London Music Works

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London Music Works have become rather known for their electronic and nostalgic synth covers of tracks from various franchises – such as The Terminator and Gerry Anderson shows. Given that Stranger Things itself has a soundtrack in exactly that mode – the nostalgic sounds of Fairlights, Moogs, and John Carpenter vibes pervading every track with a throb and beat of 1980s electronic musical nostalgia – you’d think this is a match made in heaven.

To some degree it is; in fact it’s so perfect a match that it’s almost indistinguishable from the original versions from the show’s soundtracks. The album covers a range of tracks from the series over a total of 18 tracks. The first four tracks are from Season 1, the next four from Season 2, then four from Season 3, and finally the remaining six are from Season 4.

Most of the tracks sound absolutely like the original article and not a cover version, from the theme tune, through “Kids,” “Soldiers,” “What’s The Internet?” and so on. Noticeable differences are few and far between, though there’s more of a blowing-over-a-bottletop woodwind sound to “The Silver Cat Feeds” here that’s more detectably different.

This matching of sounds is both the album’s strength, and also its greatest weakness. It’s a strength because it sounds so right, especially if either you’re a fan of the show or of this type of 80s movie music. However it’s a terrible weakness because if it comes to a choice of the original artists and the identical cover, why would you choose the cover instead of the official one?

Well, there is a question of price and availability, of course. The most widely available official soundtrack is the season 4 one, but the earlier seasons may be trickier to find, and so here you have a few tracks from those earlier seasons. On the other hand, if you already have the official soundtracks, why would you want this cover version, especially when the selection of tracks is generally limited to the first four or so tracks of each season?

Verdict: It’s an album of mixed feelings, really – a spot-on set of covers combined into a fun nostalgic electronic album, but which is essentially a pointless exercise because the official soundtracks already did that, only more so. 6/10

David A McIntee