Np: End of Days *****

Polydor released the original STAR WARS album, and they also put out the first 2-CD set of the SW soundtrack. Quality was quite good....

It was a double album, and it outsold every other soundtrack album in history.

Sound quality was good, depending on the quality of your needle and stereo system. Hopefully the shag carpeting didn't absorb too much of the audio field.

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Originally posted by John Zimmer:
Hello folks, I was wondering what were the very original releases to the Star Wars films. How is the sound quality, what is the length, and what is the availability now. Oh and what is the availability to the Star Wars Trilogy Anthology. Sorry to bombard you with all these questions but I need to know.

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It was released on cassette and 2-LP set, essentially complete (a few minutes missing). Good sound.

Should be VERY easy to buy used in either format, since it sold in the millions.

The Anthology (4-CD set) should also be easy to obtain via ebay or off a dusty store shelf. Sound is inferior to the Special Edition releases.

It was ordered in the standard way for 2 LP sets at the time, with sides 1 and 4 on the first platter, and 2 and 3 on the second, and it ran approximately 74 minutes.

It came in a black gatefold jacket that was black on the cover, with the Star Wars logo on it and in smaller print underneath, "Original Soundtrack Composed and Conducted by John Williams; Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra." The back cover had Darth Vader's helmet in a starfield. Opening the gatefold revealed a whole bunch of recognizable publicity photos on the inside and a page with Charles Lippincott's original liner notes.

The sound quality on the release was excellent for its time (now it seems a little bright).

Locating the original LP should not be hard... everybody had one.

This was rereleased on PolyGram when Fox became defunct, and that is who also had the cassette edition and original CD (which eliminated the liner notes).

The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980 by PolyGram Records, again a 2 LP set running approximately 79 minutes.

This also had the 1/4, 2/3 configuration.

The cover of the album had Darth Vader's face faded into a starfield with the logo of the film underneath it and a similar legend to the one on Star Wars. The back cover had the one-sheet poster for the film. Inside the gatefold was another series of publicity photos for the film, along with liner notes by John Williams himself, this time printed on the jacket itself.

This album is much rarer than the previous one.

The sound quality was even better than that on Star Wars, although the RCA edition beats it.

This album was subsequently released on cassette, and later on CD, but with almost half the music missing, and reordered in a nonsensical manner (the main title appears in the middle of the album).

Return of the Jedi was released in 1983, but the vinyl format was already beginning to die out, and the decision was made that this PolyGram release would be a single LP running about 46 minutes.

The front cover had the teaser sheet image, that of Luke's lightsaber held above his head. The "Return of the Jedi" logo appeared on this, and on the left of the lightsaber was printed "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" and to the right "Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams." The back cover had Artoo and Threepio on the road to Jabba's palace.

There were no notes for this album.

This album should be no more or less difficult to find than Empire.

This was released on cassette as well, and the later CD release was identical in program material.

The Fox Records Anthology box set on Arista presented the original Star Wars album for the most part intact, but with a few additions in the running order of the album itself and slightly restructured track order, along with a few extra cues on Disc 4. Empire was restored, again with additional tracks on disc 4, but the segues on the original album were dropped. This meant that there was one piece of music, "This Is Not A Cave," that was on the original album (closing out the main title cue) that didn't appear in the box set. Jedi was significantly expanded, again with additional cues on disc 4. The sound was exemplary all the way through.

The RCA Victor releases are as complete as any are bound to get, with almost every score cue heard in the films appearing here (the exceptions are minor; the retrackings of the Imperial March in Empire are not here, also the retracking over Jabba's theme closing out "Han Solo Returns" in Jedi; source music is a different matter, with most of Max Rebo's band music and the third cantina band cue not present either). The sound quality on the first two films is superior to any previous releases, while it is decidedly substandard for the last. There are alternate versions of the "Finale" from Empire and "Leia Breaks the News" from Jedi on the box set that don't appear on the RCA releases, and "Lapti Nek" and "Ewok Celebration" have been replaced with new music for the Special Edition versions of the films.

I don't know exactly what you needed to know, John, but here's as much information as I can rattle off without actually digging out the LPs themselves. Factual errors should be regarded as flaws in my memory, and anyone who notices any should please correct them.

We don't own a reel-to-reel player anymore, but when we borrowed one fairly recently we compared the Star Wars reel-to-reel against the original CD release and I was quite surprised to find that the reel-to-reel sounded much clearer and crisper.

The reel-to-reel came in a big black box that had the Star Wars logo on the cover, and IIRC it didn't say anything else. The extensive liner notes were included on that edition as well.

James, I don't mean to question you about your ear, but was the reel-to-reel better sounding than the LP? I would think that they would be pretty similar...