On March 6, 2018, Enjoy the Toons Records announced that they were releasing the soundtrack to the G1 Transformers cartoon. The music has never been released in any form since the show’s airing in the early 1980’s. The music for the show was composed by Robert J. Walsh, and Johnny Douglas who worked on a number of 80’s cartoons including G.I. Joe (TV and Movie), Jem and the Holograms, and My Little Pony.
The album will go sale this Friday, March 9, 2018, on their website at noon Eastern Time. The album is limited to 2000 copies total, and is spread across three character color themed variants, and traditional black record. The colored albums include Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Bumblebee version which will be an exclusive on ThinkGeek. The track list for the album is detailed below, it contains music from seasons 1 to 3 of the show which were personally selected by composer Robert J. Walsh.
Enjoy the Ride Records has confirmed that they will not be releasing this album digitally or on CD as they only licensed the album for a Vinyl LP release. Enjoy the Ride Records have also been hinting at this release since Thanksgiving of 2017 via their Instagram account. I also noticed that the labelling on the album reads: “HASBRO STUDIOS PRESENTS: 80’s TV Classics Music From” and asked the label over twitter if this meant if they planned to release more Hasbro music? They liked my tweet, so I am expecting more releases in the future. If you check out what’s been teased on Instagram I’ve seen pictures of the villains of G.I. Joe, and Thundercats too.
Original Sound Version has reached out to Sony Legacy Recordings for details on the possibility of additional releases but has received no response. Composer Robert J Walsh has been teasing the release of his music to Transformers, G.I. Joe and Jem and the Holograms for years now on his Facebook page, and with members of many Transformers fans. He has also hinted that he re-mastered the Transformers music in 5.1 audio for a potential Blu-Ray Audio release. OSV will be sure to report on any additional releases as information becomes available.
To purchase this album be sure to check out Enjoy The Toons Records site on Friday, I don’t think these will last long!
Are you excited for the first official release of the music from the Transformers cartoon?