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Comment by gsoto | Hacker News Reader

Just sharing one of my favorite pieces of him:

"Memories of Green" (from the album "See You Later") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW9D6agp794

I think this piece shows the range of his musical expressiveness, apart from his virtuosity or synth programming skills. Just a piano passed through a flanger effect with some ambient sounds.

The electronic bleeps in that track are recorded from a handheld electronic game (Bambino UFO Master Blaster [1]). Talk about giving a whole new meaning to those sounds.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sEOW8wAqG0

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》"Memories of Green" (from the album "See You Later") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW9D6agp794

That title and that album cover: a woman wearing bikini and low-light glasses for snow, with the sun on the back and broken floating ice. A prediction of climate change from 1980?

If the myths hold truths, the oil companies knew this was an issue in the '70s. By the late 80s the predictions had reached artists and musicians in the UK (how I know this is too convoluted and flakey for this thread). I was taught about climate change (the "greenhouse effect") as a young teen, early 90s. It's been canon for me since then. I have no problem believing that forward looking adults were talking about it, making art and activism in 1980.

"Climate Change" was one of the topics discussed at "Rio Summit" in 92 [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Summit

I recall an early 80's Justice League episode which centered global warming.

"Memories of Green" was also used to great effect in Blade Runner. I love how well it works there. It's so sad and evocative.

Wow, I thought it was written for the film until now! How embarrassing… Not only for the song suiting, but the title too. As it’s a bleak post-ecological society.

There is a story about how Ridley Scott wanted to use this specific piece and a couple more by Vangelis in Blade Runner, and Vangelis told him: why reuse my old pieces, I can make a new score for this film specifically.

And so he did, in some short timeframe.

I think Scott did this to Jerry Goldsmith for ALIEN as well, except Jerry wasn't happy about reusing music.

Don’t you have to ask the composer for permi$$ion anyway? Or do things work differently in Hollywood?

In the end, it's whoever pays for the rights.

I think it was a piece of music from another film, also by 20th Century Fox, that they used as a temp track, and Scott liked it so much he made it happen. Goldsmith was not best pleased.

It'll probably be the music for the opening titles, because when I bought the album in the 80s I was suprised (disappointed actually) that piece wasn't on it, and leaving off the opening titles is a real omission in a movie soundtrack.

not if you are stanley kubrick ;) (2001)

Wasn't there going to be an original score and then Kubrick decided that he liked his mockups better?

I couldn't play that video for some reason (says it's unavailable), so here's another link to (I think) the same song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1KfOMkyU_w

Here's a direct link to it on Spotify as well: https://open.spotify.com/track/0rHCW5eZ35QmQNVYyozAnZ?si=384...

It is the same song. Thanks :)

>"Memories of Green"

Memories of Green and his work on Blade Runner in general are on my list of best music. Beautiful work.

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