Star Blazers - Track 18 - The Silence of Space
Space Battleship Yamato BGM Collection Part 1
Strange as it sounds, it was the recorded quality of the original BGM (Back Ground Music)
that had kept it from being released until over six years after the TV series debuted.
Back in 1974, recording sessions were not budgeted for stereo since no Japanese TV set
could hear it that way. To Miyagawa's credit, he skillfully worked around this to
write simple melodies that could break through such technical limitations. In short,
he made sure that his tunes would still sound good on a miniature TV speaker.
The music made such a powerful impression on viewers that the memory of it could get them
through the eternal 7-day gap between episodes. Naturally, they wanted to hear it in pure
form and didn't mind saying so to those at Columbia who would listen. In the wake of Be Forever's
tremendous success, Columbia finally relented.
BGM Collection Part 1 clearly said "MONO" on its cover, but this deterred no one. In no time at all,
the floodgates had been opened on another form of music merchandising, and BGM albums rolled out from
practically every series, new and old.
Miyagawa's liner notes from BGM Part 1:
Even though the Yamato story is set in outer space, it's basically a human drama. When making space music
one usually uses a synthesizer, but for this anime we used a live orchestra to bring out the full aspect
of Earth's humanity. For later works, we consistently stayed with the grandeur of the orchestral sound.
We added a certain uniqueness to differentiate each new production, like a pipe organ, or a different style
melody for a particular alien race. But for me, the first Yamato will always be the foundation on which we
built the rest of the series, and I will always hold the fondest memories for it.