Conan the Destroyer Soundtrack

We rate the Conan the Destroyer soundtrack A tier: a good score in a poor recording, and we think the 2023 edition is the first release that lets you hear which of the two it is. It earns A under our rule because another orchestra recorded it complete 27 years later, which nobody pays for twice unless the writing holds.

0:00 That later recording is the one on screen here: the City of Prague Philharmonic under Nic Raine playing the main title for Tadlow Music, whose two-disc set with Prometheus Records was announced on Nov 29, 2011 with a 90-piece orchestra and an 80-voice chorus. The original 1984 recording is what the tables below play, in the fullest form it has had: Back Lot Music's digital edition of Mar 10, 2023, 43 tracks, the same program Intrada pressed on two CDs in December 2022 (Intrada). A third Conan film is now in the works, with no composer named (The Hollywood Reporter, May 19, 2026); our guess at what that means for this music is on Predictions.

The 1984 recording

Poledouris conducted the Unione Musicisti di Roma, with orchestrations by Greig McRitchie, Jack Smalley and Scott Smalley (Intrada). Compared with the first film's score the orchestra was smaller, there was no chorus, and synthesizers covered some parts; Filmtracks' review, revised on Mar 15, 2023, calls the playing poor and the sound muffled and gives the score three stars, four for the Prague re-recording. Two of the extras below are those synthesizer layers left audible: Net Fight (With Sweetener) and Chamber of Mirrors (With Synth Sweetener).

The first film's music runs through it. The same review hears the Crom theme and the Riders of Doom rhythms, the love theme in Valeria Is Hot and Valeria Remembered, the Mountain of Power processional in Approach to Shadizar, and Wheel of Pain in Door Lift.

Three programs, timed

Vi.ki added up the lengths of Back Lot Music's own uploads on Nov 10, 2026. The film score is nearly twice as long as the album sold in 1984, and its longest cue, Chamber of Mirrors, is the one the 1984 album called Crystal Palace.

Highlights

Thirteen moments inside the tracks, measured by Vi.ki from Back Lot Music's uploads on Nov 10, 2026, not picked by ear; the home page says how. The measurement found no choir anywhere in the 43 tracks, which fits the record: this score was recorded without one. Here the Play column is the time inside the track.

All tracks

Every track of the 2023 edition in its own order, each from its first second in the upload Back Lot Music provided to YouTube. Each track is its own video, so every Play link starts at 0:00; the Length column says how long it runs.

The film score

Tracks 1 to 25 are the score as written for the film, in film order. Filmtracks notes that the main and end title cues were cut up in the film and left off the 1984 album, so the two Drum Prelude tracks that frame this program were first released here and on the Intrada discs.

Extras

The first version of the main title and four alternate mixes.

The 1984 album

The 13 tracks MCA released with the film, about half the score, in an order of their own. On streaming services this album also exists by itself under Geffen Records, with "(Conan The Destroyer/Soundtrack Version)" after every title (Qobuz). Intrada's printed length for track 43 is 1:29; the recording runs 2:33, as every streaming copy does.

Editions

The 1992 CD date is FilmMusic.com's (FilmMusic.com); the Prague set's 29 tracks include a 20-minute suite from Poledouris's score for the Universal Studios stage show The Adventures of Conan (Filmtracks).

Sources

• Conan the Destroyer, Special Collection Volume ISC 477, Intrada, 2022
• Expanded Conan the Destroyer Soundtrack Album Announced, Film Music Reporter, Dec 5, 2022, updated Mar 9, 2023
• Conan the Destroyer, Filmtracks, revised Mar 15, 2023
• New Recording of the Complete Score by Basil Poledouris, Tadlow Music, Nov 29, 2011
• Conan the Destroyer, Qobuz, retrieved Nov 10, 2026
• Conan the Destroyer, FilmMusic.com, retrieved Nov 10, 2026
• The Hollywood Reporter on King Conan, May 19, 2026
• Conan The Destroyer, tadlowmusic (video)
• Conan The Destroyer (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Special Collection), Basil Poledouris, provided to YouTube by Back Lot Music, Mar 12, 2023 (videos)