Music From Amazing Stories

Although it never did well in the television ratings, Amazing Stories has since been considered a classic and still enjoys regular showings on popular networks. As one of the first television projects of Steven Spielberg, it was Amazing Stories that elevated his name to the high status it now has. With a run of only two seasons, the television series was short lived, but its legacy lives on, both in the episodes and a three volume collection of the music that was composed to accompany the broadcasts. From the beginning, Steven Spielberg understood the vital role that quality music could play in shaping a story and enlisted only the top names in the industry to compose the music for his episodes.

John Williams was considered to be the main composer for the television series and his works appear on all three volumes of the soundtrack. However, a quick glance at the track listing will show that the albums serve as a who’s who of top composers of the late 1980s. Danny Elfman and James Horner both have included tracks and list Amazing Stories on their filmography of completed works. Other than John Williams, the only composer that has pieces on each album is Bruce Boughton and his Gather Ye Acorns is recognized as one of the essential works of the Amazing Stories program.

For the last volume of the soundtrack, Spielberg used a wide variety of different composers. John Williams was still responsible for the main themes and had a total of five of the thirteen tracks that appears on the album. Other known composers, such as Michael Kamen and Fred Steiner have pieces and even the jazz guitarist, Pat Metheny, contributed a song to the Amazing Stories legacy. As far as being a television series, Amazing Stories was certainly ahead of its time, but a person can still relive the episodes by listening to the wonderful soundtrack.