Seven decades ago, the mighty Godzilla first rose from the sea to become one of Japanese film's most legendary characters. This summer, with interest in the character still at an all-time high, Universal Music Group's Japanese arm will reissue nearly two dozen classic soundtracks from the film series. UMG will newly remaster and repress on SHM-CD the scores to the 15 Shōwa-era Godzilla films released between 1954 and 1975, as well as the seven Heisei-era pictures which came out between 1984
Soundtrack reissue label Waxwork Records has a massive project rising from the sea in 2021: an 18LP box set collecting two decades' of scores from the Godzilla film series. Japanese studio Toho Pictures introduced the legendary kaiju - known natively as "Gojira" - in an acclaimed 1954 film of the same name. Released less than a decade after shocking nuclear attacks on the country during World War II, Godzilla played upon the anxiety around those weapons in the form of a massive, dinosaur-like