Customer Reviews

Music Inspired By Lord Of The Rings

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

When Bo Hansson originally composed the music on (Music Inspired By) Lord Of The Rings he of course had no idea that the trilogy would become multi-million-dollar-mega-blockbuster movies at the hands of Peter Jackson. But it only seems fitting to me that he receives some of the attention the first of these fantastic movies has created. (Music Inspired By) Lord Of The Rings is an excellent album, beautifully capturing the atmosphere of Tolkien's books. I can sincerely recommend it to anyone who appreciates the magic of this epic story.

As an interesting sidenote: Bo Hansson was one half of "Hansson & Carlsson", a 70's progressive rock band famous for it's close relationship with Hendrix.

I actually owned this in vinyl when it first came out, and really loved it... it's thoughtful and comtemplative, and does seem to echo the moods of the books. It came out somewhat before the advent of "new age" music, and I found it very enjoyable.

Unfortunately the album did not survive our housebuilding period, and and I was delighted to discover its release in CD format.

Here's a little history of Bo Hansson: in the 1960s, he was one half of a duo named Hansson & Karlsson. Bo Hansson played the organ, and Janne Karlsson played the drums. They released a handful of albums in the late 1960s: Swedish Underground (1967), Monument (1967), Rex (1968), and Man at the Moon (1968). None of them are exactly easy to come by, so I'm unable to tell you how those albums are like. They toured and jammed with Jimi Hendrix on his European tour. The duo then broke up in 1969. Karlsson, oddly became a comedian. And Hansson went solo and released four albums from the early to late 1970s (and an obscure 1985 album called Mitt i Livet), and Lord of the Rings was the first of them. The album was originally released in Sweden in 1970 as Sagan Om Ringen (and all the songs beared Swedish titles) on the Silence label (which was also the very first album ever released on that label) with a totally different cover. In 1972, Charisma Records (a well-respected British prog label that gave us the likes of Rare Bird, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator/Peter Hammill, Lindisfarne, Capability Brown, and even Monty Python) released this album with the current English title (Lord of the Rings), the much more familiar album cover, and the songs now beared English titles. This album featured Bo Hansson on Hammond organ, Moog, guitar, bass, Sten Bergman on flute, Gunnar Bergsten on sax, and Rune Carlsson on drums. Bergsten and Bergman had also been in a progressive jazz rock band called Fläsket Brinner (check out their 1971 self-entitled offering). To me, I think Hansson's Lord of the Rings is truly one of the most enchanting albums I have ever heard. Lots of mystical sounding Hammond organ and synthesizers, this music is perfect for LotR. Some of my favorites include "The Old Forest/Tom Bombadil", the spooky "Fog on the Barrow-Downs" (complete with a howling wolf), and "The Black Riders/Flight to the Ford" (which almost sounds like how Santana might have been if they were Scandinavian). Some of the album bears a slight resemblance to Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, except for the fact TB wasn't released until three years later (perhaps Oldfield heard LotR). I have seen the recent LotR movie The Fellowship of the Ring, and I loved it, I was imagining would it would have been liked if they used Bo Hansson's music for that film, instead of your typical Hollywood orchestral fare and Enya. I understand that not everyone would like Bo Hansson's LotR. Many of them are fans of Tolkien's books. Many have seen the 2001 movie, and a few are aware of that 1978 animated. But the problem is if you don't like prog rock, then chances are you won't like this album. The album has a rather home made production to it, and even me, as a big prog rock fan, the album does have its flaws, mostly the problem is the repetition. But that fairytale atmosphere makes up for its shortcomings. Bo Hansson, by the way, is the only Swedish prog rock artist I know of whose albums had U.S. releases. If you happen to be both a prog rock fan and a fan of Tolkien's LotR, then chances are you'll enjoy this album.

Bo Hansson's album provides a welcome diversion from the modern tendency to associate epic tales with a bombastic sort of classical music. In it, Hansson presents an interpretation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy that is wonderfully impressionistic: the elegant songs follow each other fluently and show that the composer must have been little bothered with reflecting the actual course of events in the books. And rightly so. He shows himself all the way to be a genius of melody: the seemingly careless, ever-recurring tunes are as simple as they are brilliant and are bound to ruthlessly capture the attention of the listener. On the original vinyl edition Hansson poses on the back of the cover in an Elf-like manner, sitting in a grass-land. Maybe he has with his album come closest to the way in which Tolkien thought his Elves to play music.

This Record is absolutely amazing. My dad bought it years ago and it has been played over and over in the household. A Lord of the Rings fanatic from a very young age my parents still tell me stories of how i cried when i realised that everyone was dying when they went to the Grey Havens. This is such an emotional story and the music written by Bo Hansson does it complete justice. I recommend it completely!

What a little gem, and at a bargain price!! Originally released in 1970, at the dawn of the "progressive rock" era, this instrumental recording is short on the pomposity that marred alot of stuff from that time, but is high on whimsy and laid-back, otherworldly atmosphere. Lots of cheesy organ and fuzz-box guitar, along with tribal drumming. I'm gonna have to play this one on Halloween night - it'll be perfect.

I found that album in a shop. Price was about 50 cents. I didnt expect it to be good, I was inspired by the name. Listening to it at home was disappointing the first time. Later I realized, it is one of the best albums I ever listened to. I dont think, it has to do a lot with The LotR, but they mange to fill their music with a dense atmosphere -> its amazing. The best way, to dream fantastic dreams and to meditate -> great.

I was frankly amazed at first to see that this old hippy pot-boiler had ever received a CD re-release. I mean, imagine the probability? Obscure Scandinavian prog-rocker creates soundtrack for imaginary film of the Lord of the Rings. It's listened to raptly by thousands of hippy elf-children . . . and then thirty years go by. What are the odds of a re-release?

And yet this logically doomed concoction is very respectably in the top 8,000 in Amazon.com's sales ranking. This contrasts with Decca's wonderful 2CD release of genuine Scandinavian tone-poems by Sibelius, which barely scrapes into the top 110,000.

Is this just irrational public enthusiasm, with the current release of the blockbuster movie, for anything carrying the LOTR tag? Or does this cheesy sub-Floydian collection of organ/moog/percussion tunes strike a deeper chord in the 21st century soul?

The answer is, this record is nothing like as bad as it ought to be. Now a note of caution here: Personally, I would say that if you don't have a copy of Pink Floyd's "Meddle" already, then that would be a more clever way of spending your money. Side 2 of the Floyd's masterwork, the original 'Echoes' from which the band's recent compilation took its name, is (for me at least) a far more interesting composition. More the the point, I would judge 'Echoes' to be far more evocative of the spirit of LOTR than Bo Hansson's effort even though that may not have been consciously part of the Floyd's agenda.

Nevertheless, Hansson provides some alternately moody and soothing soundscapes with a recognizable programmatic link to Tolkien's meisterwerk and a touching aura of earnest sincerity that would be noticeably missing from a similar project today. There is thus a certain historical interest in this package that justifies its transfer onto CD.

Whether that makes it cool to be seen with, you will have to judge for yourself.

I listened to this particular album back in the early 70's when i was a kid reading Lord of the Rings. Its so inspired by book ! Listen to it as you read and you wont put the book down.

I bought my original copy on a second hand musicassette which has been long lost. It was great to listen once again to the clips here.

Really pleased to see this on CD

Seeing as this was recorded in the 1960s, I think to criticize it as being cheesy or low tech is redundant. If you're expecting a serious tone-poem type of musical portrait of Middle Earth, this is not it (except for a few cuts). But it's a lot of fun, somewhat captures the feel of LOTR on a few songs, and basically is a great retro-sounding album. I didn't appreciate this album back as kid when I bought it on vinyl. I do now. The organ, primitive moog, guitar and drums may not be the equivalent of modern day ambient/soundtrack music. But it's exciting and fun and certainly worth it if your expectations are not too high.