I love movies and I love music too, so every film I see has two opportunities to win me over: with the movie, and with the sountrack. Here are some of my favorite soundtracks, old and new. These are albums I listen to over and over again, in some cases long after any memory of the movies they came from has faded.
Some of these albums are also available as Auto-rip CDs; where the Auto-rip CD is available, there’s a link for it on the MP3 album’s product page. When you buy an Auto-rip CD, the CD is shipped to you as usual but you also get the MP3 album for free, with immediate access via Amazon’s Cloud Player to play or download. Note that in some cases, the Auto-rip CD costs the same or less than the MP3 album.
50 First Dates (3.5/5 stars avg Amazon review, 5/5 stars my review, currently priced at $5.99, Auto-rip CD also available for $11.98)
This collection of reggae-infused interpretations of hit love songs from the 80’s quickly became one of my favorite albums of all time, and introduced me to a few new artists I might never have tried out otherwise.
Ziggy Marley’s cover of The Cars’ Drive, Will.I.Am and Fergie’s cover of Spandau Ballet’s True, and Elan Atias’ cover of Roxy Music’s Slave to Love are particular standouts, but with the possible exception of Adam Sandler’s novelty song, Forgetful Lucy (written for a scene in the movie), the tracks here are ALL excellent.
Sky High (4/5 stars avg Amazon review, 5/5 stars my review, currently priced at $9.49)
This was a pretty good movie with a fantastic soundtrack.
The Sky High soundtrack is another album filled with covers of 80’s hits, but without the reggae tinge. Here you’ll find They Might Be Giants’ cover of Devo’s Through Being Cool, Vitamin C’s cover of Til Tuesday’s Voices Carry, Skindred’s cover of English Beat’s Twist and Crawl, and many more.
Tank Girl (4.5/5 stars avg Amazon review, 5/5 stars my review, currently priced at $9.99)
Fans of grunge and alternative rock from the 1990’s will love this album! The movie was a bit of a misfire, but the soundtrack is on-target.
The roster of artists alone is pretty amazing. Here you’ll find Hole, Bjork, Bush, Ice-T, Portishead, Belly, Veruca Salt, Devo (doing a less techno-flavored update of their own song, Girl U Want), Joan Jett & Paul Westerberg and The Magnificent Bastards (featuring Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver front man Scott Weiland), and more.
There’s even a track from the cast of the hit Broadway show, Stomp!
The Craft (4.5/5 stars avg Amazon review, 4.5/5 stars my review, currently priced at $9.99, also available as an Auto-rip CD currently priced at $7.78)
You’ll find terrific covers of some of the most popular new wave and alternative rock songs of all time on this soundtrack.
These interpretations that definitely show the new artists’ respect and affection for the original songs, but the artists all add their own unique style and flavor to every song.
Highlights include Heather Nova’s cover of Peter Gabriel’s I Have the Touch, Letters to Cleo’s cover of The Cars’ The Dangerous Type, and Love Spit Love’s cover of The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now (featuring lead vocals by Psychedelic Furs’ Richard Butler).
There are just a couple of tracks on this album that don’t particularly appeal to me, but they’re far outweighed by the many more songs that do. And by the way, the movie’s pretty good, too!
Sucker Punch (4.5/5 stars avg Amazon review, 5/5 stars my review, currently priced at $9.99)
This Zack Snyder movie had some stunning visuals, but left film critics divided. Music critics were much more enthusiastic about the soundtrack album.
If you’ve seen the film, you may not realize the film’s star, Emily Browning, is also prominently featured on the soundtrack. That’s her voice you hear in the cover of Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, Asleep and Where Is My Mind.
The soundtrack also includes an amazing mash-up of Queen’s I Want It All and We Will Rock You, which I think is the best track on the whole album. Other noteworthy tracks include Emiliani Torrini’s cover of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and Carla Azar’s middle-Eastern flavored take on The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows.
Vanilla Sky (4/5 stars avg Amazon review, 5/5 stars my review, currently priced at $5.99, Auto-rip CD also available for $9.26)
This is pretty much an adult-alternative album, and it’s fantastic. There’s not a single clunker among its 17 tracks.
Highlights include REM’s Sweetness Follows and All The Right Things, Radiohead’s haunting Everything In Its Right Place, Josh Rouse’s touching and catchy Directions, Looper’s house-techno confection Mondo ’77, Peter Gabriel’s classic Solsbury Hill, The Monkees’ psychedelic (and lesser-known) Porpoise Song, Jeff Buckley’s poignant Last Goodbye, and the Todd Rundgren hit Can We Still Be Friends.
The songs fit so perfectly with their respective scenes in the movie that while the album can certainly stand on its own, I feel I get an even better appreciation for it since having seen (and liked) the movie.
Velvet Goldmine (4.5/5 stars avg Amazon review, 5/5 stars my review, currently priced at $9.49, Auto-rip CD available for $13.99)
This is another soundtrack where the film‘s stars, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Ewan MacGregor, perform admirably on the soundtrack. All the songs where Venus in Furs is listed as the artist feature Meyers as lead singer, and the Wylde Rattz cover of Iggy Pop’s TV Eye has Ewan MacGregor on lead vocals.
The album and film both stand as a kind of valentine to the glam-rock icons David Bowie and Iggy Pop, as well as all the music and style of the glam-rock period.
With 19 tracks in all, it’s a pretty generous album. Some of my favorite songs on it are Venus In Furs’ Tumbling Down and cover of Brian Eno’s Baby’s On Fire, Grant Lee Buffalo’s The Whole Shebang, Placebo’s 20th Century Boy, and Shudder to Think’s Ballad of Maxwell Demon. Songs from Roxy Music, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, T. Rex and Carter Burwell are also included.