Music Blogs

I'm a glutton for punishment. Go over to any CD retailer site and punch in "Movie Soundtracks" and you will be hit with over 20,000 options. While there are plenty to readily dismiss, there are still hundreds that could easily qualify for whatever "list" you want to make. Soundtracks are big business. Sometimes it's the only way to sell music. Busy, working people (not me) don't have the time to search out new music. When they hear something in a movie that grabs their ear, they're likely to hunt out the soundtrack. I've done it myself. But most soundtracks, especially these days, are glorified mixtapes, a handful of acts all managed by the same people or who record for the same record label. Or maybe the director does like music and chooses his personal faves and got the licensing for half of them.

So while you will undoubtedly disagree with this list, you will hopefully find a few that you do remember fondly, or would be inclined to check out if you weren't convinced that I'm out to ruin your life with my deliberately "bone-headed" picks. At first, I wasn't going to include soundtracks from movies that were almost exclusively music oriented. The Band's The Last Waltz doesn't exactly have a plot beyond their own saying "bye bye" (for the first time) and Woodstock, The Concert For Bangla Desh, The Decline Of Western Civilization and Wattstax were concert films. But then The Wall and Purple Rain were conceived by musicians who probably would've recorded those albums anyway. The albums were designed to stand up as albums before they were soundtracks to their films. And I'm not necessarily vouching for the films.

These aren't the best-selling soundtracks of all-time. If 15 million people want to listen to The Bodyguard soundtrack, that's fine by me. But that means in a country with 300 million people that 285 million still didn't buy it. Even if you lop off 100 million people as being too old, too young or too broke to purchase it, that still means 185 million people didn't care enough to buy it. Besides, music is personal. You experience it. If the soundtrack to Titanic makes you weep, that's your deal and you're entitled to it.

On that note, wouldn't it be neat if we could borrow one another's brains for a few hours? You'd have to promise to give mine back.

25) More: Pink Floyd made a few soundtracks and on a different day, I might opt for Zabriskie Point or Obscured By Clouds, but this one had some pretty nice moments, as all the members seem to be contributing at this point, underlining the concept of the "group."

24) Easy Rider: A movie with Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson all in their young prime should have a movie with a decent soundtrack. "Don't Bogart Me" was the perfect high school stoner anthem. Hendrix's "If 6 Was 9" is the kind of math even I can comprehend and while I never need to hear "Born To Be Wild" ever again, it's nice to think that there was a time when it was new.

23) The Last Waltz: Robbie Robertson befriends Martin Scorsese and gets a top notch document on The Band's final gig. Except The Band eventually soldier on without Robertson. I'm not sure who chose such a sleepy Joni Mitchell number (did Joni play anything else?), but Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Neil Young and Bob Dylan are all worth checking out for sure. And then, of course, the Band played as well...better than any wedding band I've ever seen.

22) Woodstock: No one put together Altamont, which is actually too bad (Gimme Shelter is close but not pure performance), since the Stones played quite well that night, as an audience bootleg of the concert has proved, but Woodstock was the better vibe, since nobody died and while the kids could've picked up after themselves a bit better, it does have its moments. And you have to figure no one went about correcting their mistakes since most of the acts sound pretty rough (and better for the wear and tear to these ears).

21) Singles: This soundtrack captures the time and place when Seattle-based "Grunge" was cornering the popular marketplace. Throw in Paul Westerberg, who spent the previous decade shooting himself in the foot and selling criminally few records, and you've got an album you can play for the grandkids and say things like "I was there!" They won't know what you mean. But when you're that old, no one listens to you anyway.

20) Times Square: This is even out of print, I'm told. Too bad, since it's a great two-record set with a rare XTC cut and bands such as Talking Heads, Pretenders, Patti Smith Group, The Cure and guys like Garland Jeffreys and Lou Reed and even Desmond Child and Rouge. Desmond Child before he hooked up with Aerosmith! Now that's classic.

19) Until The End Of The World: German film director Wim Wenders was always a heavy-duty rock n' roll fan and saw to it that his films included music that reflected this love. Rock musicians, even notably ornery ones like Lou Reed, acquiesced to Wenders' request. Probably because when you speak in German, you sound particularly threatening.

18) Concert For Bangla Desh: Some people (Norah Jones) might enjoy the side of sitar music, but most of the intrigue here was the presence of Bob Dylan, who at the time rarely set foot on a concert stage anymore. Now, nobody can get him off of one. How times change!

17) Dazed And Confused: The 1970s were such a fun time to be baked out of your mind, apparently. How else could so much goofy, lovable music make it to the top? These days we have laws stopping this from happening. But back in the day you could put Foghat and Black Oak Arkansas on the radio and nobody could stop it.

16) I Am Sam: Since The Beatles weren't around to regroup, it was decided that other people should sing their songs and bring them to new life. Sean Penn plays a pretty convincing Beatle fan in the movie, too.

15) Decline Of Western Civilization: Punk rock was once something that scared people. It made them angry. It made them cross the street. There was no such thing as Hot Topic and people with piercings and tattoos were often looked upon negatively. Black Flag and Fear were not household names in any but the most derelict households. This is no longer true. This is the fault of cable TV, I assure you.

14) Shaft: With the recent passing of Isaac Hayes, it's time people stopped referring to him as the ‘Chef from South Park' and started exploring his recorded legacy. Throw in Truck Turner and Tough Guys and you've got yourself a glorious soundtrack trilogy.

13) Repo Man: Suicidal Tendencies were once a very popular group for songs such as "I Saw Your Mommy And Your Mommy's Dead" and "Institutionalized," which appears on this soundtrack alongside the Circle Jerks and their "acoustic" number. Everyone looked to get Unplugged at one point.

12) I'm Not There: Bob Dylan didn't need any help from director Todd Haynes when it comes to adding to his myth and the movie isn't as enlightening as it thinks it is. I went to sleep instead. But this soundtrack is a lot of fun, since half the people sound like they've never heard of Bob Dylan before and the others know they can't emulate it anyway, so why bother trying? The result is something that surprises more than it should.

11) Rock N' Roll High School: At this point who doesn't love the Ramones? They're as American as Apple Pie, Coca Cola and (your product placement here). Blowing up high schools is always a fun movie idea, but remember kids: don't try this at home. Your parents could get in trouble for not raising you right.

10) Wattstax: Better than Woodstock if only because Sha Na Na didn't appear. Soul music was on the verge of changing for good. Disco was in the wings. Wattstax wasn't intended as a memorial or anything and it doesn't play as one. But it does represent the end of an era about to become "bygone."

9) Natural Born Killers: The movie was typical Oliver Stone overkill, much like Chinese food where you're hungry an hour later. But beyond the razzle-dazzle of the high-octane special effects and jarring film editing remains a soundtrack that sounds pretty damn good if you own a stereo loud enough to handle it.

8) The Harder They Come: This movie soundtrack was like the "gateway" album for reggae music into rock music circles, introducing innocents to the works of Jimmy Cliff, Toots And The Maytals, Desmond Dekker, The Melodians and The Slickers. Next thing you know, people are hitting this stuff hard and asking for Bob Marley and Peter Tosh by name. Once the people start asking questions about Linton Kwesi Johnson, you know times have changed.

7) Saturday Night Fever: Disco music only annoyed people at the time because the Bee Gees seemed to be on the radio 24/7. In retrospect, the songs--"Stayin' Alive," "Night Fever," "How Deep Is Your Love"--sound much better. But at the time, you couldn't exist in the late 1970s without hearing what sounded like the Chipmunks coming out of every sound system imaginable. The Chipmunks themselves suddenly had a new viable career.

6) The Wall: Roger Waters pretty much took over Pink Floyd, writing in the tradition of the rock opera an unfathomably heavy-handed tale about a self-centered rock star who's having a mental breakdown because he takes too many drugs and makes too much money--and his dad was killed in WWII. Thankfully, Mr. Waters could still rely on the steadying hand of guitarist David Gilmour to add his musical flourishes. The album sold gazillions and they made a movie out of it.

5) A Hard Day's Night: The Beatles were quite popular in their day and it's truly amazing that they managed to record such quality material while the world went gaga over them and gave them little time to rest. Not only did they provide a solid soundtrack to their first film, but they supplemented the (British) album with more original compositions, forever damning all bands to attempt to write their own material no matter how bad the results.

4) Purple Rain: This feels like a chicken or the egg question. Would the album be what it is without the film that inspired it? Or did the writing of the album inspire the little guy to try his hand at a film? In any case, for whatever reason, you write "When Doves Cry," "Let's Go Crazy," "Darling Nikki" and the title track, it really doesn't matter how it came about. You just sit back and watch the money roll in. And then learn to act.

3) The Great Rock N' Roll Swindle: The Sex Pistols were a hype. A very effective hype. Musically, they weren't much, but the energy was scary at times and this mish-mosh of a film put together a soundtrack that includes Eddie Cochran, Jonathan Richman and Chuck Berry covers, songs sung by singers other than Johnny Rotten and bass obviously played by someone other than Sid Vicious. But it's a "Swindle" after all.

2) The Rolling Stones' Rock N' Roll Circus: It only took nearly three decades or so to get this to official release because supposedly the Rolling Stones thought the Who blew them off the stage? I'd say they're all in pretty fine form here. Besides, you get John Lennon leading a supergroup of Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell on "Yer Blues" just for kicks.

1) Superfly: Curtis Mayfield provided this soundtrack that easily stands alone as an album without the film. "Little Child, Running Wild," "Freddie's Dead" and "Pusherman" are soul music milestones. The kind of thing you play when the folks from Pluto (you'll always be a planet to me) land here and want to know more about what happened in 1972. They're bound to be curious.