Synth Runner

The saga surrounding Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner is one of the most troubled and tweaked film mythologies in Hollywood history. The various cuts, bootlegged unauthorized VHS and DVD versions, different European and American cuts, etc., are too labyrinthine to go into here, but there's plenty available to read if you aren't already familiar with this murky story. Amazingly enough, the film's soundtrack has a similar narrative, one that is dark, full of conflict; it's so complex that even this mammoth, three-disc 25th Anniversary commemorative edition doesn't manage to straighten out. That said, it is a vast improvement on what has previously been released officially. Greek composer and pioneering prog rock and synth king - and subsequently a best-selling composer of film scores - Vangelis Papathanassiou was tapped to write the score for Scott's film and record the soundtrack…

Originally scheduled for release in 1981, the double-album I'm a Rainbow was shelved at the last minute. In the proocess, it became legendary among Donna Summer fanatics. In 1996, I'm a Rainbow was finally released as a single compact disc. Like most of Summer's recordings from the late '70s and early '80s, it was produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, who give the stylish disco a sleek, sexy sheen. The difference between I'm a Rainbow and its predecessors – and, indeed, its sequels – is the subject matter. Throughout I'm a Rainbow, Summer turns in some of her most personal, introspective lyrics and singing, which gives the album an emotional force her albums sometimes lacked. In fact, given the quality of the music, it's hard to see why this was shelved at the time because it is stronger than the majority of her official studio albums.

Electric Dreams is a soundtrack album from the film Electric Dreams, released in 1984…

Tastes and sounds were changing quickly in the late '80s, which prompted New Order's most startling transformation yet – from moody dance-rockers to, well, moody acid-house mavens…

Tastes and sounds were changing quickly in the late '80s, which prompted New Order's most startling transformation yet - from moody dance-rockers to, well, moody acid-house mavens. After the band booked a studio on the island hotspot of Ibiza, apparently not knowing that it was the center of the burgeoning house music craze, New Order's sure instincts for blending rock and contemporary dance resulted in another confident, superb LP. Technique was the group's most striking production job, with the single "Fine Time" proving a close runner-up to "Blue Monday" as the most extroverted dance track in the band's catalog. Opening the record, it was a portrait of a group unrecognizable from its origins, delivering lascivious and extroverted come-ons amid pounding beats. It appeared that dance had fully taken over from rock, with the guitars and bass only brought in for a quick solo or bridge…