fruit whose primary pastimes included chasing teddy bears, know that Carey Blyton also created music for Silurians, Daleks and Cybermen!

Blyton’s style of composition is suited to small ensembles, and he very much favored saxophones and clarinets in his arrangements. His music for 1970’s terrifying Doctor Who And The Silurians used kazoo-like sounds to signify the otherworldliness of the titular bipedal reptiles, and at times his music for Death To The Daleks is almost amusing and, in places, soothing - though the Gregorian-inspired Exxilon chants lose a little something when played by a quartet of saxes, rather than the original interpretation belted out gutturally by male vocalists. Blyton’s treatment of 1975’s Revenge Of The Cybermen is a little more generic. Silurians stands out as the most memorable of Blyton’s three Doctor Who scores, with nice themes established for the Brigadier and UNIT, as well as the Silurians themselves. That score is also perhaps the one most enthusiastically played. Blyton’s work on a never-completed animated Sherlock Holmes television series is also represented here for the first time in recorded form.

Though not officially a Doctor Who soundtrack album, Carey Blyton’s collection earns its slot on my shelf by virtue of being the only place any of this music can be heard. As with most of the early 1970s stories, Blyton’s original sessions tapes are lost forever, and we’re lucky to have any new recording at all, even if in some cases the sound is vastly different from the original arrangements. There’s a certain charm to hearing them this way - stripped down to bare bones, the music still stands on its own. How much television music can make the same claim today?

Sherlock Holmes Suite:
1. March: The Game’s Afoot! (0:43)
2. Baker Street Conversation (2:20)
3. Porky Johnson and the Baker Street Irregulars (0:58)
4. Scenes from Holmes’ London (2:14)
5. Professional Colleages (2:21)
6. Professor Moriarty - “The Napoleon of Crime” (1:06)
7. Finale - Victoria Triumphans! (1:11)
   Pasticheries:
8. The Return of Bulgy Gogo (1:21)
9. The Velvet Gentleman (2:19)
10. Up The Farington Road! (2:01)
11. Sweet & Sour Rag (3:42)
12. Hark! The Merry Gentlemen (3:06)
13. Eilgut-Galope (2:22)
    The Silurian Suite:
14. In The Caves (2:01)
15. A Close Encounter (1:11)
16. March: The Brigadier (2:03)
    The Vogan Suite:
17. Deep Space (1:29)
18. Vogan March (1:50)
19. “All’s Well…That Ends Well!” (0:54)
    The Dalek Suite:
20. A Desolate Landscape (1:41)
21. Chants & Variants (4:05)
22. Dalek “March” and Retreat (1:31)<
    
    Six Epigrams:
23. Idyll (1:29)
24. March (0:53)
25. Blues (1:31)
26. Scherzo (0:52)
27. Homage to Czerny (1:23)
28. Echoes (0:57)
29. In Memoriam: Scott Fitzgerald (2:24)
30. Mock Joplin (2:08)
31. Saxe Blue (3:02)
32. Captain Bowsprit’s Blues (2:17)

Released by: UpBeat Classics
Release date: 1998
Total running time: 61:31