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•	2013 Album

•	2006 Album

•	1988 Album

•	2020 Album

•	2013 Album

The recording of the score was itself a nightmarish part of the Inchon production, the ensemble forced into a small room under a church in Italy and rotating players over the course of a haphazard month of recording in 1980. The lack of a proper facility caused daunting restrictions for Goldsmith, especially with such a large percussion section and the inability to sonically separate the group's sections or eliminate copious, accidental room noise, but the composer looked back at the experience as a generally positive challenge. The composition itself is adequate in every one of its tasks but not particularly memorable in any of them, either. Goldsmith did indeed try to make the best of the situation by spicing up his ensemble with creative percussion that dominates portions of the score. Also at play is a significant depth of melody, with no less than four major ideas intermingling regularly throughout the work. As such, Inchon is a relatively smooth listening experience. The main theme for the general stirs up a fair amount of pomp but does not compete with Goldsmith's material from MacArthur. Its two major performances ("MacArthur's Arrival" and "Inchon Theme") would make for worthy compilation material, though it's rare to hear Inchon anywhere else. A romantic melody heard in "The Apology" and rearranged in "Love Theme" is a foreshadowing of Goldsmith's Legend and subsequent heartfelt ideas of the 1990's and is the highlight of the score. A theme for the martyr character of Lim has just as poor an impact as Goldsmith's representation for Inchon harbor; both could pass without notice for any listener not closely deconstructing the work. The narrative arc of Goldsmith's work isn't particularly enticing, the opening cues of the work not clearly establishing the thematic core. The overall tone of the score is predictably variable, with the composer taking little stylistic chances in either the action or contemplative sequences. This conservative approach, distinctive only because of its faint oriental progressions at times, causes Inchon to be a somewhat pedestrian score. That said, the action sequences are raw and brutal in tone, pounding away with almost too much volume compared to the rest of the work.

On the whole, Inchon remains a reasonably competent but obscure footnote far below the composer's many superior militaristic and dramatic efforts. Goldsmith rearranged the Italian recordings into an LP presentation that is so jumbled and sliced into pieces that it doesn't really resemble what is heard in the picture, though it made for a more interesting listening experience. A mock version of that arrangement was reassembled by the composer and Intrada Records in 1988, with Goldsmith making a few new changes for a 55-minute edition. In 2006, Intrada revisited the music once again, presenting a very limited 2-CD album of both the original LP arrangement and the complete score but without the edits and minor truncations of the 1988 edits. That product sold out quickly, however, prompting Intrada to eventually re-press that set in identical form in 2013 with no quantity limitations. Still, that product eventually sold out as well, and the label, upon access to new sources for the music, remastered the prior set's contents in 2020 and added the actual film reconstruction without Goldsmith's preferred edits on a third CD. That product was notable in that it focused on a high-resolution digital download option as the main attraction while an extremely limited 3-CD set of the same contents was intentionally available only for a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, all of these albums, despite the best mastering technology available in their times, could not salvage a recording that featured major distortion, ambient studio sounds, player errors, and a very flat soundscape. Some of these problems overlap; the love theme's performance in "The Apology" has a swelling string sequence at about 1:14 that is cringe-worthy in its distorted wretchedness, nearly ruining the cue. Performance flubs, such as the low brass errors in the latter half of "The Scroll," don't help. In short, Inchon sounds muddled and disoriented regardless of remastering attempts, even compared to its contemporary peers, and Intrada's dedication to realizing a high-resolution option for this score rather than countless others in its catalogue is baffling until you consider the label's long-standing passion for the work regardless of its issues. This score badly needs a full re-recording to do it justice, and in lieu of such treatment, only Goldsmith's most ardent collectors should seek any of its album releases.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

• Music as Written for the Film:  ***
• Music as Heard on All Albums:  **
• Overall:  ***

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.32 (in 145,175 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.