It was Summer 1997, I was fresh out of high school, it was a glorious morning in early June when Con Air rocked my world. I was thrilled in so many ways, not the least of which was the thumping score by Mark Mancina and Trevor Rabin.A week later the score CD was mine and loved it until I came to realize the horrible cheapness of the package, the pathetic arrangement and the slight running time (not even reaching 45 minutes).The main Con Air theme is one of my favorite action themes ever and is the perfect anthem for Cameron Poe, the hero played by Nicolas Cage. It's very heroic and determined. As for the bad guy music, well lemme just say that whenever it kicks in you know Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom is on screen. It's childish, comic-book, and not sophisticated at all, but it works and it's a lot of fun.Mark Mancina was originally brought on board to score the movie on his own, but 20th Century Fox cut the post-production schedule for Speed 2: Cruise Control in half, which meant that Mancina had to abandon his work on Con Air and quickly begin work on Speed 2 (which came out a single week after Con Air in June 1997), It was exactly this kind of ludicrous scheduling that caused Mancina to quit movie-scoring. But Trevor Rabin came to the rescue for the Con Air scoring duties, and the style and themes of the movie are split evenly between them.The music on here on this CD ranges from occasional noise to all out action with several awesome themes. The first track opens with the aforementioned grinding, metallic noise. Several tracks contain some wonderful guitar riffs that bring to mind the blue skies, burning sand and white hot steel featured in the movie. Tracks 13 and 16 are also perfect examples of the action/chase music Media Ventures did so well. It's rousing stuff indeed. High class it certainly is not but this CD is toe-tappin', air-punching, heroic fun. But it could have, SHOULD have been presented a LOT better.As usual with score CDs of the era, it is totally out of chronological order. For those of you who wish to arrange the tracks in the correct order for your MP3 player or I-Tunes then THIS is the correct sequence:1. The Discharge (01:09)2. Overture (Main Title) (04:18)3. Jailbirds (00:59)4. The Takeover (03:52)5. Carson City (03:04)6. Lerner Landing (03:28)7. Cons Check Out Lerner (01:55)8. Tricia (01:04)9. Poe Saves Guards (02:25) - incorrectly labelled as 'Poe Saves Cops'10. The Fight (00:22)11. Poe Meets Larkin (01:14)12. Lear Crash (04:44)13. Battle In The Boneyard (album version) (07:41)14. Bedlam Larkin (00:49)15. Romantic Chaos (01:22)16. Fire Truck Chase (04:22)17. Con Air Theme (01:31) (Bonus Track, combination of two separate tracks)18. How Do I Live (04:03) (Song by Trisha Yearwood not on the CD, but can be placed here for completists)A respectable label like La La Land Records ought to seek out the rights to Con Air and release a decent Limited Edition with better sound and better arrangement to make up for this cheap, flimsy 1997 CD.Score as heard in the movie 5/5Score as presented on this album 1/5Overall 3/5