The Rocketeer

The Rocketeer: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album composed by James Horner for the 1991 film of the same name directed by Joe Johnston. The original score was released by Hollywood Records on June 10, 1991, which includes much of Horner's score and two cover songs — "Begin the Beguine" (1935) and "When Your Lover Has Gone" (1931) — all of them were performed by Melora Hardin and arranged by Billy May. Upon release, the album was issued in multiple physical formats. The album was then re-issued by Intrada Records, which released a full score album on June 24, 2016. It is a two-disc CD set that contained the score from the initial tracklist (including the two songs), and additional material of the score used in the film. It was remastered and re-released on May 28, 2021. The score received critical praise from music critics, praising the nostalgic moments and heroic themes. It was often regarded as one of Horner's best film scores in his career, and also considered as one of the best scores for a superhero film. Reception The soundtrack received positive response from critics, being considered as one of the film's positive aspects. Some also praised it as "one of Horner's best scores", with Den of Geek (Sean Wilson) and Comingsoon.net (Jeff Ames) also referring them in their list. Ames also mentioned the Rocketeer score as one of "the top 10 superhero scores of all time". Wilson felt that "Joe Johnston’s underrated comic book adventure soars off the back of Horner’s spectacular score, what with its quintessentially heroic main theme calling back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, swooning romantic material and bombastic action sequences. More important than anything, however, is the score’s sense of fun: Horner really did capture the exhilaration of flight quite beautifully, making one lament the dreary audio nonsense allowed to clutter so many movies in the current age." Post Horner's death in June 22, 2015, The Hollywood Reporter writer Harry Windsor praised the work as "nostalgic but full of youthful wonder for a time when modern aviation and modern movies were coming into being", which paved the way for Horner's success as a film composer, and referred it to "grandly romantic as anything by John Williams".