| Aliens: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Soundtrack album by | ||||
| Released | October 25, 1987 | |||
| Studio | Abbey Road Studios, London, UK | |||
| Genre | Soundtrack | |||
| Length | 39:57 | |||
| Label | Varèse Sarabande | |||
| Producer | James Horner | |||
| Alien soundtrack chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Alternative cover | ||||
 Cover of theDeluxe Edition | ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    [1] |
| Filmtracks | (Original)[2] |
| Filmtracks | (Deluxe)[2] |
| MovieMusicUK | (Deluxe)[3] |
Aliens: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album for the 1986James Cameron filmAliens. The score was composed and conducted byJames Horner, performed by theLondon Symphony Orchestra and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London.[4]
The film was the first of Cameron and Horner's three collaborations, though they were already acquaintances from their time at Roger Corman's New World Studios in the early 80s, where both men had started their careers.
The production ofAliens fell behind schedule in post-production, leaving Horner less than two weeks to write the score to the finished film, rather than the six weeks he had initially been promised. The producers were unwilling to give him any more time, and he was booked to begin scoringThe Name of the Rose (1986) shortly afterwards.[5]Aliens was Horner and Cameron's first collaboration; Horner called it a "nightmare".[6]
Horner's schedule was so tight that the music for the climactic battle between Ripley and the queen was written overnight. Cameron first heard the score while it was being recorded by the orchestra and did not like it, but it was too late to make changes.Brad Fiedel's synth-inspired tracks forThe Terminator had allowed changes to be made quickly based on feedback, but Cameron had no experience managing orchestral music. Cameron cut the score up, using pieces where he believed they fit best, and inserted pieces ofJerry Goldsmith'sAlien score and hired unknown composers to fill gaps. Cameron said in a later interview he thought the music was good, but did not fit the scenes he had filmed.[7][8]
Horner's "aliensting" sound was initially used only once, during the scene with the cocooned woman, as Cameron disliked it, but he eventually used it throughout the film. Unused portions of Horner'sAliens score were repurposed forDie Hard (1988).[9][10][11]
Despite the lack of time, Cameron and producer Gale Ann Hurd requested frequent changes to the music and made last-minute changes to the film's edit, which forced Horner to re-write the music. The combination of a lack of time and constant changes resulted in a falling-out between Horner and Cameron, who did not work together again untilTitanic more than a decade later. Despite the difficulties during the score's production, it was nominated for anAcademy Award in 1986. The soundtrack album was released the following year, in 1987.[12]
The score features some of Horner's most complex and modernistic writing, making widespread use of dissonance, aleatoric and extended orchestral techniques and sound design. Horner also usedtape delays to create "echoes" on some separately-recorded orchestral parts, a techniqueJerry Goldsmith had used in the originalAlien score.
It also includes musical references to Gayane's Adagio fromAram Khachaturian'sGayane ballet suite, which had been used inStanley Kubrick's2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
℗ © 1986 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
The music forAliens has been widely used in other media - there were reportedly 24 different film trailers that used "Bishop's Countdown" alone. Some of movie trailers includeMisery (1990),Alien 3 (1992),Timecop (1994),From Dusk Til Dawn (1996),Broken Arrow (1996),Dante's Peak (1997),Lake Placid (1999),Minority Report (2002), andThe Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (2005).[13][14][15]
The first 90 seconds of "Resolution and Hyperspace" (which was replaced by a repeat of "Bishop's Countdown" in the finished film) was later tracked onto the ending ofDie Hard (1988).[16]
The music was also used in theHarry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (2002) parody byFrench and Saunders during theQuidditch match.
