While the themes in Faltermeyer's score for Beverly Hills Cop are largely single-phrased melodies repeated countless times, there is a significant number of them at work in the narrative. These ideas sometimes overlap in meaningful ways, including three of them at once at 1:03 into "Foley Busted," the most complicated moment in the score, but don't expect such complexity often. The famed "Axel F" theme actually consists of four distinct elements that the composer can apply in any combination depending on the action and characters on screen. The main melody of the film that opens the "Axel F" suite arrangement on the Roland Jupiter 8 is a jaunty, fun, and repetitive phrase with no secondary development. It starts "Foley Finds Mikey," "Flowers," and "Foley Busted" solo, follows all the other main themes at 0:54 into "Late Dinner/Warehouse," and interjects over the bassline and buddy cop theme in "The New Team" and "Chase to Harrow's." This theme for Axel's swagger follows the lead of the bassline per usual in "Rosewood/Foley to Gallery," offers confidence over the tepid beginning at 0:38 into "The Discovery," and overcomes the villains' rhythmic motif early in "Good Guys on Grounds." It totally dominates the early portions of the score but is sadly diminished to near total absence in the final third. The same path is taken by the bassline of Axel's theme, which is its own entity that moves cyclically under many of the main melody performances but can exist by itself. Heard at 0:16 into the "Axel F" suite, this bassline guides most of "Foley Finds Mikey" and "Flowers" after other parts of the theme stop. It assists in "Foley Busted," opens "Late Dinner/Warehouse," starts "The New Team," sets the action pacing in "Chase to Harrow's," and again begins "Rosewood/Foley to Gallery" and "The Discovery" with no variation. The catchy B phrase to the main melody is the buddy cop theme, lightly keyboarded in staccato fashion at 0:48 into "Axel F." It is liberally applied to the score, debuting at 0:24 into "Foley Finds Mikey" and recurring at 0:16 into "Foley Busted" in identical form and rising out of the main bassline in "Late Dinner/Warehouse" and persisting for most of the cue. It again follows the bassline opening of "The New Team," shifts to a bass marimba effect at the start of "Chase to Harrow's" before returning to normal, and is reprised at 0:38 into "Rosewood/Foley to Gallery."

The buddy cop theme in Beverly Hills Cop does receive more variance in inflection compared to the other parts of the "Axel F" suite. Most of the score's thematic ideas espouse no significant development or adaptation into different emotional states from their base performance, with the drum machine altered the most for different levels of excitement, but the last third of the movie does allow Faltermeyer to explore varied states with the buddy cop theme. It is lighter in the soundscape early in "The Discovery," very slight over villain material at 0:45 into "Good Guys on Grounds," and vaguely meanders through the middle of "Foley Shoots a Bad Guy." The theme never shakes the ultra-staccato keyboarding, which is a shame, because it may have sounded better with fuller notes or a little more reverb. The final component of the "Axel F" suite of themes is the composer's comedy theme, which he endearingly terms the "banana theme" after a funny scene in the movie. It provides the marimba comedy effect at 1:44 into "Axel F" and exists in the score at 0:32 into "Foley Busted" (taking a counterpoint role later in the cue), 0:29 into "Late Dinner/Warehouse," and at 1:46 into "Good Guys on Grounds," where it shifts to a beefier but still funny action mode twice. Four themes and motifs occupy the actual pursuit of justice in Beverly Hills Cop, and all are tangentially related to the villains as well as the cops' actions to hunt them down. The main bad guy chase/pursuit theme is frequently applied by Faltermeyer from start to finish, an ascending, deep marimba motif against high pulses on key and cyclical surrounding action. Its secondary lines consist of a more prominently exciting, undulating line for fake brass synth effects that ultimately becomes the de facto villains' theme by the end of the story. Developed throughout "Shoot Out," which was reworked by the composer to serve as a secondary suite of themes from the score for album consideration, this chase/pursuit theme continues similarly in "Customs." There, both parts of the theme build the two halves to their familiar role in "Rosewood Saves Foley/Rosewood/Foley to Mansion," the secondary lines returning to its heightened brassy synth mode in the middle. High pulses open "Good Guys on Grounds" with this theme and later yield it against protagonist material, bursting from the other villain motif briefly in the middle of "Foley Shoots a Bad Guy" and gaining momentum in the second half of "Zack Shot."

While the various facets of Faltermeyer chase/pursuit theme for the villains handle most of their appearances, the composer does explore some secondary ideas related to them. A confrontation theme is a cyclical formation for deep keyboards throughout "Cops Follow Merc" that returns a bit faster in "Foley Shoots a Bad Guy" with the main villain rhythm attached. It continues in its supplemental lines only during "Zack Shoots" and guides the start of "Zack Shot" while lending only its background elements to "Maitland Shot." Ancillary to this material is a specific suspense rhythm, a simple keyboarded pulse on key that is used to generate what little challenging environment exists musically in this score. This suspense technique is heard during all of "Bad Guys" and builds to the climax in "Maitland Shot." Faltermeyer also supplies a rather oddly romantic discovery motif to the score, a keyboarded deep bass theme of two phrases heard in the second half of "The Discovery" that eventually gains an electric guitar effect for a brief moment of coolness. This idea blends with the chase/pursuit theme in the first half of "Zack Shot" and is provided its own thematic suite in "The Discovery (Theme Suite)." That suite arrangement is an attractive extension of Faltermeyer's more romantic tendencies, and while it may not make total sense in the context of its placement within the picture, it makes for a good listening experience on the composer's bass synths that would earn their stripes in Top Gun. That theme exposes a rather interesting aspect about the score for Beverly Hills Cop, and that is the lack of impactful role for guitars in the work. Faltermeyer applies synthetic tones that emulate the same general sound, but they obviously can't supply the same performance inflection. Still, the composer managed to hit his target squarely with this assignment; it's nearly impossible to record contemporary comedy music that is cool rather than cringeworthy, and whether you like his style or not, Faltermeyer's work is a great match for the concept. While the song album was commonplace, the score itself was not released until La-La Land Records provided a full treatment of it on CD in 2016, appending a variety of alternate takes and arrangements in addition to the most pertinent songs. That product is a long overdue and worthy homage to the score despite an awkwardly sudden splice at 0:42 into "Zack Shoots." The same presentation was re-issued by the label in 2019, though all 5,000 copies from the combined pressings sold out in short order, testimony to the lasting impact and popularity of Faltermeyer's score.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download