Nothing like a classic soundtrack
Kate Robertson dusts off the soundtracks worth listening to this summer.
At this time of year, classic films seem to get more than their fair share of air time. Titanic, Love Actually,
Armageddon and The Holiday. If it’s got a 90s power ballad attached to it, even better.
When a great film and a great song come together, they rise together. We saw it with I Will Always Love You, we saw it with Stayin’ Alive and we saw it with (I’ve Had) The Time of
My Life. When a song lands with you on a personal level, the association between song and film lasts forever.
The popularity of the soundtrack dipped in the late
00s but the format has returned with a vengeance. Black Panther, The Fault In Our Stars, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Fifty Shades and The Hunger Games series all put forward carefully curated albums featuring all-star vocalists.
The hits made mainstream radio. The deeper cuts give fans a way to continue enjoying the film as they waited for it to arrive on DVD or hit streaming sites.
Now that we can finally close the book on Christmas carols, here are the soundtracks worth dusting off this summer:
Forrest Gump: Nothing says Christmas like an already long film being stretched out to four hours with ads on free-to-air TV.
It wouldn’t be the holidays without Forrest, Jenny and Sally Field’s eternal wisdom.
Consider yourself warned, this soundtrack is as lengthy as the film.
The two disc beast (which you can stream on Spotify) spans genres, decades and is a greatest hits collection in its own right: Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin right through to Fleetwood Mac and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Listen to it while you’re out for a post-Christmas run for a fully immersive experience.
Guardians of the Galaxy: This 2014 film is almost a free-to-air classic, right?
It’s the film that shot Chris Pratt from lovable, dweeby dude in Parks and Recreation to Chris Hemsworthlevel hunk.
The Awesome Mix Vol. 1 that Pratt hoons on loop throughout the film has the power to turn any frown upside down.
It opens with Hooked On A Feeling and closes with Ain’t No Mountain
High Enough. Norman Greenbaum, The Jackson 5 and The Runaways flesh out the middle bits.
Playing this soundtrack to your kids is exactly like mashing peas and carrots into their potato. You’re serving them up a piece of history but they’ll never know.
Bridget Jones’s Diary: This soundtrack sends all the things you felt the first time you saw the film flooding back.
Before you know it, you’re gazing out the window dreaming about the time Mark Darcy said to Jones, ‘‘I like you very much, just as you are.’’ Swoon!
Standouts include Jamie O’Neal’s
All By Myself, Gabrielle heartbreaker Out Of Reach and the lovedup song that plays when Jones and naughty Daniel Cleaver hook up for the first time, Stop, Look, Listen (To
Your Heart), by Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye.
Eagle vs Shark: The soundtrack to awkward Kiwi rom-com Eagle vs
Shark is a melting pot of all your favourite local musos.
The Phoenix Foundation, Age Pryor, The Reduction Agents and Tessa Rain.
Excerpts from the film are scattered throughout the record as spoken word tracks, putting the listener inside the film. Start at the beginning, and listen right the way
through. It sounds like the film, it sounds like a humble Kiwi summer and it sounds like some of our finest musical talent.
Romeo + Juliet: The year is 1996, and Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio are about to break our hearts.
Baz Luhrmann’s films are known for their original songs and reworking of classics. Romeo + Juliet is no exception.
Twenty-two years on, it’s impossible to hear Des’ree’s Kissing
You and not think about Danes and DiCaprio raising their hands to the glass of a fish tank.
Then there’s Young Hearts Run
Free, the song Mercutio lip syncs to while giving the drag performance of his life. The Cardigans, Garbage and Radiohead bring it all together.
Sing Street: The only film recommendation I’ve dished out all
year is coming: if you haven’t watched Sing Street, get onto it quick smart.
The exceptionally heart-warming 2016 film is a musical coming-of-age dramady set in the 1980s.
The soundtrack is largely original, endearing and has an assortment of Duran Duran and The Cure scattered throughout.
The original songs sound like they’ve been transplanted right out of 1985 in the very best way. Special mention to swoony ballad
To Find You and Drive It Like You Stole It.
Everything Hans Zimmer: This seems obvious but I know I’d be scolded if I didn’t include multiaward winning composer Hans Zimmer in the wrap-up.
His most notable works worth revisiting over the holiday period include The Lion King, The Dark
Knight and Interstellar.