10 films soundtracks that are much better than the movie

Nothing in the world is as immediate as music’s emotional wallop. Music mimics our vocal and physical expressions of emotion to convey the intended mood; for instance, when a person gets excitable or fearful, their expressions will likely be loud, fast, and frantic—an excitable genre like trance echoes these adjectives. 

This direct transposing of emotion into sound means that, from an incredibly early age, we can intrinsically interpret musical triggers like major or minor keys into a feeling. The big screen of cinema has implemented this shortcut to the human soul and transmuted it into devastating, wondrous, and magical effects.

Sometimes, however, the soundtrack does not meet its match, and the emotional wallops remain on record rather than coming together as a whole, meaning you spend more time looking at Shazam than the screen. Great songs have graced many rotten pictures, and with cinema sadly becoming over-reliant on aesthetics, this mishmash seems to be more frequent.

Below, we’re looking at a few examples where magnificent music finds itself sorely let down. These are the best soundtracks ever to grace god-awful movies or, at least, middling motion pictures, at best.

10 soundtracks that are better than the movie:

10. Soup For One (Jonathan Kaufer, 1982)

Soup For One is pretty much the quintessential example of a movie that has faded into obscurity to such an extent that nobody even realises that some of its smash hits were penned purposefully for the film. From the instantly off-your-feet bassline of Carly Simon’s ‘Why’ to the disco classic title track by Chic that Modjo went on to sample, this flick races through bonafide classics in a flash.

The film itself, however, is such a turgid take on the romantic comedy genre that even the prime selection of tracks fails to raise above lukewarm. If Chic can’t cause a spark, then I’m afraid nothing can. This might be a disco odyssey, but the script is so clichéd and dated that it is more likely to bust a hip than a move.

9. Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, 2004)

Now, if there is one thing I’d like to make very clear from the off, it is my firm belief that a five-year-old’s opinion should also accompany all reviews of kids’ films. You can’t have the same person who writes about Andrei Tarkovsky’s appraisal of Marxism, whereby in any given capitalist environment, the proletariat will rebel against the bourgeoisie’s inherent oppression, and after a brief period of socialist rule, a reemergent of classist society will slowly manifest to govern, and then critique whether Peter Rabbit’s fart jokes undermined the plot in the new Beatrix Potter cartoon. It’s like Stevie Wonder writing a column for AutoTrader. 

That being said, the soundtrack to Shrek 2 is an unbelievable oddity that proves hard to wrap your head around. The film somehow introduced a generation of kids to Tom Waits, Nick Cave, David Bowie, Joseph Arthur, Eels, and more in one fell swoop. What’s clearly at play here is that the producers got a little self-indulgent and splurged on their own favourites, inexplicably weaving their adult, alternative record collections into a kids movie, and fair play to them for that. 

8. Above the Rim (Jeff Pollack, 1994)

Sometimes, one song can make a soundtrack great, but generally speaking, it takes more than one scene to say the same thing about a movie. Warren G and Nate Dogg’s classic ‘Regulate’ is the sort of song that flirts so close to novelty that you wonder whether it will ever become badly dated, but so far so good for one of the best hip-hop tracks around.

Above the Rim, on the other hand, never reached the slam-dunk heights to ever have time to drag it back to earth. The tale of a promising basketballer beleaguered by drugs starring Tupac had one too many cliches to ever pass muster. It’s patently apparent that this was a film dreamt up in a boardroom to cash in on the ‘urban’ trend of the era.

7. Purple Rain (Albert Magnoli, 1984)

Musicians making movies is somehow not always a bad thing. On paper, it sounds like the sort of recurring trait that would exclusively deliver cinematic defecation, but surprisingly, from True Stories to Ian Astbury’s Conquest, there are too many exceptions to prove the rule… Purple Rain isn’t one of them. In fact, Prince pretty much makes an overlong album promo.

The soundtrack is one of Prince’s finest albums, which places it in rarefied musical heights that the film never really stands a chance of reaching. It’s not bad, but perhaps The Purple One should have taken a leaf out of The Graduate and just let his music do the talking on screen. At no point in the proceedings are you not blindly aware of the fact you’re watching Prince.

6. Super Fly (Gordon Parks Jr, 1972)

Super Fly stands out as a culminating moment in Curtis Mayfield’s career. The drip-feed of funk into his soul suddenly meddled head-on, his political involvement sprung to the fore in a much more notable way, but his musical craft and coasting honeyed vocals failed to meet their match in this exciting prospect that fails to ever come to fruition in a classy way.

The anti-drugs anthem of ‘Pusherman’ captures street life in amber and presents it with class, style and one the funkiest basslines to ever rumble onto a record. The critical and commercial highpoint of his career was a melee of everything that went before, and rather than sounding hectic, it sounds like the golden hour of the party embalmed with a hue of cognizance and musical excellence. The film, however, fails to stand out from the ranks of the genre in the same way the album does. 

5. It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2015)

Sometimes, great works of art can have a disastrous impact on culture. You can trace the breadcrumb trail of Bob Dylan favouring rarified expression over vocal technicality right through to an endless slew of shit singers fronting bands, the Promethean leap of Revolver sadly leads to prog, and the same can be said for the glossy, neon synth wave of Drive. It arrived with a constant humming soundtrack in 2011 and was copied continuously for a while thereafter.

It Follows very nearly nails the brief. The aesthetic lends itself well to horror, and the sound design in the movie is simply astounding. Sadly, the plot is a little stupid. That’s fine, for the most part, stupid plots are inherent to the horror genre, but the weakness here is highlighted no end by how engrossing the soundtrack proves. The bubbling synths are almost too good for you to care about whatever the hell it is that seems to be pursuing these raunchy teens.

4. Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996)

Admittedly, I really enjoyed Romeo and Juliet when I first watched it as a 14-year-old in school, but as a rule of thumb, anything a 14-year-old boy finds “edgy and cool” is probably not an opinion that stands the test of time. The movie might be packed with emotional wallops, but they are all derided by the absurdity and overbearing melodrama of the concept.

Now, the only moments from the film that live on in the mind are the spine-tingling acapella delivery of the line “Brothers and sisters together we’ll make it through…” and the timeless wonder of ‘Lovefool’ by The Cardigans. These stirring sounds capture a time and place, whereas the film finds itself trapped hopelessly between two.

3. Judgement Night (Stephen Hopkins, 1993)

Judgement Night is a film that actually seemed to prioritise the soundtrack all along. The mixtape saw alt-rock bands pair with hip-hop artists for a soundtrack that, at the very least, could be termed interesting and innovative. In fact, it pretty much paved the way for all those mash-up tracks that dominated the early days of the internet.

Teenage Fanclub met with De La Soul for the ‘Fallin’ and Sonic Youth mashed with Cypress Hill for ‘I Love You Mary Jane’. By no means are the results greater than the sum of their parts, but they far outstrip the film that much is for sure. The movie is simply one of seemingly thousands of gang-thrillers that littered the gutters of nineties cinema.

2. The Boat That Rocked (Richard Curtis, 2009)

The Boat That Rocked was a rollicking celebration of pirate radio. Sadly, the same can’t be said of cinema. While it is far easier to watch than the legions of horrid reviews online would suggest, it sinks well beneath the surface of its creditable soundtrack.

With tracks from The Kinks, Leonard Cohen and The Turtles is provided with a solid smorgasbord of counterculture classics without sticking directly to the safe waters of classics. It even shines a light on underappreciated stars like Herb Alpert and Skeeter Davis while it’s at it. Not a lot of laughs but a good few toe-taps.

1. Silent Running (Douglas Trumbull, 1972)

In Silent Running, an astronaut is given orders to destroy the last of Earth’s botany, which is housed in a spacecraft after flora went extinct on the third rock from the sun. Fortunately, the poor bastard has a cracking soundtrack to listen to while he goes about his thankless task. 

The man behind the mixing desk is Peter Schickele, who is known for his cracking work arranging Joan Baez’s records. This turned director Doug Trumbull’s ear, and he proves to be a brilliant fit. Alongside a wonderfully gaudy orchestral score, Baez lends her pipes to two songs that sound as good as everything she turns her hand at. 

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