Soundtracks

Oh man, I love a good soundtrack. I think it all started with Grease. Love the movie, love the music. I had it on 8-track, and I knew all the words to every song. Still do. Grease might have been the first one I listened to faithfully as a kid, but as I got older I even enjoyed flipping through my parents' records. Besides Saturday Night Fever, Hair, and The Graduate, I liked listening to the Broadway soundtracks. We used to go to the theater at least once a year when I was growing up in New York, and listening to the soundtrack of a show was always a great way to relive the music you saw performed on stage. Annie, Peter Pan, 42nd Street, and Little Shop of Horrors (off Broadway) were some of the shows I saw and had Soundtrack records. My camp friends and I used to act out the orphanage scenes from Annie while playing the soundtrack in our cabin.

Scene from Fame- kids singing & dancing in the street 

But the real soundtrack fanaticism for me started I think, in 1980 with a movie called Fame. Edgy high school artsy types come together to chase their dreams at the New York High School for the Performing Arts. The title song belted out by one Irene Cara was impossible not to love, and I must have seen the movie a hundred times. Several years later it was adapted for TV, and
it was a favorite in our house for the 6 years it ran.

Just a couple of years after Fame, came Flashdance. The scenes in this movie were hot, and the music is so deliciously 80's. Once again, Irene Cara headlined with the title track, which was really called [Flashdance...] What a Feeling. It's hard to hear it without thinking of the Jennifer Beals dance double trying to compose herself in the Alvin Ailey audition. The slow start to match the lyrics "hurts when there's nothing but a slow growing dream..." and the breakout dance music as she wows them with her freestyle "street" dancing. And lets not forget all the synth pop dance music used for all the almost strippers' dance numbers. Remember the chain pull that dumped a bucket full of water down splashing all over the dancer? That was the tune He's a Dream. Ahh, Hollywood.

Kevin Bacon with Walkman headphones.

A year later, Footloose came out. Is there a better combination of upbeat pop rock and Kevin Bacon? I think not. Maybe you prefer Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards singing Righteous Brothers tunes in a bar, in Top Gun. These two movies started Kenny Loggins' reign as Soundtrack King. He held it through much of the 80's only to pass the crown over to Bryan Adams in the 90's. After Footloose, it was the Brat Pack movie soundtracks filling up my CD case. Pretty In Pink, Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, and About Last Night. There are so many.  Many of these have songs that conjure up images of iconic scenes from the movies we loved. Remember when Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey danced the final scene in Dirty Dancing? Can you hear the song I had the Time of My Life without thinking of Jennifer in that baby pink dress being hoisted above Patrick's head? Or when he scrunches up his nose nodding his head with the music and sings, "And I owe it all to you." By this time, many of us had cable and VCRs, allowing us to play the movies over and over and listen to our favorite scenes, along with the music. Heck some of the soundtracks were better than the movies themselves.

The 90's brought Singles, Pretty Woman, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Bodyguard, and Reality Bites. Yup, I had all of them. (except Bodyguard). And the 2000's brought Oh Brother Where Art Thou (definitely one of my top 5 favorite soundtracks of all time), High Fidelity and Almost Famous.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I also loved the soundtracks to Stand By Me, Purple Rain, West Side Story, A Chorus Line, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I can't possibly write an exhaustive list.  Tomorrow I'm going to share a fun project I've done with students using soundtracking.

I love a good soundtrack... what are some of your favorites?