The Doom Generation
1995
Buy the album on Amazon

There are entirely too many great soundtracks I’d like to post for this month’s theme. So either I have to start posting with a much higher frequency, or we’re going to need to have this theme another time in the future. Since I can barely handle once a week, I guess it will have to be the latter. Anyhoo, on to this week’s post.

I barely remember this movie, other than that I really loved it when it first came out. Like all the Gregg Araki movies I’ve seen (and I’ve fallen out of touch and haven’t seen the last few), it was both really awesome and also somewhat horrible. James Duval was basically a young Keanu Reeves clone, with acting skills to boot, Rose McGowan was super hot, and the homoerotic undertones to it were pretty fascinating to watch. I just read the recap of it on Wikipedia, and I had definitely forgotten most of it. Also, watching the trailer, I totally didn’t remember the cameos (Perry Farrell! Dustin Nguyen!). I’ll need to revisit it at some point.

Part of the appeal of the movie was how great and non-mainstream the soundtrack was. It’s a great mix of synth pop, electronica and shoegaze tracks. It’s been a long time since I listened to it, but since it was from the CD days, each of these songs certainly got burned in to my head back in the day. My very favorite song though, which I absolutely love, is Blue Skied An’ Clear by Slowdive, which I listened to over and over and it mixed in with all of my young angst and hormones and feelings and burned itself into my brain. This song set me on a quest to track down the album that it was on, which, back in the pre-internet days (well, technically this was back in the AOL days) was very difficult. I remember scouring cool record shops trying to find it, especially when I visited a girlfriend in RI and we went to visit Boston and NYC. I did eventually pick up a couple of other Slowdive albums, but none of their other songs ever touched me so deeply like this one. Listening to the whole song again right now – so, so good. I recommend listening on headphones in the dark, and being 18 or 19.

A lot of the other songs are good songs from bands I was into, but probably the other standout for me was this (which like Lance often points out has all the cheesy video tropes of its time):

1. Intro – ♥♥♥♥ (I really love this quick clip)
2. “On the Wheel” by Curve – ♥♥♥♥
3. “This Heaven” by Love and Rockets – ♥♥♥♥
4. “Summerblink” by Cocteau Twins – ♥♥♥♥
5. “Christianity (The Adrian Sherwood Mix)” by The Wolfgang Press – ♥♥♥♥
6. “Paradise Now (Remix)” by Meat Beat Manifesto – ♥♥♥♥
7. “Already There” by The Verve – ♥♥♥
8. “Penetration” by The Jesus and Mary Chain – ♥♥♥♥
9. “But If You Go” by MC 900 Ft. Jesus – ♥♥♥♥
10. “Undertow (The Spooky Mix)” by Lush – ♥♥♥♥
11. “Double Coupon” by Babyland – ♥♥♥
12. “Slut” by Medicine – ♥♥♥
13. “Groovy Is My Name” by Pizzicalo Five – ♥♥♥
14. “Violator” by Extra Fancy – ♥♥♥
15. “Blue Skied An’ Clear” by Slowdive – ♥♥♥♥♥