Heavy Metal: The Score (1981)

Buy This CD or Taarna Will Kick Your Ass

Composed by: Elmer Bernstein

Premiere CD release made possible through the courtesy of Rhino Entertainment Company, Elektra Entertainment Group, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Irving Azoff, the estate of Elmer Bernstein, the University of Southern California Cinema-Television Library, and the Loc Nar.

One of the great ironies of soundtrack collecting is that one of the most fantastic symphonic scores ever written is for a movie entitled “Heavy Metal.” The 1981 animated feature Heavy Metal (adapted from stories published in the magazine of the same name) was an adult-oriented anthology with copious amounts of sex and violence. Sporting a hit soundtrack of contemporary pop-rock songs (licensing of which delayed the film’s video release until 1996), the film also benefited from an extraordinary symphonic score by Elmer Bernstein which did the lion’s share of the musical storytelling. (Bernstein was, at the time, the regular composer for producer Ivan Reitman.)

To put it simply, Heavy Metal is Elmer Bernstein’s Star Wars—a rich, vital, thunderingly symphonic work bursting with melody and drive. The anthology nature of the film allowed Bernstein to write distinct melodies for the disparate segments: from the heroic anthem of “Den” to the moody film noir stylings of “Harry Canyon,” and, especially, the soaring chorus and ondes Martenot of “Taarna”—the latter adapting the composer’s rejected love theme from Saturn III (1980).

Heavy Metal: The Score has long been desired by soundtrack collectors. FSM releases not only the original LP but the complete score remastered from the composer’s personal 1/4” stereo tapes (in excellent sound quality). The cue are presented in chronological order, with bonus tracks of selections edited for the 1981 Asylum Records LP—meaning listeners can, if so inclined, program a recreation of the original album sequence.

Liner notes for this historical and long-anticipated CD are by Paul Andrew MacLean, drawing from interviews with Bernstein and including new comments from orchestrator David Spear, who adapted two of the cues from Bernstein’s thematic material. The package is beautifully illustrated with stills from the film.

Heavy Metal: The Score

Music Composed and Conducted by Elmer Bernstein

Performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
With London Voices
and Jeanne Loriod on the ondes Martenot

Beginning 1:16
Intro to Green Ball 1:18
Discovery/Transformation (Den and the Green Ball) 3:15
Den Makes Out (Den Makes It) 2:42
Castrate Him/Searching for Loc Nar 2:04
Queen for a Day (Den and the Queen) 2:54
Pursuit (Den’s Heroics) 2:51
Fiste 1:27
Getting Bombed 3:06
Green Ball 2:15
Dem Bones 2:44
No Alarm 0:58
Robot Love (Space Love) 1:32
Harry 1:35
The Next Morning 1:56
End of Baby 2:43
Council (Taarna Summoned) 2:49
The Flight to Temple (Flight) 2:16
The Sword (Taarna Prepares) 3:32
Flight to Holiday Town 2:20
Fighting 2:43
My Whips!/Taarna Escapes Pit 4:57
Finish (Taarna Forever) 3:34

Total Time: 57:47

Bonus Tracks

Den Makes Out (film version) 2:49
Bomber and the Green Ball (album edit) 4:35
Harry and the Girl (album edit) 3:41
Barbarians (album edit) 3:34

Total Time: 14:27

Total Disc Time: 72:40

Put me down for this baby Peter.

James

Listening to sound clips...nevermind. I understand. Wow. I'm going to go broke.

Finally, after all these years. Sigh.

I see it's up here too...

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Originally posted by Jeron:
Awesome awesome awesome. It's about damn time.

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I was going to use my meager funds to buy a special filter for my camera, but I NEED this CD more.

Plus, I snuck in an extra $25 to the bill for the photo job I did last week. The client will never know.

Pre-order.

Edit: Oh, but I can't until next week. What's the score PK? Will I be able to pre-order next week, say around Friday?

Just pre-ordered three, so that my brother Daniel and my buddy here can have one. Thanks, PK.

---- Mark

huh huh?

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Originally posted by Kevin:
How come I haven't got mine in the mail yet?

huh huh?

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I have the same problem. And to think that I thought about pre-ordering this one. Oh, the nerve of this Kelly Peters guy! Who is he to not mail our two copies?!

Let's face it anyway...its Bernstein!!!

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
BAM! Just ordered! Send it my way PK!

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I tell ya.... the service here. I probably should have ordered from BSX.

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Originally posted by Gae:
Ooh, just noticed underneath the "Heavy Metal" article over at FSM that they've also just released Gary McFarland's exquisite score to "Eye of the Devil"...lovely. Thank God its my Birthday soon!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kevin:

I tell ya.... the service here. I probably should have ordered from BSX.

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I'm so happy - I'm as giddy as a little schoolgirl!

I can't seem to locate your email address amongst my list of contacts on my current Yahoo! Mail. I just wanted to drop you a nice email because I recieved my copy of Heavy Metal today and I wanted to send you a great bit of thanks. So send me a blank email (or maybe one that says, "Poop", being that I always get a laugh out of those) so that I can forward the letter of appreciation I typed up for you.

-- Mark

But whoohooo! Glad to see the excitement.