The 25 Best Rock Soundtracks
I'm a glutton for punishment. Go over to any music retail site and punch in "Movie Soundtracks" and you will be hit with over 20,000 options. While there are plenty to readily dismiss, there are still hundreds that could easily qualify for whatever "list" you want to make. Soundtracks are big business. Sometimes it's the only way to sell music. Busy, working people (not me) don't have the time to search out new music. When they hear something in a movie that grabs their ear, they're likely to hunt out the soundtrack. I've done it myself. But most soundtracks, especially these days, are glorified mixtapes, a handful of acts all managed by the same people or who record forthe same record label. Or maybe the director does like music and chooses hispersonal faves and got the licensing for half of them.
So while you will undoubtedly disagree with this list, you will hopefully find a few that you do remember fondly, or would be inclined to check out if you weren't convinced that I'm out to ruin your life with my deliberately "bone-headed" picks. At first, I wasn't going to include soundtracks from movies that were almost exclusively music-oriented. The Band's The Last Waltz doesn't exactly have a plot beyond their own saying "bye bye" (for the first time) and Woodstock, The Concert for Bangla Desh, The Decline of Western Civilization, and Wattstax were concert films. But then The Wall and Purple Rain were conceived by musicians who probably would've recorded those albums anyway. The albums were designed to stand up as albums before they were soundtracks to their films. And I'm not necessarily vouching for the films.
These aren't the best-selling soundtracks of all-time. If 15 million people want to listen to The Bodyguard soundtrack, that's fine by me. But that means in a country with 300 million people that 285 million still didn't buy it. Even if you lop off 100 million people as being too old, too young, or too broke to purchase it, that still means 185 million people didn't care enough to buy it. Besides, music is personal. You experience it. If the soundtrack to Titanic makes you weep, that's your deal and you're entitled to it.
On that note, wouldn't it be neat if we could borrow one another's brains for a few hours? You'd have to promise to give mine back. —Rob O'Connor
