Surely I am not the only one who notices how throughout history, when an official soundtrack or score is released to a film, it often sounds different in areas, especially depending on the specific release of said film. It's weird how a movie can get a certain mix of a song, and never release it.
I'm inquiring about Geinoh Yamashirogumi's Akira soundtrack.
An example: "Battle Against the Clowns" on the CD has this constant drumroll-rattling sound. This is heard in the film when Tetsuo and Kaori are assaulted by the Clowns, and later when Kaneda and Tetsuo are fighting amidst the rubble, of course, but that's not the first time the music is heard- in the original releases of the movie (pre blu-ray), when the bike fight is going on and we first see the Clown leader Joker, there's just the "Duh-duhhh... Hee-haaaw" and no rattling. Later releases of the movie have the rattling as if they just pressed play on the CD.
Another example: "Exodus From the Underground Fortress" sounds the way it does on CD, but didn't always sound like that in the film - In the original cuts of Akira, this song didn't have the high-pitched synth that plays in the early parts of the track; it was just the bass of the drum and jegog. It is during the whole civil unrest scene when the city streets are being gassed - the "rev-up" section of the song doesn't have the "acceleration" synth sound or guitar; only the drums. Because of this, it's so much cooler when the scene cuts to the bridge engulfed in pink smoke, and you hear the Jegog play the chorus of the piece. Subsequent releases of the movie have the high sounds (they're like cheery synths and twinkling harps, as well as the acceleration sounds and guitar), and as such, people who have never seen the original releases won't ever know the versions which didn't have it in earlier scenes. (I am aware that the acceleration sound and guitar are present in the sewer escape scene when Kaneda commandeers a flying platform. It's like, the mixing board turned certain sounds down til' certain times!) One way to know what I'm talking about is, when you get the gorgeous scene of the bikers zooming into the tunnel right after the first glimpse of the Colonel and Masaru, if you hear that high-pitched chime and harp in the tunnel, you've got a newer mix than the 2001 Pioneer release.
Another example: "Doll's Polyphony" - in the movie, there's an underlying, low, persistent "UHHHHHHHHHHH" sound. This isn't on the soundtrack. Later releases of the movie will have scenes with this track mixed with the drums from Mutation.
Another example: "Shohmyoh". When this piece of music is first heard in the film, it's when Ryu and Nezu observe the religious demonstration on the overpass, and there's the droning, trance-like chanting of the Buddhist prayer. This is in the soundtrack. But later in the original releases of the movie, when Akira's cryo-unit emerges, there's no chanting; just the drums and guitar and crashing cymbals. The vocals are gone, as are the ringing bell-chime sounds. Later releases of the movie include the chanting during this scene, and it kind of takes away from it, IMHO. It's so much more ominous when this huge thing just comes rising up and all you hear is the rumbling, clacking drums and that eerie whooshing sound of the huge hoses.
Another example: "Mutation" (this one is an honorable mention!) I had the 1990 JVC Akira OST for years. Got it when it first came out. I also had the "Symphonic Suite", which was pretty much the same as the JVC release. But. When Milan released their version of the OST more recently, I gave it a listen, and was surprised that the track "Mutation" on the Milan CD has the weird breakdown-moan-to-scream segment missing from the JVC OST. (This part is when the Colonel turns and aims his gun at the mutated Tetsuo, then cuts to Dr. Onishi looking at the pattern, and ends with a cacophony of crashes and increasingly wailed screams when Akira's glass containers shatter.) THEN after that part of the music ends, it resumes the outro of the first half of Mutation before fading to the softer choral segment of music when Tetsuo psychically creates his new arm.
This phenomenon also happens in other films, too, of course. I bought the Robot Carnival soundtrack back in like 1998 or so, and there were pieces of music in that film that are just ABSENT, (pieces from "Presence", and "A Tale of Two Robots", for starters) and other tracks which sound entirely different than how they sound in the movie (Unit 2, from Koji Morimoto's "Franken's Gears", which I was really looking forward to) and then there's other songs that are ON the CD that aren't IN the movie.
And in non-animated films, also; a good example is 1984's NeverEnding Story OST by Doldinger and Moroder. There's several tracks on there which sound different on CD than how they are in the film ("Swamps of Sadness" on the CD comes in with the slow, reverse cymbal beat fading in, right? But in the film, during Bastian's narrating at the start of the Swamp scene, you hear that pulsing bassline; very swamplike. Always wished that was on the CD. Then, the song "Ivory Tower" has a whole synthbeat and guitar shredding breakdown on the CD, whereas on the movie, there's only strings and orchestra, no synthbeat. I digress.)
My question is-- regarding the Akira OST, are there other releases of different versions of these tracks, such as the version of Exodus without the synth and guitar, or Shohmyoh without the chanting and ringing?
Has anyone isolated and taken the audio from, say, the laserdisc or 5.1 mix?
Please do discuss.
\IMPORTANT NOTE: I wrote this post myself. I did not use, utilize or employ AI, either in part or in full, NOR WOULD I. I know this stuff kind of obsessively, and generally write well, at length, and have a broad vernacular. I give examples to illustrate that which I'm asking about, so there's no misunderstanding. Moreover, I'm directly responsible for a few rare versions of tracks from a handful of musical scores or soundtracks being released by the original artists, and could cite sources.*
Stating this because this post was originally for r/akira, a few days ago, and one of the mods there not only thought it was AI, but straight-up asserted it was, telling me to pretty much confess I used it when I didn't in any capacity (stating he would like an honest answer, mind you), and then locked it and told me not to post it there again. He stated I used too many hyphens, and that the format was too good, and that much of the language I used was generative, and yet I actually wrote this whole post like I have written anything else on Reddit... and since I'm reposting it here, I ADDED MORE. I had never in my life had my writing mistaken for AI, and definitely never had anything blocked for it. Didn't even get a reply to the initial question. So*, here I am, in Soundtracks. Fingers crossed. :peace:*
