Customer Reviews

The Best Of Godzilla 1984-1995: Original Film Soundtracks

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This is a collection of "the best" of the music from the second series of Godzilla films, known in fan circles as the Heisei series, which were released from 1984 to 1995.

After a very nice version of Godzilla's signature theme, by Godzilla's signature composer, maestro Akira Ifukube, we listen to a suite of five songs from THE RETURN OF GODZILLA (aka GODZILLA 1985). These pieces by Reijiro Koroku, a severely underrated composer, are some of the best on the disc; "Main Title," "Take Shelter/Godzilla vs. Super X," "Japanese Army March," "Godzilla's Exit," and "Ending" can be re-listened to over and over again, espeically "Super X."

Next are three songs--"Scramble March," "Bio Wars," and "Ending"--from GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE, composed by Koichi Sugiyama. They are also quite nice, but are rather long, which cuts down on their replay value a bit.

Now we enter Ifukube-sama's section. The first of the Heisei films he scored was GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH. "Main Title/UFO Invasion," "King Ghidorah Attacks Fukuoka," and "Get King Ghidorah" are, sadly, the only songs from this excellent soundtrack.

This album's first misstep comes with the songs from GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA. Although "Main Title," "Mahara Mothra," "Mesa March," and "Rolling Title Ending," are all good Ifukube works, there are too many; this soundtrack was not as good as the previous (or the next), and it is over-represented. They also erred by including "Mothra's Song," when they'd already included a version in "Mahara Mothra."

The next misstep was including only two songs from GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA II, the soundtrack of which is widely considered to be one of Ifukube's best soundtrack's ever. "Main Title" and "G-Force March #1" are excellent, but together they are not even 4:30 minutes long. At least one more should have been added.

The final misstep was including so many songs from GODZILLA VS. SPACEGODZILLA, composed by Takayuki Hattori; with "Prologue/Main Title," "Bass Island," "Mogera vs. Spacegodzilla #2," "Mogera vs. Spacegodzilla #3," and "Crystal," this is another overrepresented title. Only the first and last songs should have been included; the middle three are not that good.

Fortunately, they also include five songs from Ifukube's swan song: GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH, which at the time of production was also thought to have been Godzilla's own, final film. "Main Title/Hong Kong's Destruction" is a majestic, sweeping piece; "Attack Of Super X III" and "Mesa Tank Super Freeze Attack" are stirring militaristic marches. "Requiem" is a truly moving piece played during Godzilla's death, and "Ending Title" is a blending of some of Ifukube's greatest hits that ran as a montage of some of Godzilla's was shown.

The last track on this CD is "Monster Zero March," a rearrangement of one of the great Ifukube pieces of the 60's by Neil Norman and his Cosmic Orchestra.

Despite some flaws, this CD is definitely worth a buy, not just for Godzilla fans, but for movie music fans in general.

This CD contains themes from all of the Godzilla movies post Godzilla 1985. It opens with an appropiate Godzilla theme by Ifukabe and then proceeds into five tracks from Godzilla 1985, not by Ifukabe. The forth of these is particularly amusing, as it was the music that was supposed to make us feel for sorry Godzilla when he died, even though the movie built up absolutely no sympathy for the monster. It sounds kind of like something from the end of Dr. Zhivago.

Next up are upbeat themes from Godzilla vs Biollante.

After that we get some of Ifukabe's great music from the recent films. True, he recylced a bunch of his old themes, but it's all good. The suite of themes from Godzilla vs Destroyah is probably the best.

The CD also includes two sung pieces from Godzilla vs Mothra, Mahara Mothra (as it appeared in the movie) and Mothra's Song (in its rockified single version).

My only complaint is that the CD devotes way two much time to non-Ifukabe scores, particularly the blatantly John Barry inspired themes from Godzilla vs Space Godzilla.

I've just ordered the earlier album (1954-whatever); I got this one at a store not knowing previously that such CDs existed. These recordings are OK -- a few of the tracks are actually good -- but on the average, this music isn't as vibrant as the music from the first series. Two standouts: the end title of Godzilla vs. Destroyer quotes the old tribal music from King Kong vs. Godzilla, which I didn't notice when I watched the movie; the Mothra song is pretty memorable. The last track, Monster Zero March, is a heavy-synthesizer remix of some music from the first series. It's pretty tinny and ultimately rather cheesy.

If you like the Godzilla movie music at all, this is worth picking up. I suspect the album of music from the first series is probably better.

This CD beats the previous one. Except for the ultimately bad selections from "G vs. Biollante," this CD has it all. The 'Godzilla 1985" music is very good, and is up there with Ifukube. And the "G vs. Space G" music is incredibly good, considering it isn't Ifukube. Everything else except those three movie collections are all classic Ifukube, bringing all of his old monster themes back from the previous series and thensome. This CD has some of Akira Ifukube's best work on it, and must be bought with its companion CD.

I am a Special Ed. teacher and in my class my students have addopted Godzilla as class mascot. My students wanted to take it a little further than that, they wanted to feel like Godzilla. The soundtrack helped them reach this goal. They relax when they listen therefore we play the soundtrack everyday in homeroom. This is something I would recommend for students of all ages that want to listen to classical music while they learn.

For me, the 1980's and 1990's were the best years for Godzilla in the films (not including the American version). Personally, I like the films that this music comes from than the older version, because the movies brought back the Godzilla of the first film, a strong, reptilian creature, that is almost always a menace. The special effects of these movies were a strong jump from the ones of the 1960's and 1970's, and without a doubt, some of the best of any monster movie. While the music from "Return of Godzilla", "Godzilla vs. Biollante", and "Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla" are good in their own right, but none can beat that of the Godzilla master composer, Akira Ifukube, who did "Godzilla vs. King Ghidora", "Godzilla vs. Mothra", "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla", and "Godzilla vs. Destroyah", of the new era. While the Godzilla themes reappeared in these films, Ifukube did update the themes for the 1990's, and did a wonderful job at it. For personal themes, I like the MechaGodzilla theme from the film of the same name. It's an interesting sound that Ifukube composed, but I can't say that I have a favorite film soundtrack from the Ifukube films. They were all good. If you are a fan of Godzilla, monster films, or you just like good composing music, this CD is a must.

Hats off to GNP Crescendo records for finally making the music of Godzilla available to western G-fans, who had previously been plagued with extremely high prices and Japanese-only track listings. This CD continues the tradition of excellence set forth by THE BEST OF GODZILLA: 1954-1975 and even exceeds it. The CD cover is an improvement over the first one's garishly colored kaiju collage. The liner notes are respectful and thankfully not riddled with errors. The disc opens with G's theme, formally a Self-Defenses march that later became the Big G's most recognizable theme. The music for THE RETURN OF GODZILLA(G '85 in the west) is dark and moody, perfectly suiting the serious(in the Japanese version, anyway!) return of Godzilla. Among the non-Ifukube G soundtracks, G '85 stands out as the best. BIOLLANTE sports a particularly deficient score and, as such, does not add up to a very pleasant listening experience. Only the end title theme is really worth listening to. Ifukube returned with KING GHIDORAH, contributing an excellent score in the finest Ifukube tradition. MOTHRA is another Ifukube score. It is beautiful and moving score, featuring the lovely voices of the Cosmos. Unfortunately, MECHAGODZILLA, arguably one of the Maestro's best scores, gets the proverbial short end of then stick. Only three themes are featured here. Though they are good, one is left wanting more. SPACE GODZILLA, scored by G2K's composer Takayuki Hattori, is a let-down from the previous soundtrack. Though lush and exciting, it just doesn't compare well to Ifukube's work. The Heisei series came to an explosive finale with DESTROYAH and the score more than delivers. Ifukube came out of retirement for this final(okay, at least for a while) G film. The music is brooding, ominous and finally sad. Ifukube's work on this film is the perfect capper to the Heisei series. The disc ends with Neil Norman's cute but unnecessary Monster Zero March. This is a great CD that any fan of the Big G will absolutely love!!

Godzilla will always be the King of Monsters....no phony lizard copies like Dean Devlin's American version. Toho, Co. makes Godzilla best, and "Godzilla 2000" proves just that! Godzilla has beaten them all.....King Kong, the giant ape.....King Ghidorah, the flying three-headed golden dragon from the future....Rodan, the pterodactyl-like prehistoric creature...... Mechagodzilla, a robotic doppelganger......Mothra, the beautiful butterfly-resembling jumbo moth.......Space Godzilla, a space clone.........Biollante, a plant-like creature with the soul of a girl and the body of a ferocious-looking, towering monster.....and this music brings out all his strength with the music masters working for Toho. GET THIS CD IF YOU ARE A DIE-HARD GODZILLA FAN.... WHICH I DEFINITELY AM!

This disc pretty much exemplifies the Heisei Godzilla era...some great moments that are unfortunately offset by periods of mediocrity. The good points are, obviously, the pieces composed and conducted by Akira Ifukube, who immense amount of experience and creativity frankly dwarfs most of the other stuff (the "G vs. Biollante" & "G vs. Space Godzilla" themes in paticular). As expected, the selections from "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II" are the prime cuts. Suprisingly, some of the tracks from "The Return Of Godzilla" (a.k.a. "Godzilla 1985" in the US) hold up well. Overall, the Showa series CD is better, but this is nevertheless a good addition to the library of any Godzilla fan. Those who aren't such a fan will probably have a few problems with it.

This CD is the best! It has about an hour and a half of lisiting time, so it's worth the money. I liked it so much I'm going to buy the first CD. The only bad parts are the wierd Mothra songs and the two romantic themes from G vs. SpaceG. The best two songs on this Cd are the last two ending title of G vs. Destoroyah and the Monster Zero Rock Combination from G vs. Monster Zero(an older film). It is one of the best songs in the entire world.