‘The Iron Giant’ Score Is Getting A Deluxe 2-LP Release

The late Michael Kamen’s The Iron Giant original score is getting a two-LP vinyl release from film and tv soundtrack production company Varèse Sarabande.

Here are the details:

• Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant is a Warner Bros. film based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by poet Ted Hughes. Despite bombing at the box office – the film grossed only $31.3 million worldwide – it has more than held up since its 1999 release and boasts a phenomenal 96% critic score and 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It was nominated for 15 Annie Awards, winning nine, and is widely regarded as a modern animated classic.
• Varèse Sarabande’s new two-LP package comes with a special jacket that has Giant’s die-cut eyes on the front. The character’s eyes look different depending on which sleeve has been slotted in the first position behind the cover.
• The film’s original score was composed by Michael Kamen and was one of his last major feature scores, though his first for an animated film. According to Varèse Sarabande, “Kamen’s gorgeous score is full of melody, humor, and sensitivity, grandly performed by the Czech Philharmonic. It scales as big as the threat of nuclear annihilation, and as intimate as the goodness that connects nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes to the alien machine—who decides he would rather be ‘Superman’ than a weapon.”
• Varèse Sarabande previously released The Iron Giant score as a 49-minute program in 1999. The new Deluxe Edition fills two records and includes a 64-minute score as well as 13 minutes of alternates, outtakes, and rare demos. Included among them is a piano-and-guitar attempt at an unfinished song titled Souls Don’t Die, based on Kamen’s theme. The cut is performed by Kamen and Eric Clapton.
• Arts and entertainment journalist Tim Greiving provided liner notes for the release, which feature interview material with Bird, music editor Christopher Brooks, and orchestrator Blake Neely. Their contributions touch on Kamen’s work process and their admiration for the late composer, who died in 2003.
• The LPs release date is August 5, though Varèse Sarabande’s website says the product is currently in stock and ready to ship. The set retails for $50.