Film Soundtracks as Mixtapes by Steve Bouffard

The compilation movie soundtrack is the strange cousin in media. It’s an album, recognized on all the charts, but it’s usually made up of songs we’ve already heard. Old songs, not new ones. The importance of a movie soundtrack could fill a book worthy of several editions, but I’m sticking to a more personal perspective and focusing on the compilation soundtrack rather than original scores.

Films built around artist released songs can do massive numbers. Titanic worked because Celine Dion hit peak diva status alongside the biggest movie of all time. The Graduate famously pushed Simon and Garfunkel further into the mainstream with what is essentially a cougar anthem. Frozen proved Let It Go could carry a film, but not a franchise (f*ck Frozen 2).

Then there are the true soundtrack movies. The ones made with a thoughtful compilation in mind. Guardians of the Galaxy. American Graffiti. O Brother Where Art Thou. Barbie.

However you categorize them, they’re premade mixtapes curated by your favorite directors. In high school, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to make movies and use music to pull emotion out of people. In a lot of cases, the music was the reason for the movie. So I collected soundtracks.

Not intentionally at first. The music I wanted to listen to was often most efficiently bought as a soundtrack, so I ended up with a flip case full of them. It was embarrassing. All my “normal” music lived on burned CDs from friends, but I spent my own money on soundtracks that nobody ever asked to borrow. No one was instant messaging me asking for a copy of the Desperado soundtrack.

This was all happening right before, and during, the transition from CD cases to iPods. You could download music then, but finding the correct song could take an entire night. And I had dial up.

Before the iPod, the best way for me to build a playlist based on vibes was to grab the right soundtrack. Most of what we did at that time was drive around looking for beer or cigarettes. Soundtracks for those missions included Out of Sight, Snatch, and Reservoir Dogs.

We pretended to be criminals, cruising the strip over and over until someone needed fast food. The soundtrack gave context to the mundane reality of being a teenager. This was cool. We were cool. Driving around in my mom’s car blasting Oasis’s F**ing in the Bushes, hoping we’d spot an eighteen year old who could buy us cigarettes.

Summers by the river with a stolen pack of smokes and two beers split three ways sounded like The Royal Tenenbaums, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Desperado, and the underrated threequel Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

It was hot. Dusty. We were still single after months of doing absolutely nothing about it. Maybe we were meant to be alone, the five of us. Smoking and shooting the shit sounded like twangy guitar of Link Wray and the Ray Men’s Jack the Ripper.

It wasn’t the only way to set the tone. In fact, it probably wasn’t the best way. I’m the only person I know who was ever that into soundtracks. But it worked for the time.

Eventually I got an iPod. Music became song specific. I could cherry pick tracks from films. They became easier to find. And I just didn’t need soundtracks anymore.

The greatest thing a soundtrack can do is introduce you to new music. Anyone under forty who likes the Pixies probably heard them for the first time through Fight Club. When Guardians of the Galaxy came out, several of its classic songs reentered the charts. My favorite band of all time is The Kinks, and I first heard them on The Darjeeling Limited soundtrack. Discovery is what makes soundtracks great.

The way we get to that end goal has changed, but the purpose hasn’t. We just don’t rely on soundtracks as much anymore. Playlists are instantly created based on vibes and usually serve as a decent starting point. Most of us would rather a two hour 90s playlist than the fifty one minute Clueless soundtrack.

I don’t have a grand opinion about how things work today. But my friends and I still share music. We still comment on song choices in film reviews. So what’s the point of all this?

Just remember that the soundtrack matters. Pay attention to it. And don’t be embarrassed if nobody wants you to burn them a copy of your soundtrack collection. I never had any of my CDs stolen.