When you go back and listen to the synthetic music often provided to these mid-80's cartoons, you're horrified by the fact that you once considered them even marginally cool. In the case of Robotech, you have so many different sounds, from the faux-Star Wars fanfares to the light rock songs, that it's surprising that so little of the material survives as being enjoyable twenty years later. The ensemble for Minucci and Ober consisted of a small orchestra, rock band elements, and unaccomplished vocalists. They composed a variety of themes for each character and scenario, a surprising amount of complexity in development. But each theme is strikingly amateurish and simplistic, with their performances two-dimensional in style and betraying their inspiration more often than not. Their downright cheesy renderings are the death blow, however, with drum pads and ridiculous 80's synth sound effects killing and lasting power this music may have had. Recording quality of electronics was already far beyond these dorky levels by 1985. The performances themselves are atrocious in parts. The songs, led by elegant piano performances, often contain distracting errors that make them difficult to digest outside of the fact that they seem so badly out of place to begin with. The vocal versions of the songs are equally painful, especially those performed by actress Reba West, who only reluctantly agreed to sing while intoxicated. On the whole, only true enthusiasts of Robotech will be able to tolerate this vast variety of music, particularly after twenty years. On album, a 2-CD compilation of music from both the original and "Sentinel" series (the latter of which is even less tolerable!) was released by a specialty label in 1996. In 2006, a remastered 20th Anniversary follow-up compilation would add a handful of tracks and an additional 12 minutes of material. The sound quality of the Robotech music has always been wide-ranging, often changing significantly from track to track. This problem applies not only to the score, but also the songs, which suffer from master tape distortion in places. Overall, there is little music from the Robotech world that will satisfy most soundtrack collectors; only people who grew up loving the series will enjoy this music with fond memories.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download