The recent release of the star-studded soundtrack to the new Twilight movie reminded us of a simpler time, a time when every blockbuster movie package also included a shiny new soundtrack full of exclusive new songs from two bands you liked and about a dozen more you’d never heard of. Most of the songs never even appeared in the movie, a caveat reflected by the oft-used tag “Music From And Inspired By“, as if Method Man saw a rough cut of Batman Forever and was so dumbstruck with awe that he had no choice but to write a song about it. These were obvious attempts to make a quick buck with a subpar product carrying a recognizable title (the same is true in the video game market), but they sometimes became a part of the moviegoing experience too. We thought we’d take a look back at some of our favorite soundtracks from the golden age of movie/music corporate product synergy: the 90s.

Scott

Batman Forever

Batman Forever perfectly exemplifies the slapdash charm of the 90’s soundtrack. There is absolutely no reason for the dreamy alt-country of Mazzy Star to serve as a lead-in for The Offspring covering an early single by The Damned, or for a Brandy/Lenny Kravitz collabo to follow a rip-roaring PJ Harvey outtake from the harrowing classic To Bring You My Love. But such is the 90’s soundtrack! The 13 year old me bought this disc because Batman told me to, and it didn’t hurt that it included U2’s awesome “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” (which I now regard as one of the shittiest songs by one of my favorite bands). But like the best soundtracks, it introduced me to an astonishing number of artists that guided me through my turbulent teenhood, including Massive Attack, the Wu-Tang Clan, the Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop (in the form of a weird synthy lounge cover of “The Passenger” by Michael Hutchence), Nick Cave and the aforementioned Ms. Harvey. And there’s definitely a case to be made that without Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose”, there’d be no American Idol, and without American Idol, there’d be no America.

Batman Forever: Music From The Motion Picture

Judgment Night & Spawn

Just as no one anticipated that the jubilant signing of the Treaty of Versailles would inadvertently give way to the grim rise of Nazism, no one anticipated that the gleefully groundbreaking Run-DMC/Aerosmith summit on “Walk This Way” would give rise to the filth merchant that is Kid Rock. Back in the early 90’s, rap-rock was still an exciting new frontier, and Sony [EDIT: Immortal Records] exec Happy Walters recruited the hottest rap artists of the day (like Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. and someone named Fatal) to collaborate with grunge and metal bands for the soundtrack of a forgotten Emilio Estevez movie in which Denis Leary brutally murders Ari from Entourage. A lot of this is clearly laughable now, like Biohazard and Onyx’s “Judgment Night”, featuring the chorus “JUDGMENT NIIIIIIGHT!” But there are some nice moments, like the lighthearted pairing of Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul on the Tom Petty-sampling “Fallin’”, and a creepy Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill track that I still put on mixtapes to this day.

Walters continued the formula on 1997’s Spawn soundtrack, mixing electronic music and alt rock. Though late 90’s electronica has aged about as well as rap-rock at this point, I still enjoy listening to a lot of this, if only because I remember the glory days of The Chemical Brothers and Prodigy more fondly than those of Korn and Limp Bizkit. Apart from a few hilariously bad moments (Henry Rollins and Goldie’s contribution sounds like Rollins shouting stream-of-consciousness ramblings during a vigorous cardio workout, and Filter and The Crystal Method’s “Trip Like I Do” is a serious contender for worst lyrics ever written), it’s got some great pop drum ‘n’ bass from Soul Coughing and Roni Size, creepy atmospherics from the unlikely pairing of Butthole Surfers and Moby, and futuristic Britpop from Mansun and 808 State. Walters curated one more soundtrack for 2002’s Blade II (electronic hip hop that time), but has been inactive since then. I think it’s time to come out of retirement, Happy. Here are a few ideas of my own you’re welcome to use: emo/R&B, country/dubstep, reggaeton/indie rock.

Judgment Night: Music From The Motion Picture

Spawn: The Album

Ellen

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet

My parents refused to take me to Baz Lurhmann’s modern-dress, classic-script adaptation of Romeo and Juliet because it was rated an unacceptable PG-13. (This was the second most horrible thing that happened to me in the fall of 1996, the first being catching the bouquet at my uncle’s wedding and being forced to don a garter while the DJ played the theme to “Barney and Friends.”) But they couldn’t stop me from listening to Garbage’s “#1 Crush” and The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” on the radio, and I gleefully cashed in a gift certificate from my birthday to purchase the soundtrack to the DiCaprio-Danes film, including such MTV Buzz Bin acts as the Butthole Surfers and Everclear but also disco, earnest guitar-pop and… whatever genre Stina Nordenstam is. Lurhmann’s movie was praised or reviled for its frenetic pace, but this soundtrack is best listened to in sequence for its slow arc of love and desperation. The rater’s comments on it should read “contains adult themes”; I still get chills listening to Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host.”

Romeo + Juliet: Music From The Motion Picture

Robert

The Crow (1994) & The Crow: City of Angels (1996)

If there’s one movie that will always stick with me as an indicator of the sea change that was about to happen in Hollywood, it’s The Crow. Dark, gritty, violent and visionary in its style, the film set a new standard for what graphic novels could bring to the big screen and brought the heavy sounds to match. With big names like The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Pantera and Rage Against the Machine, the compilation also brought mainstream attention to lesser-known acts like Helmet, Rollins Band and Medicine and spawned it’s biggest hit with Stone Temple Pilots’ “Big Empty”, perhaps as a solemn reminder of Brandon Lee’s death during filming. This soundtrack always stuck out to me as one that could work all on its own, with smoky atmosphere winding into eventual mayhem and coming to rest with the last fittingly somber track.

The set list arranged for The Crow: City of Angels is about as different as the two films themselves are. One built a solid bed of music to play under the action while the other forced the music (sometimes awkwardly) upon the film. Not to say there aren’t some great selections in here from acts that range from Korn to Iggy Pop to PJ Harvey to Tricky, but they don’t really work well together as a whole. I mean, when you start an album with Hole covering Fleetwood Mac and White Zombie covering KC and the Sunshine Band, you can only wonder what the producers were thinking. Filter’s “Jurassitol” provides a hard-hitting sound to introduce the Crow but after listening to the lyrics, any and all relevance is lost. With more than enough heavy metal, it’s the slower, meditative moments provided by Tricky’s collaborations with Bush and Gravediggaz, and the bluesy “Knock Me Out” from Linda Perry and Grace Slick, that lend real power to the collection without all the heavy metal fuss.

The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

The Crow: City Of Angels: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Nowhere (1997)

I should probably start off by saying that Gregg Araki could never make another film and I’d be just fine with that. Not to say that his films are bad, but they’re pointed at very specific audiences and I’m sure much of Nowhere is probably lost on me now as opposed to twelve years ago. And yet, this collection of music is still a personal favorite, both because it features so many great acts from the ’90s and because, unlike the film, it hasn’t lost any of its punch. Like the cast of the film, the soundtrack is a veritable who’s who of “alternative” ’90s music, from 311 to Elastica to  Radiohead to Marilyn Manson. Every track brings something new and different to the table while staying in line with the song before it (OK, well, maybe not the jump from Hole’s downright scary “Dicknail” to the spacey Daft Punk remix of The Chemical Brothers’ “Life is Sweet”.). Whether it’s Catherine Wheel’s dizzying wall of sound in “Intravenous”, the soulful meandering of Coco and the Bean’s “Killing Time” or even Danny Saber’s snarling remix of  Chuck D’s “Generation Wrekkked”, it all paints a consistent soundscape for the disillusioned, slightly mad world of mid-’90s Los Angeles.

Nowhere: Music From The Gregg Araki Movie

Sheri

Natural Born Killers

Trent Reznor should really produce more soundtracks. No other compilation is as delightfully schizophrenic in genre or as overplayed in my car. But there lies the beauty in such a hodgepodge of styles. It’s a mix I can only liken to music festivals of the ‘90s, before rap and metal decided to segregate themselves into their own little bubbles of like sounds and like mentalities. And the teenage nostalgia that accompanies every listen is just a bonus. Where else, I ask you, can you find such a cohesive, seamless motion that begins with the über-bass vocals of Leonard Cohen, and in an instant, accelerates into the enchanting screeches of L7? And amid a spattering of lines from the movie’s stars, tucked snugly between Bob Dylan and Patsy Cline, lies the rage and magic of Nine Inch Nails’ “Burn.” What more could an angst-filled girl ever ask for?

Natural Born Killers: A Soundtrack For An Oliver Stone Film

Pulp Fiction

A more mellow music selection than most I own, Pulp Fiction’s soundtrack lays down a pint-size assortment of those songs that lack the “I remember exactly where I was when I first heard that” tag, but nonetheless are engraved in my music-loving mind. I’ve never owned a Dusty Springfield album, yet I approach “Son of a Preacher Man” like a lifelong friend. Even though it’s the seventh track, for me, it is the beginning of the soundtrack, one that elegantly maneuvers through classic songs and well-placed dialogue. Call me crazy, but there is something poetic (or at least amusing) about following the soulful, sultry “If Love Is a Red Dress” with a gruff command to “Bring out the gimp.” It perfectly mimics the somehow fluid progression of a movie assembled piecemeal, infusing it with unforgettable impact. “Personality goes a long way,” indeed.

Pulp Fiction: Music From The Motion Picture