Pump Up the Volume
1990
Buy the album on Amazon

Since the theme choice is mine, it means I get to swoop in and do this entry before Lance does, since I know it would be at or near the top of his list as well (which is not to say he might not write his own entry about it). Maybe not the soundtrack to end all soundtracks (though it may just be), but certainly the movie of movies to me, and it’s tough for me to express just how important this movie and soundtrack were to me in my impressionable youth. I’m going to try hard not to write too much about the movie, because some day I’ll write a proper entry about it in the Movies category, but this came out right around the beginning of my freshman year of high school,  when I was just starting to become the MNP person I am today.

At minimum, this movie is directly responsible for my long lasting love of:

• The Pixies (I can’t remember if I knew of them/liked them before this, but this sealed the deal)
• The Descendents
• Leonard Cohen

There’s the perfect shot in the movie when the camera pans over Harry’s cassette collection – it was like a user guide for my eager mind of what type of music I should look for (and also one of the few mistakes I’ve ever caught in a movie – the amount of tapes changes in the next pan of them!). I think the movie and soundtrack also helped open my mind to the thought of not needing to stay in one box of musical interests. A lot of the music fit well together, but then there was hip hop, and r&b, and Leonard Cohen, and Happy Harry Hard-On was the great dj bringing it all together.

Of course the thing that troubled me the most was how incomplete the official soundtrack album was. It’s got a lot of the songs, but it’s also missing about half of them, and for a movie that has its music ingrained in its lifeblood, that always felt like such a slight. They don’t even have the Leonard Cohen version of Everybody Knows, fer chrissakes, and it was used every time but one in the movie. I picked up some of the additional songs like Leonard Cohen or the Descendents along the way, but thankfully a few years back Lance helped me complete the full soundtrack, and our bond was complete.

My favorites:

Everybody Knows – This was so out of place with the rest of the 80’s/90’s freak scene soundtrack which made it kick ass even more, and introduced me to Leonard Cohen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lin-a2lTelg

Weinerschnitzel – so fun, and made me immediately seek out Descendents albums.

If It Be Your Will – such a beautifully written and sung song, and one of my L. Cohen favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Qk_4emjEs

Freedom of Speech – It doesn’t matter that I’m not usually into hip hop. This song is on this soundtrack, so I sing along every time, plus the lyrics were totally relevant to all of the Parental Advisory stuff going on at the time.

Kick Out the Jams – definitely on my list of power songs. This is a song to blast at full volume and kick things to.

Lance already covered this one nicely.

Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) – still my favorite version of this song. The faster version is great, but pales to the slow. I still love the great moments of happenstance when I happen to find myself listening this song while walking somewhere with my backpack.

Why Can’t I Fall In Love – a song I would probably never have listened to otherwise, but one I became very familiar with. The teenage boy me <ahem> watched this scene many times, probably more than I’ve seen the full movie. Plus, when I hear it now I keep waiting for the little blip of police siren to cut it off.

(sorry, you’ll have to google the actual clip yourself – this is a family site dammit!)

Everybody Knows – great cover version, and used so perfectly in the film. The part where she belts it out just makes you want to stand up and cheer for Harry.

Tribute video!:

I’m leaving off a bunch here, and some of the other songs may not be my favorites but they still trigger dopamine for me whenever they come up on shuffle.

I’m no good at wrapping things up. If you don’t know this movie or soundtrack, I probably haven’t sold you on it. But if you know it and love it, you know exactly the love I feel.