BLADE RUNNER (OST)

This is my 1000th review; I wished to spot an album personally dear to me (and, as always, preferably without a huge amount of preceding reviews) which I haven't yet reviewed in all these years. This soundtrack album is exactly such case. Vangelis has been one of my favourite artists since the early 90's. Speaking of film music in general, it's not a field I would actively listen to -- other than as the integral part of the movie experience itself, of course. My two favourite film composers are Vangelis and Ennio Morricone; their music have the ability to move me emotionally also without the film context. What makes this very album even more special to me is the fact that I love it much more than the Ridley Scott movie from 1982, no matter how legendary classic of the SciFi genre it is. Besides, the music heard in the movie is notably inferior compared to the album, which was finished over a decade later.

The music is seducingly sensual, indeed electronic music at its most elegant. The production is head and shoulders above the average of the time, and it still feels fresh, not outdated. Well, perhaps the saxophone in 'Love Theme' is a bit cheesy. The music on the album paints very vividly the dystopian world somewhere in the future, not to mention the emotional content of the film, especially what happens between Deckard, the hunter of "replicants", human-like androids, and Rachael, the woman who painfully learns to be an artefact with planted memories instead of human being. Vangelis has edited some of the film dialogue into the music. This feature is simply fantastic in the case of Blade Runner. I got shivers down my spine hearing Rachael's frail words to Deckard, or the famous dying monologue from Roy Batty, the leader of dangerous replicants, in 'Tears in Rain'. Apart from those film dialogues/monologues, the album features the voices of Mary Hopkin (the one who had a hit in 'Those Were the Days') and Demis Roussos, Vangelis' bandmate from Aphrodite's Child.

The tracks flow seamlessly in a beautiful manner. This is music to float in, to listen to in a certain mood, not as a meaningless background music. Hats off also to Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982) whose original novel to which Blade Runner is based on is titled "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968). It would be far-fetched to say this was a masterpiece of progressive rock, as it isn't progressive rock, but in my opinion it is a masterpiece of electronic music and film music. Five stars.