Xenomusic - Jerry Goldsmith's Alien 

Same music as TNG

Indeed he was a genius. Only now getting the recognition he deserved.

Loved that Soundtrack so much.

interesting coincidence that james horner ended up doing aliens and the wrath of khan

@@davidcunningham9282 yes it is...loved his scores as well. Did he also do "Battle Beyond the Stars"? I loved that soundtrack.

I see absolutely no influence by Holst. #JohnStevenLasher.

His scariest? For me, that was the Omen. Brilliant soundtrack

No, its influenced by Stravinsky's right of spring and firebird moreso with Ligeti/Penderecki for the soundfield parts

Same ❤

Thankfully, it's on the Alien Blu-ray as an alternate audio track. Funny how what they used for Ash's reveal in the final film was actually intended for Brett looking for Jones the cat.

mark griffiths so did you notice that some of the score had been cut from the film and if so, were you annoyed?

OK. I am too curious now. Why would you buy a movie soundtrack back in the late 70's before you could hear samples of it on the Internet like we do now?

​@@coltseavers6298Back then film soundtrack LP's and cassettes often were released a few weeks before the film. At least this was the case here in Ireland (and I assume Britain). Major films were first released in one region and then (once publicity and film prints were prepared) in other regions. There could be several months between the various release dates.

Howard Hansens Symphony No.2 is simply sublime and so very uplifting.Such a great finale to express relief that the Alien is finally gone and Ripley has survived.Gerry Goldsmiths music throughout the movie is so atmospheric and pivotal as well.Such an amazing score.

Dirka dirka! Islamic jihad!

@@oaktree2406 bakala

I owned that Meco "Star Wars" album when I was a little kid..it came out a year or so after the movie (yeah, I'm that old, lol) but I don't ever remember the Alien one... I had the Star Wars Christmas album too, that was a riot (I had that "Wookiee" song on a freakin' 45 single (!)

Well, that's your opinion about the final cut, which I do not share.

Totally agree.

Couldn’t have put it better myself mate 👍👊

Thank heavens you didn't work on this film. Had you done so it would have been a mess.

Buckarooz i NEVER get tired of this movie!

Ridley felt that Goldsmith's original score was a bit too much, and lacked the ominous subtlety he was going for. Scott and Goldsmith came from two different points of view: Goldsmith felt his job was to project the emotion of a scene through music, while Scott felt that the emotion of the scene was created through the visuals and the music should reflect the mood, atmosphere, and visual themes that he was creating.

I think they got it right. Music helps the story telling of a scene that needs emotional direction. That scene did not need emotional direction. The audience is already on edge. it plays perfectly as ripley is naturally hyper reactive , but to an inert dead creature. Ripley screams, but no music hints that this emotion is flat to the creature being inert. reflecting the scene perfectly.

As an 'interesting aside' Jimmy Shields who did the amazing work as A L I E N's sound designer is the brother of Kevin Shields, the sonic architect from My Bloody Valentine

PJ B Kubrick had an ego too big to fit into the known universe.

Louella Wilson I've been thinking about a number of things relating to the music, and going back to the beginning of this vid Tippitiwhychett basically states that both Ridley Scott, and Terry Rawlings had no idea what they were doing, simply because Scott had been making mostly commercials, had only one major film to his credits (The Duelist), and while Terry Rawlings had been around a long time, this was only his 3rd film as an editor. But Jerry Goldsmith, well he was an old hand, composing music for decades. I find that rather patronising to be honest; the composers jobs isn't to insert his vision, musically, onto a film, yes he can compose music and see how it's received and whether or not he's on the same wavelength as the film maker. Clearly Ridley Scott (and Terry Rawlings was in agreement with him) had a particular vision as to how he wanted the music to sound, and I think he and Rawlings showed their appreciation by actually picking temp music (apart from Howard Hanson and WA Mozart in 2 places) which was actually composed by Goldsmith. So, after listening to Goldsmith's remarks about how disappointed he was that his music wasn't used, or was used in places he'd never intended it to be in, I rather come to the conclusion that, well, he didn't give Scott what he wanted, Ok, he wrote great music, I actually like his original music for this film, but, I actually like the music that both Scott and Rawlings picked, it gave the film the pace and feel they both wanted, so I think Goldsmith could have just said, Ok, well I'll rewrite that bit and give you something more along the lines of what you want (although he actually says he rewrote the opening sequence to give Ridley what he wanted, but didn't like it all that much). So I think there's somewhat a clash of egos going on there.

You have to wonder if Fox was just really bad at scheduling back in the day. They famously set a release date for Alien 3 before they had a finished script, and Aliens had a similarly hectic soundtrack process with a lot of re-tracking in the edit, much like Alien. Regarding that Alex North story, similar things definitely did happen to Jerry Goldsmith, although I think Jerry got a heads up. The biggest are probably his unused scores for Timeline (which was insane) and Poltergeist 3 (which he essentially got to re-use for The Haunting, so it worked out in the end I guess). Poltergeist without Jerry Goldsmith just didn't work well at all, with the third film having the mood of a bad Nightmare on Elm Street movie, and The Haunting soundtrack is one of my favourites of his.

There's another video on RU-vid, an interview with Jerry Goldsmith, and I have to agree with you, he comes off as very arrogant, he seems to think that his music should be used as is because he wrote it specifically for the film, Ridley's vision didn't matter. And he states that in the movie, specifically noting the opening and closing credit scenes, which Ridley replaced because he wanted, the opening in particular, to be much creepier and foreboding. I do like Goldsmiths original attempt, its very, nice, Alien isn't a nice film, so I personally thought that the opening track is now much better, creepier, and foreboding. The closing track, I'm not entirely sure why they went with classical music, but anyway the classical track does fit quite nicely. So yeah, Goldsmith seems to think he's in the right about his interpretation, and Ridley should have kept the tracks he'd written where he'd originally intended, but I quite enjoyed the movie in the way it had been put together, I don't think he has anything really to complain about.

+John Appleseed This is great stuff! Might be worth doing a follow up video on this. I'll admit I'm nowhere near as informed on classical as I should be. If you can tell me what pieces to look at, that'd be amazingly helpful! Glad you enjoyed the video!

Hope you ll make the videos about Aliens and Horner's music as well as Goldenthal's interesting soundtrack for the third movie. I m not musically educated but I know many things regarding classical music and movie score... If you are willing, I can help you with the future Alien music projects :)

He could also check Edgard Varèse ( Amériques AND Arcana). Einojuhani Rautavaara - esspecialy his composition Angels and Visitations released in 1978 which is QUITE reminiscent to Alien soundtrack! Giacinto Scelsi also comes to mind. His Quattro Pezzi, Anahit, Aion ,Chukrum and Hurqualia are straight from Alien universe. Very strange and unsetteling melodies. I have more references somewhere in my PC, but I need to find them :)

Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question. Trumpet parts!

And I say you are so dead wrong. Sorry but Ridley made the right choice. Just this video alone proves it when he puts the original score in, it just DOES NOT WORK with the film. Sorry but you and Goldsmith are so very wrong. I can't even imagine watching Alien without it being the way it was originally shown.

The excerpts from Freud are laughably over the top, whereas Goldsmith's original cues are far more tense and subdued.

"Laughable"? Not sure if there is anything funny in that score. Though after watching the film numerous times since the age of 11, its impossible for me to divorce the music from the scenes/images. I couldn't accept it any other way now.

I'm a great admirer of Goldsmith, but I'm not sure at times who was right and who was mistaken about the use of his music in 'Alien'. At least in terms of what was most effective from moment to moment in the film. So I accept either point of view (Scott/Rawlings vs Goldsmith). Goldsmith's original score might make more sense throughout the movie, but I see the argument that some of the changes are highly effective when watching the movie.

43nostromo I love his score in Patton. That one was very evocative in places.