Original Soundtrack - Battlestar Galactica: Season One

Album Review

What with the scores John Williams has penned for the Star Wars movies and those of Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, and others for the Star Trek films, you'd think it was settled that the music of science fiction involves grand themes and lush orchestral arrangements reminiscent of European classical music. But Bear McCreary, who has taken on the task of scoring the second television series to be called Battlestar Galactica (a sort of "next generation" sequel to the 1978 series), has a very different view. To McCreary, space music can sound like almost any earth-bound style, although he is particularly fond of drums. Martial drums, Burundi-style drums, tympani, marching band drums, you name it, McCreary likes it, and he devotes many of the 30 cues on Battlestar Galactica: Season One (78 minutes culled from over five hours of music heard on the first season of the show) to percussion showcases. But that's not all by a long shot. Determined to demonstrate his mastery of musical styles, McCreary writes faux opera ("Battlestar Operatica"), muzak ("Battlestar Muzaktica"), string quartets ("The Dinner Party"), Celtic music ("Wander My Friends"), and more, bringing in vocalists here and there to sing in Latin, Gaelic, and Italian. Now and then, he also gives us echoey, electronic interludes that actually suggest the science fiction setting of the series. But all of these are just side trips in the main percussion fest that to McCreary is what battlestars should sound like banging around in the great beyond. In space, it seems, everyone can hear you drum.