Cool Stuff: Mondo Gives Pixar's Up Score The Vinyl Soundtrack Treatment

The folks at Mondo are adding yet another banger title to their limited vinyl soundtrack releases. This time they're continuing their streak of releasing Michael Giacchino's work with one of his most iconic and influential scores. That's right! Pixar's "Up" is getting the white glove treatment complete with absolutely gorgeous cover art by Nicole Gustaffson and liner notes from Drew Taylor.

How lovely are those "balloon spots" on the vinyl itself? I always love to see Mondo go the extra mile with these releases and I'm personally very psyched to see "Up" get the spotlight. Giacchino's work is always spectacular, but "Up" in particular is a favorite of mine. From the very opening cue, he makes you cry. It's an adventurous score, a melancholic score, a comedic score ... it's every high and low you want in a feature film soundtrack.

Funny story: I took piano lessons as a kid and immediately hated it and never practiced. As an adult, I decided to take piano back up again and part of my lesson plan was for me to compose a basic piece of original music using notes I had just learned. So, I futzed with it for an afternoon and came away with something I was happy with that sounded pleasing to the ear, and just before I presented it to my teacher, I realized the reason I liked it so much was that it was basically the Dollar Store version of Giacchino's Main Theme for "Up." 

I'd love to say I was influenced by that soundtrack, but the real truth is I was just hitting notes that sounded pleasing to my ear. 

At the end of my piano lessons, I could pound out John Lennon's "Imagine," John Carpenter's "Halloween" theme, and whatever Brundlepod bastardization of the "Up" theme I came up with and that's about it.

"Up" will be available this Wednesday, September 15, 2021, at Noon CST on Mondo's record shop alongside a restock of Giacchino's score for "Ratatouille." 

The "Up" release is a 2x 180g vinyl and will run you $35 (limited to one per customer to try to keep the flippers from buying everything). 

If you're really in a Giacchino mood, you can also pick up vinyl versions of his scores for "Soul" and "Jojo Rabbit" as well as his first non-soundtrack album titled "Michael Giacchino and his Nouvelle Orchestra – Travelogue Vol. 1" from the same Mondo store.