Conducted by Basil Poledouris

Orchestrated by Jack Smalley, Greig McRitchie, and Scott Smalley

Produced by Basil Poledouris

Release Date: November 10, 1992

 Varese Sarabande Records
 

     Whenever Conan the Destroyer is mentioned, it always seems to be talked about as the "sequel" to Conan the Barbarian. That's right, sequel in "quotation marks." I'm not sure exactly what that is supposed to signify, considering that the film is called Conan the Destroyer and that it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a muscle-bound fantasy hero. Or that Basil Poledouris scored it. John Milius didn't have anything to do with it, and it had quite a less-than-stellar budget, so maybe that's the reason. I haven't seen the film in so long I can't remember anything about it, so as far as specifics go, that's about all I know.

     Since I'm reviewing the score album, I can definitely tell you how much the music has in common with the first film. Poledouris is back (as I already mentioned), and there are references to themes from the original now and then. That's about it as far as similarities go. The score is different in that the chorus is missing, along with what sounds like half the orchestra, and generally the music is lackluster and boring. Whatever magic or inspiration Poledouris had for the first film, by the time of Conan's sophomore effort, it had all disappeared. The loss of the chorus is perhaps the most tragic, but pretty much everything sounds bad on here, and it was a quite a struggle to listen to, as the moments that reference themes from Conan the Barbarian had me wishing that I could stop this one and listen to that album.

     It's not really fair to leave a bad perception of the score however. Poledouris does continue his style from the first film, and the inclusion of the original themes does help a lot with keeping everything in perspective. Still, none of the new material is anything special and the lackluster performances really hinder the album (in the same way that the watered down music for Superman II really hurt that score, even though it was very closely constructed to John Williams original).