If you’re of a certain age, you’ll hear this song and recognise which sections of it play during the arcade game. Tron, the arcade game, was notoriously loud and it could overwhelm the already noisy atmosphere of videogame arcades back in the day, where tinny speakers sort of played rock music, lost in a maelstrom of polyphonic music, button tapping, and chatter.

Just like we watch streamers do lives of games, so we watched someone else play games that either we couldn’t afford or didn’t have the time to play. Crowds would gather around certain people, whom you’ve seen do well in hard videogames like Tempest, Space Ace, or Dragon’s Lair. Tron had a certain level of difficulty attached to it, but it was such an audiovisual treat that people gathered whenever you heard that Wendy Carlos-penned fanfare.

Wendy Carlos had a reputation for excellent electronic music. A pioneer of the Moog synthesizer, it was her compositions in both A Clockwork Orange and The Shining what affirmed her place in the industry. For Tron’s trippy experimental feel, Wendy Carlos’ soundtrack goes for both orchestral pieces and almost-jarring synth lines that meld the real, breathing world with a dictatorial binary dystopia. The CGI can feel dated from time to time, but there’s a charm to it that can never die. The music is timeless, and a sure keeper for your collection.

Tron lives in a strange memory place for me. I remember seeing the lobby cards outside the cinema, transfixed and trying to understand what the movie was about. My brothers were just leaving the music class they had every saturday and we were waiting for them. My dad bought tickets as a surprise. I loved the movie and Wendy Carlos’ score is a perfect match for something as unique as the original Tron.

-Sam J. Valdés López