Escape from New York, a dystopian future movie, was written by John Carpenter as a reaction to the Watergate scandal and to the increasing crime rate and urban decay going on in New York in the 70ies.
Its release, in 1981, has been a box-office success: instantly loved by fans and praised by critics, the film has nonetheless been considered a B-movie for a long time.

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The distinctive soundtrack is composed, except "Engulfed Cathedral" by Claude Debussy of course, by Carpenter himself, not new at these performances as previously seen in Halloween,The Fog, and almost all of his films. He and his crew – the academy-winners Howarth, Wallace and Smith (for The Hunt for Red October and Bram Stoker's Dracula)  - made a huge use of synthesizers, keyboards and sequencers to generate sounds.

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At that time, Hollywood and its audience were not accustomed to the use of this kind of electronic instruments and sounds: it was the age of complex orchestral scores as the ones composed by John Williams & friends. Few were the enterprises trying to mark the path with electronic OST’s;  few were the pioneers for decades, in the following generations of thrillers and hardboiled. As the most remarkable: the creepy tunes by Claudio Simonetti and Goblin in Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso (1975) and Suspiria (1977).

In Escape from New York, the tracks are a functional mix between pop-rock and new age; they easily follow the movie, enhancing its thrilling atmosphere in a Manhattan of scumbags.The score has been pretty much improvised, as Alan Howarth in person declared during an interview.

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Originally released in vinyl in 1981, and then on compact disc a year later, the soundtrack was remastered and remixed for a reissued version in 2002, with fifteen tracks previously not included.