Talk:Varèse Sarabande/Archives/2021

Blood In, Blood Out deleted edit
The following edit was made on 2 July 2021 by user Varesefan and was deleted later that day presumably because of its original research status and lack of citation. I've copied it here verbatim in case the information is of interest, with the caveat that its veracity is in doubt. The News Hound (talk) 00:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The History of Blood In Blood Out

This is the label's most historical title for several reasons and still one of the rarest soundtracks that the label has produced. This soundtrack composed by Academy Award Winning Composer Bill Conti ("The Right Stuff", "Rocky", "North & South") was recorded in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra featuring soloists Rick Baptise on trumpet and John Goux on guitar featured an aggressive Latin sound that captured the essence of the sound of East Los Angeles as depicted in the film which starts in 1972 and into the 1980's for most of the films' 190 Minute running time. Conti really asserted himself with this score giving it an epic dramatic sound which has endured itself to many soundtrack collectors seeking this CD. The CD is pretty much a highlight disc due to the union musicians reuse restrictions at the time ("1992-1993") for scores recorded in Los Angeles which featured thirty-one exceptional minutes from some of the most important moments of the film from over seventy plus minutes (this is an estimate) that Conti had written for the film which was produced by Robert Townson.

Just as the run for the score album was being pressed by the label, a major problem occurred after some incidents involving gang members at test screenings prompted Disney, who was distributing the film under its' Hollywood Pictures film division immediately caused the company to reconcieve its' marketing campaign but also caused the studio to change the films' title and the film was recut slightly by twenty minutes (the theatrical cut has not been available on home video since the 1990's and the DVD features only the longer director's 190 minute version) and retitled to "Bound By Honor". In conjunction with this score album release, Hollywood Records also released a soundtrack [3] with the films' new title and featured mostly the source music that was featured within the film alongside Conti's music. Conti was also featured on that CD with only a couple of tracks. The title change caused a major problem for Varese since the label had already begun pressing the CD as well as the cassette under the films' old title and artwork. A run of over two dozen sets of CD's were pressed and were then stored away as the CD could not be sold under the old title. Copies did eventually leak out over the years after the announcement and cancellation. These CD's were pressed and manufactured by JVC America with a reflective matrix number of VSD-5396 in the inner ring of the CD with a T code after. These are the legitimate versions of this CD. Legitimate copies of this CD had gone for as much as three to five hundred-dollars over the last few decades and has not declined in value.

Like alot of things, this soundtrack was not immune to bootlegging as during a period of time during the 1990's where soundtrack bootlegging was a serious problem and caused alot of legitimate soundtrack labels from not releasing legitimate issues of releases and delayed many releases for years and sometimes decades especially for the Varese Sarabande label. Titles such as Die Hard, Predator, Project X, Stripes, Justine, Heartbeeps, Spacehunter, The Sand Peebles, Ghostbusters and many others that would later become apart of Varese's wealthy musical catalog were apart of this problem. Blood In Blood Out was amongst them unfortunately which has hurt its chances for a legitimate release in the last couple of decades.

The first bootleg of this CD first appeared in 1997 featuring one extra track (the original Varese Sarabande CD features nine tracks) which was ripped from film itself and a couple of tracks from album separated padding the length to 12 tracks and added ten tracks of other Conti's work from films such as Paradise Alley, Rocky, The Right Stuff, The Karate Kid and others under the label, Paradise Records PR-CD 02301 [4] which was released for a very short time and was valued around forty dollars as an import. It also features a disclaimer "For Promotional Purposes Only. Not For Sale" to try to make it look like a legitimate release which also features all the credits from this CD on the back insert.

The second bootleg of this CD appeared later on in the early 2000's and this time it was paired with a suite of another unreleased Bill Conti score, The Big Blue, which was directed by Luc Besson which he rescored for the films 1988 U.S. theatrical release as the longer European version of that film featured music by Eric Serra. The contents of this CD were identical to the first bootleg but adding music from The Big Blue and also selections from Coolangotta Gold [5] which was released legitmately by the Australian label, 1M1 on CD in later years. [6] This CD was available for a limited time was also with the same catalog number Paradise Records PR-CD 02301 and new artwork emphasizing, The Big Blue under the monkier "The Big Blue: The Film Music of Bill Conti". The Big Blue is featured in the artwork more so than this score despite the little amount of music featured from Big Blue on the CD. [7]

Recently in the past few years, another bootleg of this score has appeared all over eBay which looks very similar to the original Varese Sarabande CD itself in which the label side has been cloned to look like the original JVC America pressed CD. The original CD itself is holographic in nature and you can see the CD Matrix very clearly with reflection in light like Universal Music Group CD's that were released during this time. The CD's center is completely clear plastic and not silver/grey like most bootlegs feature. The artwork itself is a nearly perfect copy of the original artwork itself except for the VSD-5396 catalog number featuring a different font that does not match the one used for Bill Conti's credit on the right hand side of the cover. The back insert features a picture of the cast which is slightly off color unlike the original artwork which is completely clear and more colorful. This is a dead giveaway along with the non reflective center of the label side of the disc. Sealed copies of this disc featured a butterfly holographic sticker that wrapped itself on the bottom left hand side of the jewel case and sometimes on the center left hand side where the spine was of the CD case. The front and back bearing the "UNI" lettering that you could see when you put it under bright lighting. This was proof that these CD's were legitimately pressed and distributed by Universal Music Group for Varese Sarabande. Almost all CD's that were distributed by UNI for sale in the US, all featured this sticker to prevent counterfeiting and tampering/stealing from record stores.

There are no plans to reissue or expand this soundtrack at the current time.