The soundtrack was first released as a 75-minute double LP five days before the premiere of the film but the first compact disc release ran only half the length of the 2 LP set.
Just like with the first film's OST, the album for Empire was assembled by music editor Ken Wannberg under the directions of John Williams. For this OST, Williams personally selected 75 minutes of music, which were edited down and rearranged into a program designed for a "pleasant listening experience". Once again, the cues on this album do not use the film mixes made by Eric Tomlinson, but rather were remixed from the 24-track masters by . This would be the last Star Wars album where this was done, as Return of the Jedi's OST would utilize the film mixes. Interestingly, the European version of the Empire OST had a different program than the US one. As it was only a single LP, it featured only 40 minutes of score instead of 75, and it was also reordered for unknown reasons. The tracks themselves are all identical in content to the US program, as they came from the same masters.
The European OST program was later released on CD everywhere by Polydor in 1985. Unfortunately, since they used the European program, the Polydor CDs only feature 40 minutes worth of music. This release used the exact same masters as the original LP, so it contains the same edits and the same John Neal mixes. While this release was a nice quality upgrade over the original LP, it was not a direct replacement of it due to the missing music.
In 2004, Sony Classical acquired the rights to the classic trilogy scores since it already had the rights to release the second trilogy soundtracks (The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones). In 2004, Sony Classical re-pressed the 1997 RCA Victor release of the Special Edition Star Wars trilogy, including The Empire Strikes Back. The set was released in a less-than-spectacular package with the new art work mirroring the film's first DVD release. Despite the Sony digital remastering, which minimally improved the sound heard only on high-end stereos, this 2004 release is essentially the 1997 RCA Victor release.
The original American OST masters were finally made available in a format other than vinyl in 2016 by Sony Classical, who rereleased them as part of the "Ultimate Digital Collection" which came out soon before they lost the rights. This release was sourced from a new high quality scan of the OST master, so it still featured the John Neal mixes and all the original edits. However, the Ultimate Digital Collection was available from sites like HDTracks in lossless up to 192 kHz/24-bit, where the Polydor CD would've been standard CD quality which is lossless 44.1 kHz/16-bit. Plus, since it featured the American program and not the European one, it has 35 minutes of additional music that were finally available in digital for the first time (at least in their John Neal mixes). The Ultimate Digital Collection is no longer available for sale, and hasn't been ever since Walt Disney Records took over the rights.
On May 4, 2018, Walt Disney Records released a newly-remastered edition of the original 1980 album program on CD, digital download, and streaming services. supervised by Shawn Murphy and Skywalker Sound, this version was transferred to a new hi-resolution (24/192). This remaster was newly assembled from the highest-quality tapes available, rather than sourced from the existing 1980 album masters. This release marks the first release on CD of the complete 1980 soundtrack album.
Side One:
Side Two:
Side Three:
Side Four:
Total Time: 74:34
Total Time: 74:34
Side One:
Side Two:
Total Time: 41:23
Total Time: 41:23