one of my favorite things to see on here is people who know a lot about a very niche thing going absolutely off on it and learning you a thing, so i thought i'd try it with my favorite special interest many years ago: the Evangelion soundtracks this post is adapted from a tweet thread I made earlier so it might appear to be in bite sizes except where I expand on a few thoughts

M-13: born evil

this track was originally intended for the End of Evangelion but never got finished until 3.0+1.0 (you can hear the original version on the S² soundtrack collection as M-13 A- & B-type).

The tune sounds familiar because it's based on song A-4 (Borderline Case). Despite being made on a shoestring budget, Evangelion's composer (Shiro Sagisu) got a lot of mileage out of making many variations on basic motifs and themes. You can also hear Borderline Case's motif in the argument between Shinji and Asuka (Honeymoon with Anxiety) and Asuka's self-interrogation (A Fragile Ego Border)

M-4: Escape to the Beginning

This one's the big one, covering the apotheosis of Eva Unit-01 and Lilith, the other choral track recorded with the London Gospel Choir.

Like born evil, this track is based on an earlier composition A-10 (Mother is the First Other). I'd really like to hear a version with the gospel chorus and the synth backing from the original track. I wonder how it would change the tone of both versions.

E-13: THANATOS

This one is my favorite because I was an emo little shit growing up.

E-13 got a LOT of variations on the S^2 soundtrack, different combinations of piano and string accompaniment presumably to maximize the gutpunch factor when it finally plays.

This version (Towards oneself, tears) was used in the "Director's Cut"/laserdisc episodes during Rei's kamikaze attack against Zeruel, and again when Rei self-destructs to destroy Armisael

I prefer this version quite a bit over the polished version (THANATOS) above, there's more raw oomph to it, and I thought the second portion was unnecessary.

The original version was also featured in The End of Evangelion as Substitute Invasion, all of the higher instruments are cut out. Misato convinces Shinji that life does indeed suck, but you've gotta make it better for yourself.

THANATOS -IF I CAN'T BE YOURS-

And now we get to the credits ...halfway through the movie!!!! Weird flex but okay. I absolutely love the glowing DNA twist to the credit crawl, unfortunately I can't find a link to that on YouTube.

An interview with English lyricist Mike Wyzgowski on where the name LOREN & MASH comes from, since that's apparently been a mystery for years.

EVANGELION-VOX

Shiro, LOREN, Mike, rapper MALI, the FREEDOM gospel choir, and a producer named Martin Lascelles then came together to remix some more classic Eva pieces into a sort of R&B production.
This one (The Image of Me) is based on Rei's first track (A-1).

There's another track on the album where MALI essentially berates Shinji over the phone during the... "Asuka hospital scene". It's a treat.

M-11: EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER DREAMED

Komm, süsser tod is obviously the most famous track from Evangelion (this version being an alternate which includes backing by the gospel choir), but there was another piece that came out of collaborating with vocalist Arianne Schreiber.

Everything You've Ever Dreamed is an absolutely gorgeous track about Shinji's terrible experiences with Asuka (and probably just girls in general lmao). I really wish it could have been used in official media.

Here's the interesting story though. Lyricist Mike Wyzgowski was often given "impressions" from Hideaki Anno to translate and sort-of interpret. Anno's lyrics were.... intense, to say the least. (evageeks Wiki page for lyrics). Komm, susser tod's original lyrics got off a little easier, but still pretty emo.

Evangelion Classical

It's pretty common knowledge that as Evangelion got to the end of the series, keeping things on budget was a real pain in the ass. Because of, or perhaps in spite of that, several pieces of stock classical music were written into the show's score. At some point, it was decided by Eva's record label, King Records, to release the 4 stock scores as separate albums.

I first heard about these back in about 2014, about a year after I'd discovered Evangelion in general. It still took me about two years to find them all archived online, and even then I had to download them from a Russian file-sharing website using a convoluted chain of dropbox-type file managers that could import and export to other services. The original server was very particular about long-distance downloads, but doing the transfers helped ease the files across the globe. Real hackerman shit.

I was inspired to look for them because the Beethoven Symphony track from Kaworu's episode ("The Final Messenger"), and the Messiah tracks from Asuka's episode ("At least, be human") were on "Neon Genesis Evangelion: Addition".
Alexander Rahabari conducted both the Beethoven's 9th performance and Verdi's Requiem (used in Eva: Death).
Handel's Messiah was performed by the Amor Artis chorale conducted by Johannes Somary (who was posthumously accused of sexual exploitation of his students from around the time this performance was recorded. yikes.)
A collection of Bach performances that inspired scenes in the series and the movie was included as the 4th album to round things out.

As far as I can tell, the Messiah performance is the only one that's on YouTube, but it's really good. I like it.

Conclusion

idk i just wanted to share some shit i learned cuz i love evangelion lol bye