This week soundtrack label GNP Crescendo will release an expanded edition of Ron Jones’ iconic score to “The Best of Both Worlds”, arguably Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s finest two-parter. The soundtrack was initially released over twenty years ago in 1991 as the second official TNG soundtrack album but was missing several cues rendering it incomplete.
In an attempt to cover Ron Jones’ entire Star Trek musical library, Film Score Monthly released the Ron Jones Collection in 2010 (still available) but due to contractual reasons only included five minutes of unreleased music: short cues left off the GNP/Crescendo CD to facilitate a better album experience, but included to flesh out the scores’ subtler moments.
Fans finally have the chance to complete their collection of Ron’s music with this expanded edition of “The Best of Both Worlds”. According to GNP Crescendo’s website, the expanded edition “features the complete scores, adding the shorter, transitional moments that contain at least one piece of important thematic material missing from the original album.”
We’ve got an early look at the track listing for the album. Those tracks listed in bold were not included on the original release.
1. Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Title
PART I
2. New Providence
3. Not Ready / Job grabber / Early Worm / No Doubt
4. Preparations / What Do You Want? / Fatigue / Hansen’s Message
5. Borg Engaged
6. First Attach / Looks / Tell It Like It Is
7. Contemplations
8. Borg Take Picard / Death Is Irrelevant / His Place
9. Away Team Ready / On The Borg Ship / Nodes
10. Captain Borg
PART II
11. Energy Weapon Fails
12. Repairs / Humanity Taken
13. Contact Lost
14. Repairs Complete / Cemetery Of Dead Ships
15. Currents
16. Intervention
17. Sitting Ducks / Borg Reach Saturn
18. The Link
19. Sleep Command / Destruct Mode / Picard Is Back
20. Picard’s Nightmare
21. Star Trek: The Next Generation End Title (3rd Season, long version)Total Disc Time:
55:12
UPDATED: GNP/Crescendo have just sent over high-resolution artwork for the new release:
TrekCore will be profiling the release in greater detail over the coming days and we’ll have an exclusive interview with album co-producer Lukas Kendall (now online here) who has been one of the main driving forces in pushing for Ron Jones’ entire canon of work to be made available.
You can head on over to GNP Crescendo’s website to secure your order for $19.95 here.