Culture
The Story Behind Blade Runner's Soundtrack Will Amaze You
As if you needed another reason to love this masterpiece of sci-fi cinema.
35 years after its debut, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner still stands as one of the crowning achievements of modern film. The film’s depiction of 2019 Los Angeles still fascinates us with its mixture of philosophy-laced futurism and neo-noirish cinematic ingenuity. But how different things could have been were it not for Vangelis‘ incredible soundtrack. The composer and his Yamaha CS-80 played a fundamental role in creating the haunting and cosmic aural atmosphere of Blade Runner . Rightly, the synthesist’s soundtrack is a classic suite of music in its own right.
That much is common knowledge. But thanks to the amazing work of video essayist Evan Puschak, also known as Nerdwriter, we now have an ever greater appreciation of Vangelis’ genius. In his latest show, “Listening to Blade Runner“, Puschak has put the soundtrack under an analytic microscope. He reveals the creativity and cutting-edge technology—such as digital reverberation technology—that Vangelis used to stitch together visuals, dialogue and sound into one symbiotic and chilling whole. It will give you a new appreciation for a film that only seems to get more relevant with each passing year. You can watch the video essay below. Scroll down further to listen to the 2002 “Esper” update of the Blade Runner soundtrack.
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https://youtu.be/FwhZ11lcOJQ
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