Review Summary: How to relive the entire classic series in under 3 hours (plus extras)
While both critically acclaimed and held in high regard by a great number of fans worldwide, not everyone feels the exact same way when it comes to Shinichiro Watanabe's classic TV series
Cowboy Bebop. Many will tell you it's deserving of all the praise it gets and more, but there are also those out there that consider it overrated. However, one thing I've come to learn is that no matter what a person has to say about the show as a whole, they will almost always give some level of praise to its soundtrack.
Listen to any one of the series' original soundtrack albums and you'll understand why this is the case. What The Seatbelts brought to the table was more inspired, diverse, and of a higher quality than anyone could reasonably expect for a soundtrack to a late-night animated TV show of just 26 episodes. Like the show itself, the soundtrack to
Cowboy Bebop tried a lot of different things, and managed to pull off all of them in both an impressive and respectable fashion. If you weren't familiar with the show, you could still listen to these albums and enjoy them as individual works of art, separate from the series they accompanied. If you
were a fan of the show, the potential emotional response that would accompany certain tracks made these records even better.
In 2002, after the release of three original soundtrack albums for
Cowboy Bebop, one for the subsequent film, and three EPs, The Seatbelts returned to celebrate the show once more with this limited edition boxset. This included a variety of already released tracks, a few alternative versions, and a small handful of tunes that appeared on the show but never made it to the albums. The fourth disc also features a selection of live tracks and a few previously unreleased compositions from the film. While the albums and EPs the group released earlier felt sort of like works of their own (even to those familiar with
Bebop), this collection (the first three discs, anyway) truly feels like a proper companion piece to the original series, which is also a very good thing in its own sense.
The music on this set is still of course good enough to stand on its own in many ways, but unlike The Seatbelts' earlier works the collection as a whole doesn't seem like it's really trying to. Here the listener is constantly reminded of
Cowboy Bebop not just through the songs, but also through short dialogue excerpts from the show, which always come just before tracks that were featured in the same episode. The short lengths of these excerpts make it that they don't take anything away from the listening experience; in fact, they add to it for fans who will enjoy being reminded of a selection of the show's various standout moments. We even experience these snippets (and the tracks that go along with them) in the same order as in the series, making for a compilation that is not only enjoyable in its musical splendour, but in its nostalgic quality for long-time fans.
While discs 1-3 are where most of the magic is, and are what really make this set a classic overall, the extra fourth disc is also very worthwhile. This disc ends the nostalgic trip solely through the original series and mostly consists of a selection of live tracks, some from the film also. One of these, a piano medley of five classic tracks by the soundtracks' central mastermind Yoko Kanno, is sure to tug at the heartstrings of many who already enjoyed
Cowboy Bebop and The Seatbelts' music in the past. This disc is also notable for including a few studio tracks from the movie that didn't make its original soundtrack, and although this is fairly understandable considering how minimal they are mostly, it's nice to have them somewhere outside of the film itself.
The previously unreleased tracks from the original series, locatable on the first three discs, are a far more rewarding addition than the film ones overall. Rather than just featuring tracks that make for a good album experience, The Seatbelts were freer here to include some of their shorter, more atmospheric cuts that effectively set the tone for many scenes in the show. These are still quality tunes though, and are a big part of making these three discs the great nostalgia trip that they are, allowing fans to (in a sense) relive the entire series in less than 3 hours. Alongside the alternative versions of already released songs, these tracks also help to make the listening experience not
too familiar for those who've already listened to all of the original albums. Pink Floyd tribute 'On the Run' is a particular unreleased tune I had always wondered about, and was glad to find it here on disc three.
This compilation is a fantastic way for long-time fans of
Cowboy Bebop and The Seatbelts to enjoy the music of the show, containing all the musical brilliance of the original soundtracks and combining this with an astounding sense of nostalgia through constantly referencing back to the series itself. However, if you're not already familiar with the show or its music this may just come across as a rather daunting collection of music and skits. Therefore if you want to check out The Seatbelts for the first time, I'd suggest listening to the first
Cowboy Bebop soundtrack album before anything else. Likewise, for a full appreciation of the music on display, it's recommended that you check out the show itself, which is in its own right well worth experiencing. On the other hand, if you are already a fan of
Cowboy Bebop and The Seatbelts and have yet to give this collection a try, this is also something I highly recommend you do.
