Thanks Mollecon (and The Perky Ent!) for your suggestions. I'm sure they work I'm just a little wary of putting dishwasher soap or toothpaste on my CD. I think I'll try one of the Dr. Fix-it-whatever things (I don't know the name of it, all I know is that it fixes CDs and DVDs with scratches on them) before I'll try some other stuff. Granted, dishwasher soap might be cheaper... But knowing my luck I'd somehow mess it up and ruin the CD Thanks though! I'm glad there are so many helpful people here!

Let me hop in here. I've bought two, count 'em, two copies of this CD and both have been defective on tracks 18 and 19. I'm taking the 2nd one back today for an exchange. I suspect poor engineering, as you'll notice, especially on track 19, that the static scratching sound exactly mirrors the beat of the synthesizer in the song.<P>I hope the 3rd one I get today is the charm. If your CD is almost brand new, take it back and ask to exchange it. There's no excuse for this poor quality.

My CD is just fine, so I don't know what you're talking about. Ah well. <BR>Anyway, I find the soundtrack absolutely wonderful. On of my favorite tracks is "The Return of the King" (track 17) mostly because of the fact it's 10 minutes long. Seriously, it has a lot of the themes from everywhere, including the Shire music, which for some reason I found to be sadder than the music in FOTR. I also really like "The Steward of Gondor" because I like listening to pan pipes for some reason. Also they seem to remind me of a previously great civilization slowly falling into decay. (Don't ask where I get this impression, it just seems that way to me.) "Shelob's Lair" is great because it seems to encompass the feelings of urgency and lingering danger to me, also my eagerness to see how PJ has done that scene is also spilling over. "The Ride of the Rohirrim I like because I love the hardinger music. I love "The Grey Havens", but I have absolutely no clue why. Also I really like how they brought back some of the theme from "In Dreams" back from Fellowship, because I thought that the song was very appropriate to ROTK. (I can't remember what song it's in!) <BR>And last but not least, I got the Gollum/Smeagol cover mostly because of the fact that I love the look on Gollum's face on the cover, plus I'm not exactly a fangirl of any of the actors from the movie, plus my little sister was around at the time, and she told me to get Gollum.

Whoo! I finally got the soundtrack today. <P>I haven't gotten a chance to listen to the entire thing, but I'm already in love with Billy's song, track #17, and Into the West. I was rather surprised to find so many new themes and the past ones not present nearly as much as they were for TTT. Of course, I was relieved to hear the Shire themes again at the end. Absolutely beautiful. It's a stunning soundtrack and I need to listen to it again.<P>Has anyone gotten the limited edition soundtrack with the DVD? It's not very popular where I live, but I managed to get it. That DVD is pretty darn neat. I fell in love with the supertrailer and Annie Lennox's other song "Use Well the Days" is beautiful. And the extra written lyrics almost made me cry. *sniff* Now I know I'm not going to survive watching ROTK without shedding a tear.