18. Farewell Big Brother Music Guide

What follows is a list of all the music that appeared in the standard version of Robotech episode 18: "Farewell Big Brother." Bold text denotes that this is the first appearance of that piece of music.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: Nothing really new in this one, unless you count Roy's guitar strumming. It could arguably be considered a sound effect, although not an original one-- in the original Macross episode Roy's playing the melody to "Runner," the song used as the show's ending theme. However I strongly believe that in this case Harmony Gold just used two of the guitar chords from "Daydream" (specifically the ones at 0:12 and 0:54), without the echo effect.

Robotech Theme
Across the Universe
Reflections
Robotech Love Theme I
The Man in My Life
Robotech Love Theme I
Lifeline (Instrumental)
To Be in Love (with Minmei Doll distortion)
Zentraedi Theme
Ineptitude
Boobytrap
Robotech Love Theme I
Private Time Theme (b)
Eyecatch
Battlestations
Robotech Theme
Alien Attack
Sweet Sixteen (The Man in My Life Instrumental)
Alien Attack
The Point of No Return
Showdown
Robotech Theme
Broken Heart
Red Alert (Resolve)
(guitar strumming, possibly from Daydream)
Escalations (b)
Reconstruction Blues
Robotech Theme (next episode preview)
Robotech End Title 

17. Phantasm Music Guide

What follows is a list of all the music that appeared in the standard version of Robotech episode 17: "Phantasm." Bold text denotes that this is the first appearance of that piece of music.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: A bit of a tricky one to index, and definitely tricky to reproduce, as the music on this episode has been manipulated and distorted to match Rick Hunter's delirious dream state. There's an unreleased discordant crash when Breetai steals Minmei, mixed over "Crashing Metal" and starting while Minmei is still singing "To Be in Love," which is itself distorted-- Minmei's vocals seem to be running faster than her musical accompaniment. I don't think it's really fair to count these as unique tracks, but I'm listing them here with the additional annotations for the sake of being complete.

The biggest surprise to me is that this episode also uses two parts of "The Cosmic Harp," which means for the sake of organizing a complete perfect memory soundtrack, "The Cosmic Harp" will now show up before "We Will Win"! I can't help but feel a bit disappointed about that. To further complicate matters, "The Cosmic Harp" is one of the few tracks that was left as a medley on the 30th Anniversary Soundtrack, making it impossible to separate the parts smoothly. I'm still only counting the two parts used in this episode as receiving their first appearances here, and will count the other parts when the show up in Robotech Masters. (Assuming they don't surprise me and show up again before that!)

CORRECTION: When I first posted this list, I mistakenly labeled the first two uses of "Minmei's Theme" as "Love Triangle." I got my instrumental versions of To Be in Love mixed up! The list as it stands now is corrected.

Robotech Theme
Battlestations
Boobytrap
To Be in Love (vocals are [presumably deliberately] out of sync with the background music)
Crashing Metal (with unreleased discordant crash)
Battlestations
Rich Hunter's Theme
Showdown
Reflections
Bliss Theme (a)
Rick Hunter's Theme
Battlestations
Biomechanical
Robotech Theme
The Mysterious Ship
Rick Hunter's Theme
Boobytrap
The 15th Squadron
Eyecatch
The 15th Squadron
To Be in Love (a capella with echoes)
Minmei's Theme
Crashing Metal
Rick Hunter's Theme 
The Cosmic Harp (c2)
The Cosmic Harp (c1)
The Zentraedi
Broken Heart
Minmei's Theme
To Be in Love (a capella)
Love Triangle (To Be in Love Instrumental)
The Robotech Masters
Robotech Theme (next episode preview)
Robotech End Title

16. Battle Cry Music Guide

What follows is a list of all the music that appeared in the standard version of Robotech episode 16: "Battle Cry." Bold text denotes that this is the first appearance of that piece of music.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: A new Minmei song, as we hear "The Man in My Life" for the first time.

Robotech Theme
Across the Universe
Boobytrap
Love Triangle  (To Be in Love Instrumental)
Biomechanical
Bliss Theme (a)
Mission Accomplished
The Man in My Life
Zentraedi Theme
The Man in My Life
Khyron's Theme
Showdown
Intruder
Broken Heart
Shocked (c)
Eyecatch
Zentraedi Theme
Battlestations
Broken Heart
Intruder
Rick Hunter's Theme
Battlestations
Showdown
Boobytrap
Intruder
Robotech Theme
Broken Heart
Robotech Theme (next episode preview)
Robotech End Title

15. Homecoming Music Guide

What follows is a list of all the music that appeared in the standard version of Robotech episode 15: "Homecoming." Bold text denotes that this is the first appearance of that piece of music.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: The second usage of "Escalations (a)" at the end of this episode seems to have an extended closing; that or the piece has just been slowed down, I can't really tell. It does seem to be at a lower pitch. Either way, there's only one version of it on the soundtrack, and except for that they're identical to my ears.

Robotech Theme
Private Time (a2)
Imbeciles
Victory
Robotech Love Theme I
Lifeline (Instrumental)
Roy Fokker's Theme
Private Time (b)
Victory
Private Time (a1)
The Point of No Return
Eyecatch
Robotech Love Theme II
Earth Government Debriefing
Red Alert (Resolve)
Bliss Theme (a)
Love Triangle  (To Be in Love Instrumental)
United Earth Government Theme
Escalations (a)
Escalations (d)
 Love Triangle (To Be in Love Instrumental)
Earth Government Debriefing
Private Time (b)
Bliss Theme (b)
Escalations (a)
Robotech Theme (next episode preview)
Robotech End Title

14. Gloval's Report Music Guide

What follows is a list of all the music that appeared in the standard version of Robotech episode 14: "Gloval's Report." Bold text denotes that this is the first appearance of that piece of music.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: This is Robotech's first clip show episode, so it's fitting that it's also the first episode to feature absolutely no new music whatsoever! (And on a personal note, the long break between posts isn't from me losing interest in this project; there have simply been too many new fall TV shows taking up all my TV watching time. As we get closer to the winter break I expect that to change and regular blog posts to resume.)

Robotech Theme
United Earth Government Theme
Boobytrap
Alien Attack
Red Alert
Showdown
Crashing Metal
Intruder
Private Time Theme (b)
Private Time Theme (a1)
Alien Attack
Desolation
The SDF-1
Robotech Theme
The 15th Squadron
Eyecatch
The Point of No Return
Battlestations
Miss Macross
Intruder
The Point of No Return
Red Alert
Khyron's Theme
The Robotech Masters
Boobytrap
Robotech Love Theme I
Robotech Theme (next episode preview)
Robotech End Title

13. Blue Wind Music Guide

What follows is a list of all the music that appeared in the standard version of Robotech episode 13: "Blue Wind." Bold text denotes that this is the first appearance of that piece of music.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: This episode features three small unreleased pieces of music, but only two of them are new; the third one was originally used in episode 3, "Space Fold." In this episode we also finally get to hear the instrumental version of the "Macross Theme" for the first time. Those of you playing along at home will want to use the version from the Robotech Perfect Collection CD (or the Robotech BGM Vol. 1 LP) released by US Renditions in the late 80's, since it's the only version that accurately reflects its usage in Robotech without the Macross Theme Intro overlapping into it.

Robotech Theme
Macross Theme
Boobytrap
unreleased comedic ("You Look Fine, Bron, now let's get started!")
Reflections
unreleased shocked ("No you won't.")
Sweet Sixteen
Lifeline (Instrumental)
unreleased ("Old Sourpuss")
Robotech Theme
My Time to Be a Star
Eyecatch
Macross Theme (Into)
Bliss Theme (a)
Shocked (d)
Zentraedi Theme
Intruder
The 15th Squadron
The 15th Squadron
Zentraedi Theme
Intruder
Mission Accomplished
Macross Theme
Catastrophe (next episode preview)
Robotech End Title

12. The Big Escape Music Guide

What follows is a list of all the music that appeared in the standard version of Robotech episode 12: "The Big Escape." Bold text denotes that this is the first appearance of that piece of music.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: Some weird manipulations going on in this episode, with two of the "Shocked" pieces sounding like the speed dial was accidentally bumped in the middle of the piece and then quickly reset! I refer to this as a "warble" in the descriptions below.

The only major new piece of music in this episode points out one of the remaining flaws in the 30th Anniversary Soundtrack. This episode is the first time we hear "Lifeline (Instrumental)." The Soundtrack sadly fades the song out before its concluding lines, which is a shame because (a) it's an awesome piece of music and (b) those concluding lines are used for the scene of Rick and Lisa falling into darkness as the episode goes to commercial. According to the liner notes, the vocal version of "Lifeline" was remastered, which certainly implies that they had access to a clean version of the ending and could have restored it to the instrumental. Oh well. Perhaps for the 40th Anniversary.

CORRECTION: When I first posted this, I missed that "Broken Heart" was briefly used at the beginning of the episode (from 2:12 - 2:26). The list as it stands now has been corrected.

Robotech Theme
United Earth Government Debriefing
Broken Heart
Shocked (c) (warble)
Shocked (d) (warble)
Love Triangle (To Be In Love Instrumental Version)
Boobytrap
Intruder
Macross Theme (Intro)
Battlestations
Shocked (b)
Zentraedi Theme
Shocked (d) (really sped up)
Confrontation
Lifeline (instrumental)
 Eyecatch
Broken Heart
Broken Heart
Victory
Boobytrap
Zentraedi Theme
Robotech Theme
My Time to Be a Star
Battlestations
Mission Accomplished (next episode preview)
Robotech End Title