Hans Zimmer And Lisa Gerrard – Gladiator (Music From The Motion Picture)

This is the album that got me hooked on film scores in the first place. It contains one of Zimmer's biggest sounding themes to date (as heard in 'The Battle' and 'The Barbarian Horde') and was also one of the first scores to utilize the old-world, quazi-ethnic vocal style of Lisa Gerrard ('Now We Are Free' being the best example). Unfortunately, this style of vocals, which was something of a novelty at the time this score was produced, has been done to death in the years since.

'Gladiator' is an important score, despite receiving a 3-star average among film score reviewers and critics. It marked a turning point in Zimmer's scoring style that would influence everything he has done since, as well as influencing a new crop of composers (compare this with Steve Jablonksky's score for 'The Island' or Klaus Badelt's score for 'Pirates of the Caribbean').

'Gladiator' marks the pinnacle of a style of film scoring for Zimmer that began with 'Crimson Tide', 'The Peacemaker' and 'The Rock'. But don't forget Lisa Gerrard's or Klaus Badelt's contributions to this score. Both are responsible for the equally memorable 'Earth', 'Elysium' and 'Patricide' themes, not to mention Gerrard's moving vocal work.

If you're after an introduction to the world of film music, then this is an excellent starting point - big themes that have an instant catchyness about them, but infused with enough depth to keep you coming back for repeat listens.

Clean pressing and low surface noise. But I’m not getting much if any of a sound stage. There is a compression and flatness to the sound. The Battle and other related tracks should sound big and epic but instead sound like average quality mp3s. Disappointed.

I did enjoy this soundtrack when it first came out, but the cd master, at least, is terribly compressed and clips often.

Music is superb but this 2017 LP is too compressed sounding with limited dynamics. Very average sound quality, may as well have bought the CD. Shame, as Mastered at Abbey Road.

Good pressing but very quiet, it's surprising how much I have to pump up the volume. 1st track for instance is almost dead quiet. The main "problem" comes from the original soundtrack itself as many tracks are quieter than other. The most audible tracks are the epic themes, the ones similar to action/adventure scenes of Pirates Of The Caribbean :)

Can we confirm this is indeed a new master (Sean Magee at Abbey Road) vs the original that was done at BG ?

Better than the reissue imo which i purchased hoping to use the org less, no complaints with my copy.

Sounds good, but like other said give it a good clean/s . Most liekly due to it being in paper sleeves.

Quite possibly the most fun you can have with classical type music. Zimmer's best work. I've listened to this hundreds, possibly thousands of times. My one and only disappointment it was never released in 24/96 format. Deserves far treatment, but like the digital birds and rose petals in the movie perhaps no additional resolution can be retrieved from the master itself. None the less take it to the gym while you're pumping iron. You might make a bunch of new friends.

For those fans/audiophiles hoping for improved quality over the standard CD release, you'll be sorely disappointed. Akin to the great 'Blu Spec' CD marketing coup of Japan, this Chinese release boasts a '24k Gold coated cd with 24bit digital transfer from the masters. To these eyes and ears and several industry reference audio editing studio software packages, I could not find any improvement over the standard U.S and UK. CD releases either aurally or by full frequency spectrum analysis of each cue. In summary, looks nice, but clearly a gimmick to serve that limited market. Possibly explains why this release was not adopted for further International consumption, even given it's obvious popularity.