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•	1987 Album

•	2001 Album

•	1987 Album

As with the film itself, the score is a frightfully disjointed and spike-prone experience. It is a difficult listening experience unless you are aware of the surprising, sudden strikes of the orchestra and the lengthy sequences of nearly inaudible underscore. So much hype has been generated through the years about Horner's three or four really ambitious and percussion-ripping action cues, but the truth about this work is that the vast majority of it resembles ambient sound design or, at its best in the minimalist ranks, serves as a precursor for the docking sequence music in Apollo 13. A frequently referenced descending string line of suspense would also reappear in several later Horner efforts. Such low-level tension, yielding only to occasional dissonant outbursts, is the common way of any horror score, but especially with Aliens; the hide and seek nature of the film leads to a score that is a very bumpy ride. The music also suffers from a complete lack of originality. Nearly every redeeming motif and instrumentation in Aliens can be heard, often in better forms, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and (especially) Brainstorm. The latter score contains some of the best usage of Horner's harsh brass and easily identifiable snare-dominated rhythms, and Aliens does little to move beyond them. Emphasizing brass and percussion to almost a fault, Horner produces a functional score that, for the mass of viewers, works well enough in the film (despite being chopped to pieces). The brass motif of slurring between adjacent notes before accelerating upwards was becoming especially tiring by 1986. For skeptics of Horner's tendency to borrow material from himself, it is a score too highly derivative of his early 1980's efforts to be considered a stand-alone classic.

Ironically, the highlights of the score are those militaristic action sequences that Cameron mutilated the most in his editing of the score; at the same time, however, those are the same sequences that are the most derivative. Perhaps the most interesting self-reference is the re-interpretation of the Klingon music from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock into key action sequences such as "Futile Escape." Unlike Goldsmith's score for the original, the highlights of Horner's effort do not reside at the start and end, but rather during the non-horror action sequences of militaristic movement in the middle. If you take the relentless, second two-thirds of "Futile Escape," the opening of "Going after Newt" (which explodes with a staggered brass rendition of the main chasing motif with incredible force), the first half of "Bishop's Countdown" (which offers a rhythmic crescendo of sorts in the middle that has been much emulated since), and pieces of "Combat Drop" and "Ripley's Rescue," then you can assemble fifteen minutes of very strong action material, regardless of its lack of originality. Unfortunately, the remainder of the score is largely devoid of anything to sustain the listening experience on album. Horner's only major motifs for Aliens are those very short progressions that typically accent each measure in action sequences. Other that the two suspense-related motifs on strings already discussed, there is no dominant, overarching theme to hold Aliens together. One of Horner's more victorious, rising rhythms of alternating harmony is used for the first minute of "Resolution and Hyperspace," though still failing to give the work a unique thematic voice. The remainder of the score consists of mainly inaudible droning, often manipulated synthetically, and at times it's difficult to hear this material even at elevated stereo volumes.

The score for Aliens was one of the last to be released in LP record format for mainstream consumption. In fact, the Varèse Sarabande LP of Aliens was followed only one year later by the CD from the label, which simply pressed the identical 40 minutes of content that had existed on the LP. As one of the earlier entries in its series of "Deluxe" editions of popular film scores, Varèse Sarabande offered an expanded album for Aliens in 2001 that presents over 75 minutes of Horner's music in its pre-cut form. Instead of simply remastering the music that had been previously available (or trying to present the choppy edits heard the film), Varèse completely remixed the original tapes of the recording and provided the score that Horner originally intended for the film to have. Also included are a handful of alternate takes and a few samples of the percussion section before they were mixed with the other elements of the ensemble (which really makes no sense; it would have been more interesting to hear the brass on its own). Even with these flaws, the "Deluxe" edition offers the best possible presentation of Horner's original intent. For casual fans of the composer, the music on the original CD is still the best he wrote for the film, although the extra thirty minutes of score and remastered sound will be an appealing attraction nevertheless. Aliens represented the last venture of Horner's early career style, and as though signaled by the Academy Award nomination for An American Tail, he would adopt a more lush and romantic style that exploded in Willow and The Land Before Time just eighteen months later. Maturing digital recording technologies would also vastly improve the sound quality of Horner's music during that time, making Aliens the last large scale Horner score to lack the crisp sound of his soon to come, best known scores.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

• Music as Written for Film:  ***
• Music as Heard on 1987 Album:  ***
• Music as Heard on 2001 Deluxe Album:  ****
• Overall:  ***

Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16 (in 107 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.23 (in 197,460 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.