Jerry Goldsmith Score Outland

Goldsmith had scored Alien and Capricorn One before Hyams hired him for Outland

Jerry Goldsmith (1929–2004) was one of the most prolific and acclaimed film composers in Hollywood history, with 18 Academy Award nominations and one win (for The Omen, 1976). His sci-fi scores include Planet of the Apes (1968), Alien (1979), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and Total Recall (1990).

Goldsmith had previously worked with Peter Hyams on Capricorn One (1978), their first collaboration. In a 1982 interview — the year after Outland — Goldsmith described the kind of project that appealed to him most:

"I prefer the kind of dramatic situation where there is someone you're trying to get inside of with the music. To try and write music for machinery doesn't appeal to me very much." — Jerry Goldsmith, Critics At Large: Interview with Composer Jerry Goldsmith (1982)

Outland gave him exactly that — a lone marshal isolated on a mining station, not a spectacle of hardware but a story about one man's refusal to look away.

The score favors modernist dissonance and rhythmic tension over melody

The score was performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Goldsmith himself.

Goldsmith's approach to Outland was atmospheric and tension-driven rather than melodic. Rather than a sweeping space opera sound, he opted for modernist dissonance and rhythmic pulse. (See Christian Clemmensen on Outland for full sourcing.)

"Goldsmith's choice to handle most of the film with churning, unpleasant rhythmic propulsion in the lower regions of the orchestra leads to a very challenging listening experience." — Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks: Outland (2009)

The primary motif is not a melody in any conventional sense — Clemmensen describes it as "an extremely obtuse, unpleasant series of paired notes heard immediately on woodwinds," while the low end of the orchestra dominates the texture:

"The brooding tone of the lowest registers of the performing group can occupy nearly an entire cue." — Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks: Outland (2009)

Mark R. Hasan, reviewing the 2010 Film Score Monthly reissue, heard the score as physical rather than cerebral:

"Perhaps taking a cue from Sean Connery's overt masculinity, Outland is a massive, muscular score that's designed to intimidate and unsettle." — Mark R. Hasan, KQEK: Outland (1981) (2010)

Andrew M. Edwards captured how the score moves between scales — from the void of space to the claustrophobia of the station corridors:

"Spacious, horrifying ambient textures blend into pulsing, stabbing, thrilling theatrics, as Connery's character begins a deadly game of cat-and-mouse." — Andrew M. Edwards, Movie Review: Outland (1981) (2024)

The score is atonal and dissonant but does not use formal twelve-tone (serial) technique — Goldsmith reserved that approach for scores like Planet of the Apes (1968), where tone rows built an alien musical language from scratch. Here the harmonic language is freer: clusters, unresolved intervals, and low brass groaning beneath the action. There are no hummable themes. The rhythm mirrors the mining station itself.

Morton Stevens and Michael Boddicker contributed to the final soundtrack

Goldsmith did not score the entire film as heard in the final cut. When Hyams requested late changes, Goldsmith had already moved on to other projects:

"Since Goldsmith was unavailable for some of Hyams' later requests for changes in the score, two other composers stepped in to make last minute contributions. Goldsmith associate Morton Stevens rearranged the final struggle outside the station during the film's climax, utilizing Goldsmith's themes and tone but producing a strikingly more linear action sound." — Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks: Outland (2009)

The station's recreational areas needed a different sound entirely — not orchestral scoring but diegetic music the miners would actually hear:

"The two recreation room scenes required all new music from Michael Boddicker, whose music for the seedy environment is just as futuristic in its employment of splashy synthetic rhythms and sound effects as Goldsmith's, but more primal and direct in its personality." — Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks: Outland (2009)

Film Score Monthly released the complete score in 2010

Release	Year	Format	Notes
Warner Bros. Records	1981	LP	Original album release
Film Score Monthly	2010	2-CD set	Complete score as heard in the film, plus the 1981 LP program and previously unreleased alternates/outtakes

The 2010 Film Score Monthly release is considered the definitive version for collectors and Goldsmith enthusiasts.

The score sits between Alien and Poltergeist in Goldsmith's output

The Outland score falls between Alien (1979) and Poltergeist (1982). Rupert Lally argued that the musical kinship with Alien is one of the film's strongest assets:

"The score by Jerry Goldsmith (reunited with Hyams, who he had worked with on Capricorn One) makes the film feel as if it inhabits the same cinematic universe as the first Alien film — which most definitely works in its favor. Goldsmith's score, which does borrow sonic elements of his score for Alien — rubbed gongs and string pizzicatos through an echo chamber, rumbling dissonant brass, clanging percussion — is often regarded as slightly inferior to his earlier score, when it shouldn't at all." — Rupert Lally, You Need to See This: Outland (1981) (2018)

Hasan placed Outland at a turning point in Goldsmith's career — the moment before synthesizers reshaped his palette:

"Outland is Jerry Goldsmith's last great sci-fi score from a heavily orchestral stance, because by the early eighties the master of action writing (there is no other peer) began to incorporate more synths, significantly changing his instrumental palette, and for a lengthy period, his writing style." — Mark R. Hasan, KQEK: Outland (1981) (2010)