Music of the Spheres is a well known concept to any Destiny fan. The album was designed to be prequel of sorts to Bungie’s shared-world shooter. It was completed by Halo composer Marty O’Donnell, Michael Salvatori, and Paul McCartney (yes, of Beatles fame) five years ago, but due to conflict with Bungie when O’Donnell was fired in 2014, Music of the Spheres never saw the light of day.
O’Donnell has noted numerous times on Twitter that he would love to see Music of the Spheres released, but that he had no authority to greenlight its release to the public. Part of Bungie and O’Donnell’s agreement following his firing and the subsequent legal battles was that Bungie retained the rights to Music of the Spheres. While elements of MotS have been used throughout Destiny, the entire eight track concept album had never been released publicly, save for some people that O’Donnell had sent the album to when it was originally finished.
Now one of those people has come forward, giving the complete and final Music of the Spheres album to a Redditor. User Tlohtzin123 had previously worked with another Destiny fan, Owen Spence, on a recreation project, attempting to recreate the notable album using small sections of music from Destiny. Eurogamer did an impressively exhaustive piece about this project, which was actually pretty close to the final work.
Music of the Spheres was casually leaked to Reddit on December 25, and you can listen to the full album on SoundCloud now. As a Destiny fan, I am more than happy to have this original concept and vision available, but there’s no telling how Bungie and Activision may react to this leak. As of yet, no takedown or copyright notices have been issued, but that could change going into the new year. For now, enjoy Marty’s last work with Bungie while you can.
In a statement to Kotaku, Marty O’Donnell expressed his relief that Music of the Spheres was finally public, even if it was done through less than legitimate means:
I’m quite relieved and happy. This was the way it was supposed to have been heard 5 years ago.
My wife and I spent the afternoon with my now 93 year old father and we showed him that people were finally able to hear this work. It made our Christmas even better. My mother, his wife of over 60 years died a couple years ago and although she loved listening and shared it with some of her friends (she was a musician) she never understood why it wasn’t released.
I don’t know who actually did it but they have my blessing. I honestly don’t know how anyone could begrudge this any longer.
If you want to support O’Donnell, you can purchase his latest work, Echoes of the First Dreamer, which is a musical prequel to the PSVR game Golem.
