Star Wars (soundtrack)

Star Wars (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Cover of the original 1977 release.
Film score by John Williams
Released	1977, 1997, 2004
Recorded	March 1977
Studio	Anvil Studios, Denham
Genre	Classical
Length	74:58
Label	20th Century Records (later by RSO Records, RCA Victor, and Sony Classical)
Producer	George Lucas, Nick Redman (2004)
John Williams chronology
Black Sunday (1977) Star Wars (1977) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Star Wars soundtrack chronology
Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Filmtracks
Movie Wave
SoundtrackNet

John Williams' score for Star Wars was recorded over eight sessions at Anvil Studios in Denham, England on March 5, 8–12, 15 and 16, 1977. The score was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with Williams himself conducting. The score was orchestrated by Williams's frequent associate Herbert W. Spencer, who also orchestrated The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The score was recorded by engineer Eric Tomlinson and edited by Kenneth Wannberg, and the scoring sessions were produced by Star Wars director George Lucas and supervised by Lionel Newman, head of 20th Century Fox's music department.

The film premiered on May 25, 1977 and by late summer a disco version of the film's theme by Meco became America's number one song. In 2005, the American Film Institute named the original Star Wars soundtrack as the most memorable score of all time for a U.S. film. In 2004, it was preserved by the Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry, calling it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In 2016, the album was re-released by Sony Classical Records on vinyl, CD, and digital formats alongside Williams' other Star Wars soundtracks. The vinyl release is pressed on 180g vinyl, and features the original 20th Century Records logo.

The original 1977 release of the soundtrack, entitled Star Wars - Original Soundtrack, included a poster of a painting by science fiction artist John Berkey, depicting the final battle over the Death Star from the film's end. The album was released as a double LP which was formatted for an autochanger record player; one disc had sides one and four with the other having sides two and three. This allowed a person to stack sides one and two on the player, then flip the stack over for sides three and four, allowing the listener to have over half an hour of uninterrupted music interspersed with key bits of dialog before they needed to flip the discs over.