Back with the Sound of Derrick from Eberhard Schoener from 1998 (limited time only)

This album was requested by many people over the time period since I posted the Schoener albums which I raved about earlier here, and here.  So I got curious to see what the fuss was about, despite the very late year, and the fact it's a soundtrack (no info on this on imdb).  It's hard to believe that those earlier albums were just before this pandemic, in what seems now like a totally different world-- how could we really have known, even in the most pessimistic scenarios, what trouble was waiting for us in the half year to follow?  I mean, people have very low tolerance for any kind of pessimistic talk which is the most common response I hear from ordinary folks when faced with a casual prophecy about the realities of climate change in the future-- a comment along the lines of, 'don't worry, the scientists will figure something out' is typical.  In reality, the scientists are telling us at this point to panic, they are not saying 'don't worry'.  And the scientists have 'figured it out' too-- unfortunately we're not following most of their advice.  Exactly like the pandemic when there were very clear early warnings, wherever you might have lived, that were ignored over and over again-- even something as simple as 'stock up on masks for your health care personnel' was ignored.  So for climate change, which is a far more prolonged and drawn out process, I don't have too much hope left except if the aftermath of the pandemic leads to politicians listening more, but that seems unlikely.

Who can be positive now about future problems?

At least we have this beautiful music to keep us happy in the intermission periods.

Like the previous two postings, this album is highly accomplished and runs over a wide range of styles from chamber-classical to electronic material to apparently commercial songs for the benefit of popularity, such as it might have been.  The composition is very much typical of the Schoener we were acquainted with in the late seventies. It's wonderful stuff, and there's a lot to listen to in here.  
I'm grateful that those who requested this did so.

Consider the track called Mr. Gentleman, which is quite approachable albeit classical-based and well-written, the vocalist here is Helen Schneider:

I would have to also mention there are a lot of filler tracks which I hit delete on instantly, whether symphonic-type lead-ins like on library albums or rap-like stuff, or spoken passages presumably taken from the show in question.

I was also happy to see our complicated lady, Esther Ofarim, reappears in a song (which sounds like a Send in the Clowns ripoff) as does Sting (!), the British singer Clare Torry (remember her? she sang the 'Nine lives of a cat' composition) as well as Andrea Bocelli.  Perhaps an odd mix of folks altogether. 

But Clare Torry's contribution (or Schoener's piece for her) is called When Colors Die, and is eerily wonderful in its dark excitement: