I had completely forgotten about this beautiful image of Vader's helmet on the back of the Star Wars album. When I saw this, it brought back a flood of memories of me laying on my bedroom floor, staring/studying this image while I listened to the entire album, over and over again.



I'm hoping I can find this album in my parent's basement - if not, I'm buying a mint copy so I can frame this image and hang it on my wall.



After I saw this image, I looked it up on iTunes and bought the digital version of this 1977 album, the original Empire Strikes Back album from 1980, and the original 1983 ROTJ album. I have to say, they're SO much better than the new cinema releases of the music. ...the original cantina music was in this 1977 version of the Star Wars score. The Departure of Boba Fett (as a single) was on the original 1980 ESB album. The original Lapti Nek (Jabba's Palace Band) and Ewok Celebration were are on the original Return of the Jedi album.

Best of all, the Main Title version of the 1977 album release is wonderful compilation of the Main Title/Crawl, Rebel Blockade Runner, Main Title rehash, Princess Leia's Theme, and ending with the End Title. Gotta check it out if you haven't heard them. Goosebump city.

edit: The more I look at this image, the more it swings me back to favoring the ANH helmet. I'm always going back and forth between the ANH and ESB helmets. LOL

The Lapti Neck song isn't the one used in the movie, though. It's an alternate take.

Yes, it sounds like it was re-recorded. But it's still better than the new edition releases Lucas used on HD release of ANH.

I gotta dig through my CD's and records to see if I can find the original recording.

I'm still waiting for Disney to release the original theatrical editions of Star Wars on Blu-ray. It'll happen - as there is a TON of money to be made with those releases, and Disney doesn't leave money on the table. But I forget if Lucas/20 C Fox still owns the rights to the original theatrical versions of those movies.

I've got that Double LP album of the original soundtrack somewhere too, but I don't think I have anything that will play it lol.

Like many, I know just about every note in the Star Wars soundtracks. There are lots of live performances of Star Wars music on youtube. Some very good, some, ehhh. But this one in particular is excellent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd2rpLzrBsE

The entire video is the full performance of John Williams Across the Stars by the L.A. Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel (who incidentally conducted 3 tracks from TFA soundtrack). He's a really great conductor, and the many tempo changes are performed flawlessly. If he's going to be John Williams's successor, he would be a good choice. Though I'm not sure if Dudamel composes or just conducts. But he does have one key trait of all great conductors that John Williams lacks.... bouncy hair.

1 hr 11m 54s is the start time into the video where the conductor graciously acknowledges John Williams and then starts the the performance of the score from the end credits of ROTS. It covers all the major themes from the prior movies with The Throne Room featured prominently.

Don't miss the end as Johnny conducts The Imperial March at 1h 32m 40s!

So my vinyl record (original SW recording) was delivered today. It's in mint condition. So tempted to get the back cover framed and mounted to my wall.

Will definitely give those youtube performances and listen. Thanks BP.

Tom Jung's artwork for the Star Wars album as well as Ralph McQuarrie's concept art for the "Starkiller Duel" are probably the two most influential pieces of Star Wars art for me. I use the album cover as my avatar as well on some other sites . I had my old album set up to display that picture for ages until one day it fell off the shelf and got demolished. I made up for it eventually getting a nice new record with the posters and inserts but also managed to track down a minty copy of the silver Mylar promo poster (stupid difficult to photograph). After the Style A One-Sheet this is absolutely my favorite Star Wars poster:



Cheers!

Dave

Holy shit! I never new that artwork was a poster...

Pardon me while I go hunting.

That piece of Star Wars artwork is my second favorite to the Hildebrandt poster. And the only reason the Hildebrandt poster is my favorite - I had that poster hanging on my wall when I was 8. I would listen to the Star Wars record and stare at the poster, day dreaming. ...then of course when the Imperial Attack track played, I'd flip the album cover over and study Vader's helmet. Still, to this day, thee best Darth Vader artwork, IMO. Just a brilliant painting - it captures the dark mood and persona of Vader to a tee.

Dave that mylar poster looks great even in the photo. I can only imagine how good it looks in person. Craigjohn I see that you've got a WTB posting for this poster might be a long shot as it sounds like it's pretty rare. Which got me to thinking if you like the artwork and want to display it you could frame the LP as you said. Or you could upload the photo to one of the places that produces good quality prints. I've used the Photobucket print shop a few times and have been pleased with their quality for the price ( and they almost always have 70-80% discount coupon codes to use). And I noticed they also offer metal prints (aluminum) which might look good for this image in particular and perhaps emulate the mylar poster look somewhat. But someone would have to be the guinea pig and order one just to see what it would look like. So I did! I ordered a 12"X12" metal print. Price with shipping was $40. I should get it in a couple of weeks. I have no idea how it's going to look but I'll let you know when I get it.

Here's the metal print I ordered from Photobucket from an uploaded photo of the back of the LP album. It doesn't compare to the mylar poster, but it turned out pretty nice! I was hoping the aluminum color of the metal base would blend in with greys in the print, but no. It's just a direct transfer of the image.

I got the glossy finish, though matte finish might look better (and less reflective). The metal print pros are that the image surface is very flat, and no worries about fitting it into a frame. Just one drywall screw is needed to mount it to the wall. The image surface floats about 1 inch from the wall, parallel to it. The metal option is kind of gimmicky but it goes well with this Vader print I think. Always use a coupon code (70% is typical) when ordering prints from Photobucket, and maybe tweak your uploaded image to be slightly lighter as the prints do come out a bit darker than expected.

That is freakin' sweet. I might need to steal that idea.

Me too!!

I finally found a decent t-shirt with that artwork as well. For ages I've seen them available in black ink on a white shirt but to me that always looked wrong. I'd rather see it the other way around. Recently there was a guy on eBay who had them in gray ink on a black shirt so I bought two. Frankly, the shirts are crap -- very thin fabric so they won't last long but at least it's a shot at having it on a shirt.

Man, I would love that Mylar promo picture. Damn... now I need to search for one.

Got a link to the T-shirt eBay seller? Would love to see it.

Yeah, kind of a pain to sort through 22,000 results for "Darth Vader t-shirt" lol

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Star-Wars-Darth ... eQLElebpvg

Oh... I thought you bought from him and left feedback... then he should have been easy to find in your feedback section. Sorry that you had to go through all that, but thanks for the link.

Hi Carsten, that's exactly what I did -- just look through my purchase history. But first I did a quick search and saw the number of hits -- lol