2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony
With the final chime of the 23 tonne bell still resonating around the Olympic Park and the stadium audience beginning to head home, the true echoes of the Opening Ceremony can be heard the world over as the event’s phenomenal musical score – produced by Underworld’s Rick Smith – gets a digital release the minute the event finishes.
Featuring many of the highlights of July 27th’s jaw-dropping show, including reworked tracks by the Chemical Brothers, F buttons, Blanck Mass, Arctic Monkeys, Emeli Sandé and Mike Oldfield as well as two huge new specially commissioned pieces by Underworld (the fifteen minute Pandemonium section soundtrack And I Will Kiss and Caliban’s Dream, the musical announcement of the Olympic torch’s arrival in the stadium).
Talking about the ideas that forged the music on Isles of Wonder, Rick says, “Music is Britain’s cultural heartbeat; it’s a perpetual act of revolutionary thought. From William Blake to the Beatles via the Clash and the Chemical Brothers, the soundtrack to our lives fizzes and hums all around us like a stray signal from a radio dial that your internal antenna just can’t help but tune into.”
The soundtrack was released as soon as the Ceremony finished on all major digital platforms. A physical release via Decca Records was available on August 6th. The soundtrack is split into two sections – the first represents the music from the main show; the second is the soundtrack to the athletes parade. It features reworked versions of Underworld classics (many of them by Scribble collaborator High Contrast) alongside a set of handpicked tracks that chosen specifically for the event.