05/11/2026
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/arts/music/lala-land-records-movie-soundtracks.html?searchResultPosition=1
By Brian Raftery
Reporting from Burbank, Calif.
May 11, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET
Lost Movie Music? On CD? La-La Land Is an Anomaly. (And a Success.)
The California record label scours movie studio archives and composersâ personal collections to locate music from older films or TV recordings.
In 1979, the composer Harry Manfredini descended into a New Jersey basement to put together music for an indie slasher film. He was working with a quickly approaching deadline, a small group of players and a minuscule budget. âWe werenât even in a recording studio,â Manfredini remembered in an interview. âOn the raw tracks, you could hear the chairs squeaking and the pages turning.â
The resulting score, with its sinister strings and eerie whispers, would be heard by millions of moviegoers when âFriday the 13thâ opened the next year. But the filmâs soundtrack never earned a stand-alone release. Nor did the numerous âFriday the 13thâ sequels Manfredini worked on throughout the decade.
So he was surprised when, in 2011, MV Gerhard and Matt Verboys, the founders of the label La-La Land Records, approached him with an ambitious plan: They wanted to release every piece of music they could find from the first six âFriday the 13thâ movies â even snippets barely a minute long.
âI thought they were crazy,â Manfredini said. âI told them, âSome of that music is pretty boring â itâs playing as people run through the woods. Itâs never going to sell.ââ
But La-La Land was able to track down and restore music that Manfredini, 82, hadnât heard in decades. And the labelâs six-disc âFriday the 13thâ compilation sold out within days of being announced. Itâs one of the hundreds of expansive, exhaustive soundtrack collections La-La Land has released since forming in 2002.
The company scours movie studio archives and composersâ personal collections to locate as much music as possible from older films or TV recordings, often turning up work thatâs been misplaced or forgotten.
âThese guys are always looking to make something the absolute best it can be,â Manfredini said.
La-La Landâs business strategy defies modern-day music-biz wisdom. Its deluxe editions donât appear on streaming services, and are instead released as limited-run CD sets that are announced shortly before they go on sale. The company doesnât jockey for space on playlists, nor does it launch aggressive social-media campaigns.
Yet last year, La-La Landâs website enjoyed its biggest sales to date, making the company one of a handful of long-running soundtrack labels â including Intrada and Varèse Sarabande â to survive decadesâ worth of record-industry upheaval.
âItâs a niche of a niche of a niche,â Gerhard, 49, said on a recent spring afternoon in La-La Landâs music- and memorabilia-jammed headquarters in Burbank, Calif. On the wall were movie posters autographed by composers and filmmakers like John Williams, Mel Brooks and Eli Roth â all of whom have collaborated with the label.
Gerhard and Verboys met in 1994, bonding over their love of films. Both had collected soundtrack albums when they were younger, and were often disappointed by how incomplete they were. âBefore VCRs, soundtracks were the only way to keep connected with a movie,â said Verboys, 56. âBut even as a kid, I was like, âThis is cool â but whereâs the other 40 minutes of music?ââ
In La-La Landâs early days, the label released soundtracks for a handful of contemporary films â like the 2004 Ashton Kutcher drama âThe Butterfly Effectâ â as well as genre films (âCreepshowâ) and Hollywood classics (âZulu Dawnâ).
At first, Gerhard and Verboys didnât have access to big franchise films or superstar composers. But they didnât necessarily need them. To some soundtrack fans, it doesnât matter if a movie is a blockbuster or a bomb, so long as they connect to its music. One of the labelâs more recent hits is a two-disc collection of Jerry Goldsmithâs playfully dramatic score from the schlocky 1985 action-adventure âKing Solomonâs Mines.â
âThere are a lot of terrible movies that have great music,â said Nathan Pickup, 42, a corporate trainer in Riverview, Fla., who has more than 600 soundtrack CDs in his collection. âWhat I love is the narrative elements of film scoring. If there are themes I can pick out from a score, or certain moods it creates, thatâs enough for me.â
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, as Gerhard and Verboys earned the trust of studio executives and musicians, La-La Land began working with more blue-chip pop-culture properties: âStar Trek,â âBatman: The Animated Series,â the Harry Potter films.
âIt took a little while to get some composers on board,â Gerhard said. âBut we explained it to them: âWeâre trying to be the Criterion of soundtrack labels, and give the fans everything they want.ââ
Putting together such thorough releases requires patience, detective work and luck. Tracking down original recordings for a film can take months, if not years. âWhen a movie is done, the production people pack this stuff up as best as they can and ship it off,â said Neil S. Bulk, 49, a soundtrack producer who works with La-La Land. âThe music isnât always the highest priority.â
As a result, âthereâs quite a lot of archaeology to this process,â said Mike Matessino, 61, whoâs produced several releases for the label. A few years ago, while working on a collection of John Williamsâs Oscar-winning âE.T. the Extra-Terrestrialâ score, Matessino spent months looking for a tune that plays during the filmâs tie-in ride at Universal Studios Florida. He ultimately found the original master tapes in the bottom of a box that had been sent to Universalâs theme park in Japan.
Other discoveries have been accidents. A few years ago, Matessino spotted a collection of recording materials sitting in the rain outside his next-door neighborâs house â and realized the haul included music from 1935âs âBride of Frankenstein,â which was later incorporated into a La-La Land release.
After older materials are secured, La-La Land has to obtain permission to license them â an arduous task in itself. Between record labels, film studios and music publishers, an individual soundtrack can have numerous rights holders. Bulk worked with three different labels to produce La-La Landâs recent soundtrack to 1964âs âGoldfinger.â
âSometimes, itâs not clear who owns what,â Bulk said. âAnd sometimes youâre just waiting, waiting, waiting for approvals. But itâs very satisfying when you get that last piece of the puzzle.â
La-La Land doesnât own any of the music it releases, putting out each compilation in limited-edition batches of anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 units. Though thatâs allowed the label to avoid digital pitfalls that have felled other indies â from the arrival of downloads to the streaming era â the soundtrack market faces unique challenges.
For starters, as these original soundtrack recordings age, so do the people entrusted with their care. âWhen we started, there were guys who were walking computers whoâd been with the studios for decades,â Gerhard said. âThey could tell us, âThat recordingâs in a salt mine in Utahâ or âThatâs here on the lot.â Those people retire, pass away, or are let go.â
La-La Land also contends with the shifting fortunes of the entertainment industry itself. The label had a yearslong relationship with Warner Bros., resulting in expanded editions of soundtracks for âBlazing Saddlesâ and the âWonder Womanâ TV series. But after the studio merged with Discovery Inc. in 2022, Gerhard said, âthe doors closed.â
The La-La Land founders are hopeful that Paramountâs recently announced takeover of Warner Bros. might allow for more access to both companiesâ archives. âParamountâs one of the few studios that are very cooperative with licensing older titles,â Gerhard said. âAnd thereâs a mountain of treasure in those vaults.â
Yet the biggest obstacle for soundtrack labels is an ever-dwindling inventory of must-have scores. âThe wells are running dry,â Gerhard said. âSo many holy grail soundtracks have been released over the decades. Whatâs really left?â
The answer might lie in the small screen. Several beloved composers â including Quincy Jones and Dave Grusin â did television work that as of now is unavailable, but could be freed up in the future. And La-La Land has also released soundtracks for Netflix shows (including âCobra Kaiâ and âWednesdayâ) as well for video games like âMedal of Honor.â
For now, classic movie music remains the companyâs focus. Last month, La-La Land released a soundtrack for the 1971 Bond film âDiamonds Are Foreverâ that includes alternate takes, as well Shirley Basseyâs theme song sung in both English and Italian. The set runs for two hours, eight minutes â just slightly longer than the film itself. It was an eagerly anticipated album for both La-La Landâs fans, and its founders.
âThereâs a lot of wish-fulfillment involved with these soundtracks,â Verboys said. âThe people working on them have been craving them themselves for a long time.â
