This ’90s classic fully embodied Gen-X slackerdom, but the soundtrack held its own in the alternative era. The breakout track was Lisa Loeb’s “Stay (I Missed You),” which went to No. 1 before the bespectacled singer was even signed. Juliana Hatfield Three, Dinosaur Jr. and The Posies repped ’90s alt-rock, but it was a more diverse compilation than some, leaving room for The Knack’s “My Sharona” (which scored the movie’s most memroable scene), a pair of Crowded House tunes and even Ethan Hawke’s proto-hipster crooning Violent Femme’s all-time classic “Add It Up.”
This Scottish drug movie and its Cool Britannia soundtrack came out of nowhere to define a generation with his mid-’90s mix of Brit Pop (Blur, Pulp, Elastica) and electronica (Leftfield, Bedrock, Goldie). The producers later said the soundtrack’s popularity was “crucial” to the success of the film, which meshed music and imagery so well that they’re now inseparable. Just try not picturing the movie when listening to, say, Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life” or Underworld’s “Born Slippy .NUXX.” Aside from a few old tracks, including Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” the songs were largely recorded or remixed for the film or previously unreleased, a rarity in the soundtrack world which helped cement the album’s subcultural status.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that a film about a pirate radio DJ would boast a stellar soundtrack, though it did arrive before “alternative” became a buzzword. Christian Slater’s character defined himself in large part by his musical taste, which he then played for his audience, including Soundgarden, Sonic Youth, underrated N.W.A associates Above The Law and the brilliant “UK Surf” mix of the Pixies’ “Wave Of Mutilation.” It also features a number of cool covers, including Bad Brains and Henry Rollins doing MC5’s “Kick Out The Jams” and Cowboy Junkies tackling Robert Johnson’s “Me And The Devil Blues.” Alas, Concrete Blonde’s theme-song cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” pales next to the original, which is the version that actually airs in the film. Several other great songs didn’t make the cut, either, so as a kid, I audiotaped the whole movie and cut together my own private soundtrack.
Most iconic soundtracks feature new music that captures a pop-cultural moment in time, but Richard Linklater’s all-star retro-’70s classic achieves the same goal with a list of decades-old eight-track acts. But with such a strong playlist — ranging from Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out” to ZZ Top’s “Tush” with room for Black Sabbath, Foghat, KISS, Nazareth, The Runaways and Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” in between — you can practically hear Matthew McConaughey drawl, “That’s what I love about these ’70s songs, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”
Grunge took off thanks to a confluence of cultural artifacts coming out at the same time, not least of which was the pivotal soundtrack to an otherwise fluffy romantic film by Cameron Crowe that happened to be set in early-’90s Seattle. Though the film is tantamount to a trivia question at this point, the platinum-selling soundtrack remains a landmark document of the alt-era. The alternative revolution went from a whisper to a scream, with songs from Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Smashing Pumpkins and Mudhoney, whose song “Touch Me I’m Sick” was parodied in the movie band Citizen Dick’s song “Touch Me, I’m Dick.” Pearl Jam, who cameos as Matt Dillon’s bandmates, landed two songs plus the eight-minute epic “Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns” by ill-fated PJ precursor Mother Love Bone.
Long before Trent Reznor won an Oscar for scoring “The Social Network,” he helmed the soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s hyper-violent anti-mass media opus. Mixing dialogue samples from film with the expertly selected songs gave the soundtrack a unique identity all of its own, something more akin to a radio play. Perhaps it was the influence of Quentin Tarantino’s script, but the songs are as eclectic as his own soundtracks, with entries ranging from Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Duane Eddy and Patsy Cline to L7, Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction and Dr. Dre. Cowboy Junkie’s cover of “Sweet Jane” was a particular standout, stealing the song from Lou Reed forevermore, while Juliette Lewis got her first taste of rock stardom with “Born Bad.”
Baz Lurhman’s radical revamp of the classic Shakespeare tale was driven as much by its music as its MTV-friendly stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Fuelled by unlikely radio hits like Garbage’s “#1 Crush” and the Cardigans’ “Lovefool,” not to mention Radiohead’s fan favourite “Talk Show Host,” the album went triple-platinum and became an alt-era staple. The film was so overstuffed with music that a second volume came out to release tracks like 14-year-old singer Quindon Tarver’s “When Doves Cry” cover. Trivia note: The closing credits featured Radiohead’s aptly named “Exit Music (For A Film)” though it wasn’t on either soundtrack by Thom Yorke’s request, as he was saving it for “OK Computer.”
Here’s a case of a soundtrack outshining the movie it soundtracked. “Judgment Night” the film is an eminently forgettable exploitation flick about Emilio Estevez and his buddies taking a wrong turn and ending up in a very bad neighbourhood. The album, however, was ground-zero for rap-rock, and I don’t mean to damn it with faint praise. While the limp rap-rock acts that followed were undeniably terrible, this album’s lineup hits almost all of them out of the ballpark — Helmet and House Of Pain, Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul, Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill, Slayer and Ice-T and Dinosaur Jr. and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien. I’m nostalgically headbanging while typing this right now!
Between “Swingers” and the “Bourne Identity,” Doug Limon directed “Go,” a movie about a bunch of kids, including Sarah Polley, going to a rave. The film, despite its critical acclaim, quickly became a footnote, but the soundtrack still provides a great sampling of pre-millennial electronic music, from Fatboy Slim’s upbeat “Gangster Trippin’” and Air’s atmospheric “Talisman” to Esthero’s dour trip-hop “Song For Holly.” Bonus points for including Len’s still-awesome one-hit-wonder “Steal My Sunshine.”
Though goth music has roots that delve much deeper into the past than “The Crow,” the film and soundtrack became something of a rallying point for the black-clad kids. The original comic was inspired by musicians like Joy Division and The Cure, so it’s cool that the former get the opening song slot with “Burn” while the latter get their “Dead Souls” covered by Nine Inch Nails. Rage Against The Machine, Rollins Band, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, the Jesus And Mary Chain, Violent Femmes and Jane Siberry all show up to show off their dark sides.
Helmed by Lou Barlow, the “Kids” soundtrack was nowhere near as controversial as the underage sex and drugs film from whence it came, unless one is prone to fighting over which Barlow project is the best. We’re on team Folk Implosion, which applied hip-hop production to Barlow’s usual low-fi guitar rock to nail the classic cut “Natural One” and score the film. Barlow’s other band Sebadoh does make an appearance, too, as do Daniel Johnston, Slint and rap duo Lo-Down — though the absence of other rap cuts from the film, including Crooklyn Dodgers, Jeru The Damaja and Brand Nubian, is kinda whack.
While grunge was taking over the rock world, New Jack Swing ran roughshod over R&B and this film was its “Singles.” The movie was an enjoyable crime drama, but the soundtrack acted as a subgenre sampler with appearances by Guy, Keith Sweat, Johnny Gill and Color Me Badd alongside some hip-hop cred from Ice-T and 2 Live Crew and a crossover jam with Troop, Levert and Queen Latifah.
Only Quentin Tarantino could turn Urge Overkill’s cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon” into a radio hit, but the soundtrack really defined itself by mixing QT’s iconic dialogue amidst decades-spanning selections like Dick Dale’s “Misirlou,” Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie,” Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” and Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.” Currency may have been the old way soundtracks sold, but Tarantino made clear that it’s the songs, not their release dates, that matter.
More focused than the “Pulp Fiction” soundtrack, on account of the conceit that everyone in the film was listening to fictional radio station K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies, “Reservoir Dogs” still made mark thanks to its eclectic selection as well as the DJ patter from deadpan maestro Steven Wright. It even managed to turn Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You” back into a radio hit thanks to the cheerful song’s juxtaposition with the film’s infamous torture scene.
It didn’t last long, but in the aftermath of alt-rock’s demise, a little indie film starring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn managed to launch a retro-swing revival (and, alas, an army of d-bags that everything was “money”). This soundtrack, which mixed revivalist like Big bad Voodoo Daddy with originators like Dean Martin and Tony Bennett, was the movement’s ground zero.
The movie may have had absurd dialogue and a laughable villain, but it’s was undeniably ahead of it’s time as far as its titular subject and then-teenage star Angelina Jolie. But the soundtrack — well, the three (!) soundtracks — was similarly forward-thinking, with an electronic aesthetic that presaged the late-90s electronica and rave scenes. Today’s EDM fans should dig in to hear early works by orbital, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Underworld, The Prodigy, Leftfield, Carl Cox and more. Plus, yioun can never go wrong with Stereo MCs’ “Connected.”
The movie couldn’t have found a better theme songs than Jill Sobule’s “Supermodel,” with such indelible lines as “I’m young and I’m Hip, and so beautiful” and “I wish that I was like Tori Spelling With a car like hers, and a dad like hers.” But the whole soundtrack was similarly knowing, with winking covers like The Muff’s “Kids in America” and World Party’s “All the Young Dudes” and a scope that ranged from Radiohead to Coolio.
Though 1988’s still-awesome “Colors” soundtrack set the stage, “Boyz” helped cement gangsta rap as the soundtrack of teenagers regardless of skin colour. Led by star Ice Cube’s “How To Survive in South Central” alongside the likes of Too Short, Compton’s Most Wanted and 2 Live Crew, it also mixed retro inspirations like Zapp’s “More B’unce to the Ounce” and Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band’s “Sunshower” with old-school rap from Run DMC, Kool Moe Dee and Monie Love.
The Hughes Brothers crime epic inspired two soundtracks, the first of which made the top 15 on the pop charts, thanks to their period-perfect selections Sly & The Family Stone, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, The Spinners, Barry White, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Al Green and The O’Jays.
Unlike most film soundtracks, Paul Thomas Anderson asked Aimee Mann, then still best known as the former singer of 80s new wavers Til Tuesday, to provide the bulk of the soundtrack to his Boogie Nights follow-up. The result earned Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy nominations for “Save Me” and cemented Mann’s status as one of her generation’s premier singer-songwriters. It wasn’t all Mann, though, as Anderson found room for Supertramp and Harry Nillson, too.