Over two years ago, I blogged about the Airwolf Themes album, the soundtrack CD that holds the record for the most expensive soundtrack album ever – and indeed regularly breaks it’s own record whenever a copy comes up on eBay.
I said back then that as the only soundtrack album related to the series, indeed the only recording of the theme actually conducted by the original composer, Sylvester Levay, it deserved a wider distribution. The people making money off the soar-away prices on eBay weren’t the original producers of the album, and with the crazy prices copies of the music were available on the file sharing networks however much the producers tried to get them removed.
When you went to the Airwolf Themes site the most commonly asked question on the forums seemed to be whether there would ever be a re-release of the album.
Eventually last year, Mark J Cairns, the person behind the album relented and started taking opinions about a release online. After multiple delays, today the album finally appeared on iTunes, at a cost of £15.99 – somewhat less than the cost of an original CD.
The majority of the tracks are Mark’s recreations of the original episode soundtracks and some of the variations of the themes, all done on synths. However the real stand out tracks from my point of view are the last three, which are a new arrangement of the main theme, and two medleys conducted by Sylvester Levay himself, along with a full orchestra, streaks ahead of any of the other arrangements of the theme that are available. One point to note when listening to the music that is worth mentioning is that if you’re only ever used to seeing the show on reruns in the UK, the tempo of the main theme especially will seem a bit slow, this is what it is supposed to be, but thanks to the conversion process that the episodes go through to be shown in the UK, we’re all used to hearing it slightly differently!
You can read more about how the original Airwolf Themes project came about here.
