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About the Soundtrack

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Who wrote the soundtrack?

Most, but not all, of the score was written by a Greek man called Evangelos Odyssey Papathanassiou, better known to the world as, simply, "Vangelis" (the name Vangelis is a commonly used Greek first name, which literally means "Message from God").

 

More about the composer:

VangelisVangelis was born March 29, 1943, in Volos, Greece.

During the 1960's, together with Demis Roussos and Lucas Sideras, he formed the successful pop group "Aphrodite's Child", that had a number of hits including "Rain And Tears" and "It's Five O'Clock". Vangelis doubled as composer and keyboard player.

Demis Roussos, who was the group's singer, also performed the strange voice in the BR soundtrack "Tales of the future" featured on the 1994 soundtrack release, and in the Offworld & Gongo bootlegs.

In the early 70's the band broke up, and Vangelis started a solo career, becoming a pioneer in the field of electronic music in the process. His biggest success during the 70's was the groundbreaking album "Heaven & Hell", which would go on to provide the theme and part of the soundtrack of Carl Sagan's popular science TV-series "Cosmos".

Fans of the Blade Runner music might think Vangelis should have won the Oscar for it! Unfortunately this was one of many Oscars that Blade Runner didn't get. The Oscar for original musical score that year was won by John Williams for E.T. But let us not forget that Vangelis had just won the Oscar for his "Chariots of Fire" soundtrack when Blade Runner was released.

 

Other work by the composer:

Vangelis has produced a number of soundtracks for movies including:

  •  The Bounty (starring Mel Gibson & Anthony Hopkins)
  •  Antarctica (Japanese movie, big hit over there)
  •  Bitter Moon
  •  Francesco
  •  L'apocalypse des animaux (based on a series of nature films by French director Frédéric Rossif)
  •  1492: conquest of Paradise (also a Ridley Scott film)

Apart from his film scores, Vangelis has released a number of albums going back to the early seventies, sometimes in collaboration with singer Jon Anderson (of Yes fame), but mostly solo.

 

Why did it take so long for Vangelis to release his own original work for the movie?

At the time there were rumours that Vangelis was upset because Ridley Scott had also used music from sources other than Vangelis to use in the soundtrack, and that this was supposedly the reason why he didn't want to release his music. But, again, these are just rumours. According to people who work closely with Vangelis, the rumours have been refuted as untrue.

The truth is, nobody (except Vangelis perhaps) knows for sure why. Maybe there is no "why".

(Please see specific notes for this album in the next section.)

 

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