Long out of print since its original 1986 release, David Bowie and Trevor Jones' soundtrack to the Jim Henson film Labyrinth has been remastered for a new 30th anniversary edition of the album (really 31st anniversary). Capitol Records is also releasing a special vinyl version of the album that replicates the original jacket and artwork.
While composer Trevor Jones wrote most of the synth-based score, Bowie wrote and recorded five songs for it: "Underground," "Magic Dance," "Chilly Down, "As The World Falls Down," and "Within You."
"Jim Henson set up a meeting with me while I was doing my 1983 tour in the States," Bowie, who also starred in the film, said in a 1986 Movieline interview. "I'd always wanted to be involved in the music-writing aspect of a movie that would appeal to children of all ages, as well as everyone else, and I must say that Jim gave me a completely free hand with it. The script itself was terribly amusing without being vicious or spiteful or bloody, and it also had a lot more heart than many other special effects movies. So I was pretty well hooked from the beginning."
The song "Magic Dance" includes, at one point, a babbling baby. While Bowie originally tried to use an actual baby in the studio, the recording didn't go as he'd planned. "The baby I used in the recording studios couldn't, or wouldn't, put more than two gurgles together, so I ended up doing the baby-gurgle chorus myself!"
Labyrinththe film received mixed reviews when it was originally released in 1986. The story of a goblin king (Bowie) who kidnaps a baby and gives the baby's 16-year-old sister (Jennifer Connelly) 13 hours to save him has since become a cult classic for people who grew up with Jim Henson's Muppets.
The vinyl edition of Labyrinth is due out May 12.
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