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Launched in 2004 to an audience eager for even more Stargate adventures, Stargate Atlantis chronicles the adventures of a multi-national team of explorers from Earth who take up residence in a remarkably well-preserved oceanic city left behind the stargate-building race known only as the Ancients, finding themselves under attack from the same villains who drove the Ancients from that city millennia ago. With a cast of brand new characters (and one or two holdovers from SG-1), and numerous holdovers on the behind-the-scenes side of things, Atlantis proved to be a ratings success for the Sci-Fi Channel.

One of the creative personnel doing double duty on both shows every week is Joel Goldsmith, who has been the primary composer for SG-1 since its premiere. With Stargate Atlantis, Goldsmith finally gets to spread his wings and fly - more specifically, fly away from the themes and tone established by David Arnold in the original theatrical version of Stargate ten years ago. The adventure and the bombast are still there, but Goldsmith is no longer beholden to using Arnold’s music as a motif. Nowhere is this as evident as it is with the Emmy-nominated main title, easily the most gorgeous orchestral theme tune to hit TV since Goldsmith’s father Jerry took the podium to conduct the Star Trek: Voyager theme. The Atlantis theme is absolutely thrilling, soaring and heroic stuff with a choral middle section to die for (despite the fact that it seems to be a slight musical homage to the main theme from Star Blazers / Space Battleship Yamato). Why this theme lost the Emmy to Danny Elfman’s Desperate Housewives theme is probably just down to the name “Danny Elfman” - Atlantis has one of the best TV themes of recent years, hands-down. (Sci-Fi Channel, naturally, showed their appreciation by cutting it down to ten seconds for the first half of season two, ostensibly to sell more commercial time.)

The rest of the CD - containing cues from the score to the two-hour pilot episode The Rising - has music in a similarly sumptuous vein. Not all of it is necessarily full orchestral treatment though - “Messages”, covering a montage in which the various crew members say their goodbyes to their loved ones, is low-key and piano-driven (and still sneaks the main theme in there as a motif). And you can even hear a nod to David Arnold as the Stargate/SG-1 theme plays briefly during “Atlantis Wakes”.

If you’re looking for action cues, you’re in luck - “Rogue Drone” and “Dart Battle” should keep you very happy. And those with leanings toward horror movie music, just about any track with the word “Wraith” in the title is your ticket. In the end, I really find myself skipping only one track - “Tayla’s Village”, which gives the relatively primitive setting of that locale a very typical mixture of light tribal percussion and Celtic instrumentation that just doesn’t seem to fit what’s supposed to be an alien culture.

Overall, the Stargate Atlantis soundtrack will be a big hit with fans of the show, though I can give it a hearty thumbs-up for anyone who’s missing a bit of the old orchestral bombast in their SF TV scoring.

1. Main Title (1:04)
2. Atlantis Takes Flight (1:41)
3. Rogue Drone (2:29)
4. Messages (2:29)
5. Weir Speaks (2:28)
6. Gate To Atlantis (2:28)
7. Atlantis Wakes (3:32)
8. Tayla’s Village (1:13)
9. Wraith Abductions (3:19)
10. The Hologram (2:15)
11. The Rising (3:41)
12. Wraith Lair (5:20)
13. Dart Battle (3:29)
14. The Rescue (2:35)
15. O’Neill Inbound (1:24)
16. Our New Home, Atlantis (2:01)

Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 42:11

A quintessentially British film of a quintessentially British story, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy gets - for the most part - a surprisingly traditional orchestral treatment from a composer who has been involved with other quintessentially British projects. Joby Talbot, who provided the music for the TV series The League Of Gentlemen (as well as for the League’s big-screen debut), had a lot of masters to serve when creating the music for Hitchhiker’s Guide, and did his best to please them all.

Hitchhiker’s Guide actually has quite a rich musical history, from the use of existing works in the original BBC Radio series to the completely original, largely electronic music composed by Paddy Kingsland of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop for the short-lived TV series. Talbot manage to strike a balance between these and a more traditional SF-a-la-Hollywood approach nicely; the long legacy of Hitchhiker’s Guide is acknowledged by a nice new rendition of the Eagles’ “Journey Of The Sorcerer”, which has been the de facto theme song of the Guide since its first radio performance in 1978. For those segments of the movie which show entries from the Guide itself, Talbot is ably assisted by Nigel Godrich (who produced Radiohead’s OK Computer and worked on Jason Falkner’s Can You Still Feel?) in creating almost-retro synthesized cues that emphasize the animation and inject a bit of “Don’t Panic” levity into the proceedings.

One of the things that struck me so vividly upon first seeing the movie was the big, boisterous, movie-musical-style opening song “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish”. Even without the dolphin visuals, it’s a striking way to open the movie, and quite frankly, it does an incredible job of straddling the line between what one would usually expect from a musical showpiece and offering a musical prelude to the end of the Earth. Its opening measures are jaunty and deceptively cheerful in doom-laden minor keys, a brilliant piece of musical storytelling (and misdirection). That tune recurs throughout the score.

One of the hardest things to judge about a movie score is whether or not it works away from the movie. It can still be great music, and film music isn’t always necessarily designed to be heard away from its accompanying visuals, but sometimes a score comes along that doesn’t make for the most satisfying stand-alone listening material. Hitchhiker’s, ultimately, falls into that latter category. There are several cues that make one sit up and take notice, but they’re the punctuation at the end of what sometimes amounts to fairly long musical sentences. I don’t ask that every soundtrack album out there should be wall-to-wall action cues, either. But some stretches of Hitchhiker’s Guide mean that this isn’t a soundtrack that stands up to all-in-one-sitting listening.

That said, there is some good stuff on here. Bringing up the rear as the last track is a real surprise, a remake of the original “Marvin” single “Reasons To Be Miserable”. Written by Douglas Adams himself (and originally performed circa 1980 by Stephen Moore), this is a more modern remake told in the third person by the new voice of the Guide, Stephen Fry. While I still prefer the original to this version, the fact that the song is even here is just another indication that the folks behind Hitchhiker’s Guide really did look back on the story’s origins with reverence. This soundtrack is a worthy addition to the canon.

1. The Dolphins (1:00)
2. So Long And Thanks For All The Fish (2:26)
3. Arthur Wakes Up (2:53)
4. Shoo-Rah! Shoo-Rah! performed by Betty Wright (2:51)
5. Here I Am (Come And Take Me) performed by Al Green (4:13)
6. Destruction Of Earth (1:31)
7. Journey Of The Sorcerer (1:15)
8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (1:14)
9. Inside The Vogon Ship (2:46)
10. Vogon Poetry (0:48)
11. Space (1:00)
12. Vogon Command Centre (1:00)
13. Trillian & Arthur Reunited (1:45)
14. Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster (1:40)
15. Tea In Space (1:08)
16. Deep Thought (2:06)
17. Infinite Improbability Drive (0:55)
18. Viltvodle Street Music (0:45)
19. Huma’s Hymn performed by Gabriel Crouch (1:02)
20. Capture Of Trillian (4:27)
21. Vogcity (1:02)
22. Love (1:44)
23. The Whale (1:53)
24. Planet Factory Tour (2:29)
25. Earth Mark II (6:29)
26. Magic Moments performed by Perry Como (2:37)
27. Shootout (3:23)
28. Finale (1:50)
29. Blast Off (0:16)
30. So Long And Thanks For All The Fish (Reprise) (2:54)
31. Careless Talk (1:42)
32. Vote Beeblebrox (3:27)
33. Reasons To Be Miserable performed by Stephen Fry (3:37)

Released by: Hollywood Records
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 70:08

Anyone seeking to understand how much music contributes to the tone and identity of a show need look no further than Greg Edmonson’s scores for Firefly. It may be hard to find words that express “Western in space with a society that’s a fusion of America and China,” but Edmonson’s music mixes those elements together into an organic whole.

The album is made up of relatively short tracks many of which appear to have been formed by connecting shorter cues from different episodes. The editing works surprisingly well, although I can’t help but wish that some of these pieces could have been reworked into extended suites of some kind. The opening minute of “Big Bar Fight” a wonderfully energetic bluegrass tune, and I would love to hear how Edmonson would have developed the theme over a longer period of time. The acoustic instrumentation is something I can’t recall being used so heavily in a science fiction show. Some of the most emotionally-stirring music on the album heavily features Edmonson and Alan Steinberger on piano. “The Funeral”, which I am reasonably sure was composed for the final episode produced for the series, is as heartbreaking as the title suggests. Cues from Out Of Gas, which featured an almost-abandoned Serenity, are just as strong. The latter half of the album’s closing track, “Dying Ship/Naked Mal”, shows off how the music contributed to the show’s occasional sense of whimsy.

The Eastern feel comes through very strongly in the darker, tension-building cues. I especially like how these elements are combined with traditional Western genre elements in the “Heart of Gold Montage” to give a unique feel to traditional waiting-for-the-big-shootout music. I admit that this sort of reaction raises the possibility that I’m treating the Eastern elements as a piece of alien-ness thrown onto familiar sounds, which has certain unpleasant implications for how I view a culture that, while foreign to me, is clearly human. But I think that what’s important is that the combination produces something that is unique and distinctive. Someone with more expertise in Eastern music could tell you how well Edmonson truly integrated these disparate influences, but to my ears it sounds good.

1. Firefly - Main Title (written by Joss Whedon, performed by Sonny Rhodes) (0:51)
2. Big Bar Fight (1:54)
3. Heart of Gold Montage (2:09)
4. Whitefall/Book (2:16)
5. Early Takes Serenity (2:34)
6. The Funeral (2:33)
7. River’s Perception/Saffron (2:14)
8. Mal Fights Niska/Back Home (1:52)
9. River Tricks Early (3:28)
10. River Understands Simon (2:03)
11. Leaving/Caper/Spaceball (2:37)
12. River’s Afriad/Niska/Torture (3:19)
13. In My Bunk/Jayne’s Statue/Boom (2:26)
14. Inara’s Suite (3:27)
15. Out of Gas/Empty Derelict (1:48)
16. Book’s Hair/Ready for Battle (1:57)
17. Tears/River’s Eyes (1:56)
18. Cows/New Dress/My Crew (2:10)
19. Boarding the Serenity/Derelict (2:00)
20. Burgess Kills/Captain & Ship (comp. by G. Edmonson & Alan Steinberger) (3:24)
21. Saved/Isn’t Home/Reavers (2:53)
22. Reavers Chase Serenity (3:20)
23. River’s Dance (1:48)
24. Inside the Tam House (composed by G. Edmonson & Alan Steinberger) (2:19)
25. Dying Ship/Naked Mal (2:10)

Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 60:28

Twenty-seven years after his first Star Wars-themed album, Music Inspired By Star Wars And Other Galactic Funk, Meco Monardo returns in time for the release of the final Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith. This album of (mostly) new material, Star Wars Party, has a very different feel to Meco’s Star Wars work of old.

Rather than go the direct disco route, the covers on Star Wars Party see Meco stretching into wildly differing directions. “I Am Your Father” is a trance-like dance track. “Star Wars Love Themes” melds cues from both trilogies into an odd march-like affair. “New Star Wars” is basically Meco’s modern take on a dance version of the main Star Wars theme, with lots of samples. “The Empire Strikes Back” is not really a new track, but a remix of the 1980 original that basically adds new sound effects to the mix. (I question the wisdom of including this track, since it basically outclasses the new covers completely.) “You Are Reckless” is a rambling hodge-podge of Star Wars music overdubbed with Yoda dialogue. “Lapti Nek” is certainly the best of the new crop; a decent rendition of the now redundant Max Rebo track, with solid use of dialogue sampling that doesn’t distract from the song.

The original tracks “Star Wars Party”, “Jedi Knight” and “Live Your Life” are lightweight fluff pieces that can’t stand up alongside even the questionable quality of the covers. The lyrics are absolutely atrocious (and not in a good way) and while the music is not horrible, neither is it memorable.

But the biggest problem with Star Wars Party isn’t Meco’s unusual musical choices or his lousy lyrics and simplistic original music, it’s his reliance on dialogue clips. While his choice of dialogue is fine and how he chooses to use it within a song is usually spot on, the problem is that only about a third of the clips are authentic (or at least close enough not to matter). It’s jarring hearing unknown voices speaking such classic lines (and then to hear them sampled over and over again). The worst are the people speaking Han and Leia’s lines in “Star Wars Love Themes” and the grating fake Yoda sprinkled throughout the CD. To make matters worse, there will often be authentic dialogue right next to these poor imitations, making the failure more glaring than it otherwise might be. If Meco wanted all these voice samples, he should have gotten clearance to use only original dialogue or given up on the idea.

But just when it seems that Star Wars Party will inevitably wind up filed somewhere between useless and unnecessary, we come to the final track on the disc, “Boogie Wookie”. Silly as its title may sound, it’s a lush disco dance track that is as close to the perfection Meco achieved on the original Galactic Funk album as Star Wars Party gets. With a generous sprinkling of Wookie dialogue throughout and no real lyrics to speak of, Meco falls into none of the traps that damage the other tracks. I won’t go so far as to say that “Boogie Wookie” is good enough to make me recommend this disc, but I found it good enough to justify the purchase to myself, at least.

Star Wars Party doesn’t live up to the legacy of Meco’s classic work from the golden age of Star Wars, but it isn’t a complete disaster. The remix of “Empire” is pretty good (but expendable) and “Boogie Wookie” and the “Lapti Nek” cover deserve attention. The other tracks have little value (and what value they have is mostly destroyed by the awful voice sampling). Ultimately, your enjoyment of Star Wars Party will likely be determined by how far three good tracks can take you.

Note: Star Wars Party was simultaneously released under the alternate title Music Inspired By Star Wars. Both are available for purchase, but Star Wars Party is only available from Amazon.com and CDbaby.com. All other online retailers and brick and mortar stores sell only Music Inspired by Star Wars.

1. I Am Your Father (3:07)
2. Star Wars Party (3:10)
3. Star Wars Love Themes (4:00)
4. New Star Wars (3:07)
5. The Empire Strikes Back (3:30)
6. You Are Reckless (3:05)
7. Jedi Knight (4:03)
8. Lapti Nek (3:23)
9. Live Your Life (3:18)
10. Boogie Wookie (6:24)

Released by: Mecoman Productions
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 37:43