Your Top 5
Soundtracks
Your Top 5 was born out of my love of music and reading and the book and film High Fidelity. Each week, I ask a new guest to give me their top 5 tracks, albums or artists relative to a topic.
This week I have Matty C from the great What Am I Making Substack joining me to pick our top 5 movie soundtracks. Now, we are here to discuss soundtracks, not scores. I tucked movie scores away for another time—so be on the lookout for that one. Also, I love volunteers, so hit me up. Scores are songs written and composed for a specific film—usually to add to the scenes since they are typically instrumental, etc. While soundtracks are a collection of songs by various artists featured in the movie. Both seek to add to scenes in the film one way or another. Anywho, let’s get to it:
Matty C’s Top 5
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know the songs from The Jungle Book. As a kid I was a fan of most of the Disney animated classics, but the story of the boy Mowgli and his animal friends was by far my favorite. The songs are catchy, timeless, and fun. There’s Baloo the Bear extolling the finer points of the “Bear Necessities" to an impressionable young lad. The sneaky python Kaa tries to lull Mowgli to sleep and eventually turn him into lunch with the delicate tune “Trust In Me”. And of course there is the showstopping “I Wanna Be Like You” featuring the inimitable Louis Prima as king of the apes. Virtually all of the original songs are well written, superbly performed and offer plot movement and character exploration along the way.
George Lucas knew that music, specifically radios playing in the cars featured in American Graffiti, would be central to his film. Over the course of months, Lucas worked with producers at the studio to coordinate licensing deals for the songs he wanted to use in the film. In the end, the studio was able to secure the vast majority of Lucas’ chosen songs for the sum of $90,000. As a result, there was no money left to pay for an original score.
Using ambient noise, revving car engines, and the songs playing from distant car stereos, Lucas was able to conjure the southern California streets upon which he cut his teeth in the late fifties and early sixties. The songs themselves are a master level class in the first wave of rock and roll. Bill Haley & The Comets, The Beach Boys, The Platters, Buddy, Chuck Berry and more were featured. This soundtrack was my introduction into the beginning of the rock and roll movement.
Once again, the soundtrack helps to elevate the film and bring into sharper focus. Songs and tones are used to shape the way we see character, emotion and the feel of the moment. Lucas’ energetic soundtrack is the anchor point for his story. With different songs, American Graffiti would be less of a film.
Spike Lee is a master of source music in his films. For four decades, Lee has given a soundtrack to his native Brooklyn and its denizens. In each of his films, Lee combines source music (i.e. songs on the radio, or being played in a room) and original score to create the sonic universe in which his characters will reside. Lee’s masterpiece Do The Right Thing is the supreme example.
The film opens to the urgent, anthemic call of Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power”. As a teenage white kid ensconced in suburban America, I only knew hip hop as an entity, not a real world thing experienced firsthand. “Fight The Power” shook me from my comfortable seat and begged me to pay attention. The rest of the film is soundtracked by the myriad selections coming from local DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy spinning tunes on the local FM station. DJ Love Daddy allows Lee to use the smooth sounds of Al Jarreau and the rock steady of Steel Pulse along with a host of other soul, jazz and pop classics to lay the foundation for Lee’s tale of one day when the temps boiled over in a Brooklyn neighborhood.
Quentin Tarantino’s soundtrack for Pulp Fiction was so universally adored after the film’s release that it has since become something of a joke to still love it. I tell those haters to get bent. It was universally loved because it was genius.
To begin with, Pulp Fiction has zero original score written for the film, just like American Graffiti. Virtually every note of music heard in the film is pulled from an existing recording. Tarantino is famous for his use of music in films, and has even said that he uses music and songs to inspire and inform the films he is writing. He claims that, “If you do it right, if you use the right song, in the right scene; really when you take songs and put them in a sequence in a movie right, it’s about as cinematic a thing as you can do.”
Not only did Tarantino manage to soundtrack his film with no score, he compiled a seemingly disparate set of songs and genres that somehow helped to underpin his tale of underworld LA. Al Green’s silky smooth “Let’s Stay Together” somehow sits perfectly next to The Statler Brothers “Flowers On The Wall” while Dick Dale’s reverb-laden Misirlou rides shotgun. The Pulp Fiction soundtrack arrived like the coolest mixtape you got that year tucked inside the most exciting movie of the decade.
O Brother Where Art, Thou? (2000)
Speaking of universally lauded. This soundtrack won three Grammys, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and led to a bluegrass revival that is still leaving granola crumbs across this fine land of ours. Still, as obvious a choice as it might be, it’s a helluva set of songs, and perhaps no soundtrack on this list quite conjures the time and feel of a place quite like the songs from O’ Brother.
There is of course the joyously rambunctious Soggy Bottom Boys rendition of “I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow” which includes a comic epilogue in the film. That song became a clarion call for the film and for the burgeoning musical movement that came with it. The trio of Allison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and Gillian Welch star vocally at least, as sirens in the river. There are archive recordings from Norman Blake, The Stanley Brothers and more. The combination of vintage recordings and current era cover versions provides a sort of timelessness that has only improved the film as its aged.
My Top 5
Goodfellas
This soundtrack is like a journey through space and time. It has it all: late 50s-early 60s oldies and doo wop for the early parts of the film and 60’s girl groups like the Crystals, the Shangri-Las, and the Ronettes. These tracks give way to the new rock n roll represented by Harry Nilsson (as discussed in a recent Your Top 5), The Rolling Stones, and of course Derek & the Dominos.
Scorsese sure knows how to use music to make a film scene more memorable, and there aren’t many more memorable than the piano part in “Layla” starting up when that pink Cadillac, and the bodies inside it, comes into view.
Let’s not forget the banger of a cover of “My Way” by Sid Vicious to close out the movie.
American Graffiti was already taken, so I decided to go with this soundtrack. I have both volumes on wax, and they get a moderate amount of play in my house. Both soundtracks are a truly no skips kinda deal. With soft Motown grooves and good ‘ol classic rock n roll—you can’t wrong. Kevin Costner’s forehead rates this soundtrack 10/10.
The indie film of my generation. It put the typically DIY indie rock circuit in a position that it usually is not in—one of commercial viability. It also won a Grammy since the song selection was so well curated relative to the emotions and motivations in the film’s scenes.
I don’t think The Shins would have ever been put on the map without this soundtrack. They should be paying Zach Braff. When Natalie Portman puts those headphones on him and says, “this song will change your life,” it changed that bands' lives and fortunes forever.
The whole concept of Your Top 5 was born from me re-reading and re-watching this book and movie this summer. So, I had to include it here, but not just because of the concept and naming, but because it is truly a great soundtrack.
This one has got it all, The Kinks, The Velvet Underground, and some Bob Dylan. PLUS as a bonus it has Jack Black as Barry belting out “Let’s Get it On”. Recently, I have seen the hotel commercial featuring “Lo Boob Oscillator” by Stereolab and I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I heard it first—until I watched High Fidelity again.
Ok, so I am kinda breaking my rules here, but Matty picked Pulp Fiction and O Brother Where Art Thou— so I had to put my thinking cap on. Thankfully, in 2004 a double disc release of this soundtrack features the various artists on one disc and the score with the cover of “Mad World” on the other.
I know some folks love their New Wave, and the film soundtrack has no shortage of absolute bangers that really set the mood. Joy Division, INXS, Tears for Fears, Echo and the Bunnymen1 , and Duran Duran. Tears for Fears actually wrote “Mad World”, but the cover performance for this soundtrack by experimental indie artist, Michael Andrews, is absolutely fantastic.
So there you have it! Any soundtracks that you think we criminally missed for our lists? Let us know in the comments.
Feel like this band was an obvious choice, because…you know…Frank.
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Thanks so much for having me, Chris. This was a blast to put together.
This Gen X dude has to say Singles, of course. The Magnolia soundtrack is right up there too. I also think Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' soundtrack for "She's the One" is very strong.