more 80s soundtracks

can't get enough of 80s movies at the moment. nostalgia can be indulgent but sometimes you're just fed up with the real world, or, you just prefer the music and movies of another time.

now that i have worn out and/or broken most of my sex and the city dvds, i find myself watching an 80s movie to wind down.

i wonder if, in the future, there'll be a place you can go to where to all intents and purposes, it's the 80s, or the 70s or whatever era you feel like living in. yes, one of the last 80s films i watched was back to the future.

ten more 80s soundtracks - download here

beverly hills cop (1984)

junior - do you really want my love

**bonus**vanity 6 - nasty girl

forget 'axel f' i think we can safely say its forever ruined by a crazy frog. junior was a uk soul singer whose only real hit was the growly 'mama used to say'. vanity 6's biggest hit was, for purple reasons, left off the soundtrack. the film? well if the only eddie murphy you know is the sorry fortysomething player who fathers children with desperate spice girls, you need to get this and coming to america and find out why he's even famous in the first place. get raw and delirious while you're at it as well, i hear they just came out on dvd.

ferris bueller's day off (1986)

yello - oh yeah

how does matthew broderick look the same now as in 1986? anyway, who can forget this scene - battered and defeated headmaster, ed rooney, resigned to catching a school bus. earlier he declared, 'i did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave my cheese out in the wind'. like the breakfast club before it, ferris delighted in watching authoritative adults sink under the delusion that they were smarter than sassy 80s kids. i loved the character cameron in this movie. check out jennifer grey before dirty dancing and that nosejob as ferris's sister jeannie.

ghostbusters ii (1989)

bobby brown - on our own

copyact sequel, but an opportunity for young bobby to cement his growing popularity. this track hasn't engraved itself on the memory like ray parker jr's effort but it was huge in 89. he did provide another song for the soundtrack but...its awful. and i'm a huge bobby fan. don't try to track it down. think vanilla ice and those ninja turtles and be glad you left well enough alone. the film is exactly the same as the first ghostbusters - bill murray, big marshmallow baddies who threaten to eat new york. ok there might be slightly more to it than that...but not a hell of a lot.

krush groove (1985)

sheila e - a love bizarre

kurtis blow - if i ruled the world

if you're a fan of 80s hiphop, this soundtrack is worth seeking out, although it probably doesn't exist on cd. the story follows def jam's early days and features sheila e, ll cool j, beastie boys and new edition amongst others. it also stars a young blair underwood. as in the fit doctor miranda dates in the last series of sex and the city. the fit, rich doctor who can cook but also buys her pizza and a cookie that says 'i love you'. which sends her running back to broke barman steve. i'm sorry, i loved that show but COME ON that would never happen. he was too good for her - oh, ok i'll calm down now....

top gun (1986)

teena marie - lead me on

the rest of the soundtrack was eclipsed by 'take my breath away' but its actually a good representation of mid 80s power pop, especially 'danger zone', the likes of which just wouldn't work in the 00s for so many reasons. this was before living in an inner city was indeed like 'living in a danger zone' as per this song. this teena marie song is the most soul-oriented track. many a ten year old girl developed a crush on tom cruise thanks to this movie, and cocktail, that has carried into later life. until katie holmes and scientology, obviously, at which point he visibly lost it.

who's that girl (1987)

duncan faure - 24 hours

scritti politti - best thing ever

madonna filled this soundtrack with four of her own tracks, naturally, and most fans bought it for these and skipped the others. i copied from a friend as i wouldn't spend £5.49 on a tape with only four madonna songs. not when i could spend 70p on a blank tape and a bag of kola kubes to bribe said friend. we didn't share msuic quite so freely in those days. scritti politti were a great 80s blue eyed soul band with breathy vocals and this is a good example of their offerings. duncan faure? one hit wonder if this even counts. I used to think this was sung by the male lead in the film, griffin dunne.

body rock (1985)

maria vidal - body rock

fabulous example of mid 80s legwarmers-and-headband dance music, hot on the heels of fame and flashdance. i haven't seen the movie in years, but i'm not sure its really necessary, to guess what its about. this song was a favourite of sadistic p.e. teachers up and down the UK, looking to motivate lazy 16 year olds into aerobics, well into the 90s. why was all the music in those lessons at least 10 years old?? another favourite was the pointer sister's 'jump' for trampolining (arf...) and i also remember being forced to do aqua aerobics to elton john's 'i'm still standing'. funny cos i don't remember the p.e witches having a sense of humour...














bright lights big city (1987)

prince - good love

from one shortarse to another, prince contributed this rare track to michael j fox's 1987 movie. as i remember, this is almost exactly the same as 'the secret of my success'. michael, previously playing teen roles in teenwolf and back to the future, made the apparent leap to twentysomething hotshot within the space of two years. like ralph macchio, he was a good ten years older than most of his characters. which must be like the ultimate affirmation of hanging on to your youth, I presume. good for them.

forgotten soundtracks of the 80s

a long time ago in a galaxy far away (let's say, circa 1985), the internet didn't exist.

music wasn't free, it was only available in record stores, for those who had cash. those that didn't would spend hours hovering over the red record button on their ghettoblaster waiting for the songs they wanted to come on the radio. this could take days and you always missed the intro.

clever editing was required to keep as much of the song as possible before the dj started smarming again, usually bruno brookes and mark goodier on radio 1, the former last seen presenting a fishing show on sky sports 3. what if the tape ran out before the end of the song, and this was before 1987 when tapes didn't flip over to the other side automatically? don't smirk, generation y, that was the height of convenience and technology back then!

add this to the equation - there were some songs that were never played on the radio. you'd have to fork out for the whole tape to get one song. there were even some songs that weren't commercially available because they were used on a soundtrack which didn't get released. so what did you do? you waited three to four years until the movie arrived on tv, that's what you did, then you recorded it to video. then you played it back and shoved your ghettoblaster right up to the tv speakers. repeat process until someone didn't interrupt to yell at you for doing/not doing something. if you were smart you locked the living room door.

for all of the 80s kids nodding along to this post, here are some of those songs in glorious, convenient mp3 format...

ten hard to get 80s soundtracks - download here

can't buy me love (1987)
atlantic starr - one lover at a time
randy hall - all night
the best john hughes movie that never was, and i think, the most underrated of all the 80s teen movies. the atlantic starr track is from the scene near the beginning when the cheerleaders are practising. i wanted this song so i could copy cindy mancini and co's dancing. the second track is the setting for ronald's public premiere of the infamous 'african anteater ritual' dance. a truly legendary moment - think david brent's ill-advised office high-kicks set to a high school dance.




mannequin (1987)
belinda carlisle - in my wildest dreams
alisha - do you dream about me
everyone knows the big tune released from this movie - soft rock singalong 'nothing's gonna stop us now' by starship. it went to number one across the world but this wasn't enough to warrant a full release for the soundtrack. belinda carlisle provided an unreleased track for the memorable cartoon intro that sees emmy transformed from egyptian spinster to 80s department store dummy. the second track is from 80s pop star alisha's second album, and was used in the scene where andrew mccarthy and kim cattrall scamper around the department store after hours. which i was so jealous of.

coming to america (1988)
levert - addicted to you
michael rodgers - i like it like that
back then, eddie murphy was a comic genius. as soon as you'd stopped laughing at his standup tales of ice cream vans and drunk uncles, he introduced you to soul glo, crazy barbers who argue about boxing champions and that reverend, jacked by countless comedians since (richard blackwood, i am talking to you). the first song is from the club scene where akeem and semi find out that every woman in queens is severely unhinged. the second is from the scene where lisa receives the $500,000 earrings. while her sister prances about in big plastic earrings worthy of pat butcher, oblivious to the injustice.

cocktail (1987)
leroy gibbons - this magic moment
jimmy cliff - shelter of your love
by the time this movie was released, tom cruise was invincible. (oh, this was way before he discovered scientology...) which was just as well because as much i love it, the plot is sketchy at best. from what i can gather, tom visits an old bar colleague in jamaica and also meets elisabeth shue. then they dance and drink a lot. fair play to them. both of these songs are from scenes in balmy, outdoor clubs.





vision quest (1985)
madonna - crazy for you
madonna - gambler
fortuitously (or not, for the rest of the cast) this release coincided with the exact moment when madonna blew up in the uk. in the hot summer of 1985 holiday', 'crazy for you' and 'into the groove' were simultaneously in the uk charts. i would boom them out of the living room as i kicked, spun and crawled across the carpet in leggings and fingerless gloves. i used to think my mum hated madonna. it turns out she was similarly impressed by her music, but was afraid of her effect on my behaviour. can't think why...oops, we haven't talked about the movie. despite her brief cameo as a nightclub singer, it was and still is, all about madonna.

new edition - the beginning

you only have to say their name and ladies of a certain age melt. as noted by kanye west in 'slow jamz', girl needs to hear some new edition if you're planning to get lucky tonight.

bobby brown, ralph tresvant, michael bivins, ronnie devoe, rickey bell, and later johnny gill, gave an entire generation of girls a standard of boyfriend to aspire to. before they wound up with broke ass players ten years later. how big were they? madonna was their support act on tour in 1983. they appeared in 'knightrider' with the hoff.

their first single, 'candy girl' was my first ever record in 1983. a shout out to seven year old girls everywhere, we rejoiced as finally there seemed to exist boys who understood how we wanted to be treated.

whilst our infant school nemeses pulled up our skirts, yanked our hair and made us pretend to be princess leia, minus gold bikini, new edition made it clear they were up for playing kiss chase.

sadly boys grow up more quickly than you think. After two great albums, bobby brown left due to behavioural issues (cough) and started his solo career in 1986. johnny gill replaced him and the next two albums were lacklustre.

then, they found their groove at the turn of the 80s on the burgeoning new jack scene with 'heart break'. due to contractual obligations leaving them an album short of their agreement with mca, they reunited in 1996 as grown men, and their 2008 regroup as thirtysomethings is imminent. not so much a comeback as a ten year reunion.

no matter how old they or I get - I'll always be their candy girl.

ten sugary sweet new edition classics - download here

candy girl
the one that started it all complete with sonic whooshes, bleeps and tambourines.

popcorn love
the follow-up, not nearly as successful, but classic. get the feeling the boys liked their junk food?

cool it now
their only real low point as a band has been letting amish casualwear sweatshop gap use this 1984 hit in one of their insufferably smug adverts.

mr telephone man
smooth 80s boy soul at its best. nice use of late 70s wah wah sound. there are no words to describe how much i loved this song.

my secret
1985 hit from their second and best album 'new edition'. 'ooh! sparks begin to fly, lightning in the sky...'

leaving you again
recently sampled for ciara and bow wow's 'like you'....took me ages to recognise where it came from.

delicious
surprisingly mature effort from 1985 'new edition' album. was covered in the 90s by british soulsters don-e and deni hines.

can you stand the rain
lush ballad from 'heart break' with johnny gill on lead vocals.

crucial
uptempo hit from 'heart break' that showcased the boys transition into new jack swing dons.

hit me off
the lead single from the 1996 comeback. slotted effortlessly into the mid 90s bumpy r&b scene.