Death Waltz / Mondo (2021)
When Waxwork put our their Showa box set of Godzilla soundtracks in 2021, I had barely finished opening the mailing box before I started thinking about what they could do with a Heisei era box set. Unfortunately, that was not to be as Mondo imprint Death Waltz stepped in instead. I would have preferred the consistency of Waxwork doing it, but I figured that Mondo does really nice work, so even though these will end up being more expensive in the long run, they'll still be nice.
My plan was to write about these in order of movie release date, so when Mondo started releasing the soundtracks out of order, mixing Millennium series with Heisei series, I figured I'd just have to wait a bit. Well, here we are well over a year since the last Godzilla soundtrack was released. Mondo never put one out for 1989's Godzilla vs. Biollante or 2004's Godzilla Final Wars.
I think it's incredibly lame that they never completed either series and I wonder if it had anything to do with the shake up a few years back where the founders of Mondo were forced out of the company by parent company Funko. A dumb situation that reeks of the sort of corporate nonsense that drives me up the wall.
Regardless, I have already waited way to long to write about these Godzilla LPs and I'm ready to finally start filing them away in my collection. So on Fridays for the next few months, I'll be writing about some Godzilla soundtracks. Starting with the soundtrack to Godzilla's return in the 80's, appropriately called The Return of Godzilla. At least in Japan, in America is was released as Godzilla 1985 and had scenes inserted of Raymond Burr posing and Dr. Pepper product placement. The first time I saw Godzilla 1985 was whenever the first airing of it happened on TV. I remember I was at my dad's house and it was shown during primetime, unlike the usual Saturday or Sunday afternoon showings that I was used to on channel 9 or 11. I also remember a lot of Dr. Pepper commercials, including at least one that had Godzilla in it.
The movie itself seemed very fancy and flashy to me as technology in movies had certainly evolved since the last time Godzilla was stomping around Tokyo. It never felt connected to those earlier movies to me back then (which in fairness, storyline-wise it wasn't), but as I've gotten older I hold a similar nostalgia for it as I do the Showa series ones. But I'm burying the lead about the movie, and about the soundtrack; The Return of Godzilla is kind of boring.
Composed by Reijiro Koroku, the film's score is mostly dark, very brooding and only offers brief moments of respite from that dourness. The Super X fight at the end is a notable exception as it has a fairly upbeat and triumphant military motif, but a lot of the soundtrack is just a downer. The movie is kind of the same way. There's some good building smashing action, but it's done in such a heavy handed, trying to be serious manner that it zaps some of the fun out of things. Don't get me wrong, I like the movie and the soundtrack at the end of the day, but I definitely rank them lower when compared to most Godzilla movies and scores.
The LP that Mondo has given us is good, for the most part. I can't say I love the art on the cover. While I like the idea, the execution doesn't do much for me. Godzilla just looks weird. There is a very cool pop-up Godziulla built into the center of the gatefold, but of everything Mondo bothered to actually release, this is the artwork I probably like the least.
This write up is probably way longer than most of the others will be as I had to set the stage a bit. Next up on the Godzilla filmography is Godzilla vs. Biollante. But again, Mondo never released that soundtrack so I'm going to have to skip it and go right to the movie after that next Friday. I just hope someone, anyone (hey Waxwork!) releases the Biollante soundtrack on vinyl someday. It's a glaring hole in the collection and really frustrates me.
The Return Of Godzilla Soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp7o1q38PjxHybeS3MHxg8uX7Wcdzyp3X
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