The Swarm Album Cover

When working on The Swarm for La-La Land Records I envisioned the cover looking like the original vinyl. Here's what that looked like, courtesy of an eBay auction.

The black background and red text looks great and I figured with a red border and "Expanded Archival Edition" we'd have a winner. Dan Goldwasser, the art director for the album, added his own touch. Below is our original cover for the album.

For reasons not clear to me, this cover was rejected and we had to stick with the theatrical one-sheet instead. I mentioned that poster was not only the cover of the previous album but also the bootleg and we should differentiate our release from those, to no avail. If you look at the rest of the booklet you can see the entire design was based around this cover.

I still have to remind myself this wasn't use because it's what I use in my digital music library. For those interested, I use Roon to play my music and I love it.

About a year after The Swarm came out I was working on The Time Tunnel, another Irwin Allen project. This time my cover suggestion of a black cover, mostly red text and a simple graphic was used.

The La-La Land Records/Tomorrow Never Dies (25th Anniversary Expanded Edition) FAQ

On November 29, 2022, La-La Land Records issued a 2-CD set of David Arnold's score to "Tomorrow Never Dies." The release was a great success but there have been a few questions repeatedly asked about it. I hope this page answers those questions. If you find it valuable, please help get the word out. Before getting to that, I want to thank everyone for supporting this album, listening to it and taking the time to ask about it.

Hey, I bought the new TND CD and I think I noticed a bit of music missing. When Bond is first seen with the woman in bed learning "a new tongue" there's soft music playing and it's not on this album. Did anyone else notice?

The scene you're describing is tracked with the 2nd movement from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor." This was not recorded for the film and was an existing recording, licenced (<---- British spelling) by the filmmakers. If you'd like to hear this music apart from the film, there are many recordings available.

As an aside, while working on this album I saw the latest "Batman" movie and heard this piece during a scene between Bruce Wayne and Alfred.

Did anyone else notice music missing from the beginning when Stamper shoots the survivors and Carver's men go aboard the sunken ship and retrieve the missiles? Why isn't this on the new album?

The music used for the events described above is on the album. It's found in the cue "Underwater Discovery," (disc 1, track 20) which the filmmakers tracked earlier in the movie for this scene.

I was talking to this guy who knows a fella who says he heard you're working on the next James Bond album. Here's what I'd like it to be and what I'd like on it. First, I want.....

Let me cut you off right there. As of this writing (January 2, 2023) I am not involved with nor do I know of any upcoming James Bond albums. I also have my own wants and desires and having now worked on three of these scores and having worked continuously on specialty soundtrack releases for nearly 15 years, I have a good grip on what the public wants and how to deliver it.

For all of the latest official news on all of the latest releases I suggest following and/or signing up for emails from the various specialty labels like La-La Land Records, Quartet Records, Intrada Records and Varese Sarabande.

Thanks and have a Happy New Year!