Soundtrack Watch: La-La Land Rebuilds “Empire,” Gets Creepy and Kooky
Two heavy-hitters were announced for release from La-La Land Records this week, including a major expansion in the Spielberg-Williams canon worthy of the label’s 300th release.
First up, LLL has a single-disc expansion of Marc Shaiman’s score to the 1991 hit comedy The Addams Family. Based on Charles Addams’ iconic New Yorker cartoon strips, The Addams Family film features Gomez and Morticia (Raul Julia and Angelica Huston) and their brood welcoming the return of Gomez’s long-lost brother Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd). But is Fester really part of a plot by Gomez’s lawyer (Dan Hedaya) to embezzle the vast Addams family fortune? Shaiman, a composer/arranger who would earn international acclaim writing the Tony-winning score for a Broadway adaptation of John Waters’ Hairspray, turns in a delightfully macabre score that makes good use of Vic Mizzy’s iconic theme to the 1960s television series.
For their 300th release, La-La Land have returned to the Steven Spielberg-John Williams partnership that served them so well before with an expansion of Williams’ score to Empire of the Sun (1987). Based on J.G. Ballard’s autobiographical novel, Empire told the tale of Jim (Christian Bale), a wealthy British boy in Shanghai who ends up in an internment camp in Japan during World War II. As one of Spielberg’s first “serious movies,” and the first which Williams worked on with his longtime friend (Quincy Jones scored Spielberg’s 1985 drama The Color Purple), the score is an underrated triumph, alternately full of wonder and wartime bravado (choral-based piece “Exsultate Justi” remains a staple of Williams’ live conducting). It’s been greatly expanded for this two-disc set, featuring both the original film score and a half hour of unheard alternate cues.
Addams is limited to 3,000 copies, while Empire is 4,000 copies strong. Both can be previewed and ordered after the jump!
Marc Shaiman, The Addams Family: Music from the Motion Picture – Limited Edition (originally released as Capitol CDP 7 98172 2, 1991 – reissued La-La Land Records LLLCD 1291, 2014)
- Carol of the Bells * / The Fa-La-La Song ** / Deck the Halls **
- Main Title §
- Morning
- Chess *
- Tully’s Entrance * / For Fester *
- Séances and Swordfights **
- The Tully Crawl * / Gone with the Wind * / Tully & Fester *
- Bermuda Love * / Fester Snoops *
- Thing At Door *
- Playmates – The Kipper Kids
- Open & Enter Vault * / Fester Sees Gold * / Gold Gliss *
- The Mooche
- Take It Off * / Family Plotz
- Evening
- A Party…for Me?
- Pre-Mamushka Violin *
- Mamushka ** – Raul Julia & Christopher Lloyd
- Pugsley Platter * / Search * / Finding Wednesday *
- I Am That Fool! (Unused) *
- Fester Exposed
- Trio Bungled * / Pep Talk *
- Thing Gets to Work (Film Version) *
- The Rescue ** §
- Finale ** §
- Pre-Séance * / Séance Music *
- Playmates * (instrumental)
- Thing Gets to Work (LP Version)
- Addams Family Theatrical Trailer *
- Mamushka (Instrumental and Choir)
- Waltz Potpourri * (Themes Demo)
§ Contains The Addams Family theme by Vic Mizzy
* previously unreleased ** contains previously unreleased material
John Williams, Empire of The Sun: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Expanded Archival Collection(originally released as Warner Bros. 25688, 1987 – reissued La-La Land Records LLLCD 1300, 2014)
Disc 1: Film score
- Suo Gan (Extended Version) ** – The Ambrosian Junior Choir (Directed by John McCarthy; Soloist: James Rainbird)
- Home and Hearth **
- Trip Through the Crowd
- Imaginary Air Battle
- Japanese Infantry *
- Lost in the Crowd
- Alone At Home *
- The Empty Swimming Pool *
- The Streets of Shanghai
- The Plane
- Jim’s New Life
- The Pheasant Hunt
- The British Grenadiers
- Cadillac of the Skies
- Mrs. Victor and James *
- The Return to the City
- Seeing the Bomb **
- Bringing Them Back *
- Liberation: Exsultate Justi
- Suo Gân – The Ambrosian Junior Choir (Directed by John McCarthy; Soloist: James Rainbird)
- Exsultate Justi (Extended Version) **
Disc 2: Additional material
- Chopin: Mazurka, Op. 17 No. 4 (excerpt) *
- Imaginary Air Battle (Alternate) *
- Alone At Home (Alternate) *
- The Streets of Shanghai (Film Version Segment) *
- The Streets of Shanghai (Alternate Segment) *
- Chopin Again *
- The Plane (Alternate) *
- Cadillac of the Skies (Alternate) *
- The Return to the City (Alternate) *
- Exsultate Justi
* previously unreleased ** contains previously unreleased material
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Marc’s work on The Addams Family remains some of my favorite film score work; the original release found its way into my playlist quite often, and this new compilation is fantastic — love some of the previously lost (per se) incidental cues. (Hope they do a similar treatment to Addams Family Values some day.)