soundtrack-o-rama

I don’t wanna be like Jim Breuer’s SNL Goat Boy character, but hey, do you remember the 80s?

Every movie that came out had a soundtrack — and it drove people to movies. It also drove record sales. The videos acted like a trailer for the movie. Everyone was happy, including the fans, who were given extra special songs from their favorite artists.

Now? You’re lucky if you even recognize one original song from a movie. The decline of all three industries — the record, music video and movie industries — has left the relationship between movies and original music pretty much non-existent.

Do you realize it’s been years since a movie produced a hit song? And when Juno’s soundtrack (of mostly previously released material, btw) hit #1 on the Billboard charts this year, it was the first time a soundtrack from a non-musical hit #1 since . . . umm, I don’t know. Purple Rain? Saturday Night Fever? That’s a little bit of hyperbole there. But it’s been while. Dreamgirls hit #1 in 2007, but I can’t remember what else could have.

Listening to Sirius this weekend, the Big 80s channel had its top movie songs of the 80s, so I figured it’s time for a twist and to reveal my list of Forgotten/Underrated Movie Songs You Don’t Even Remember Are From Movies. Most of these are off the top of my head, so I may have forgotten some. They’re all linked to their YouTube videos, either from the movie or its regular video:

10. Against All Odds, Phil Collins. Let’s get this out of the way now — you can’t have an 80s movie song list without Phil Collins (and the next two people on this list). But this was easily his best, unless Easy Lover was on some soundtrack I don’t know about. It’s from Against All Odds, the 1984 flick famous for nothing except this song and Rachel Ward getting naked. Movie director Taylor Hackford had this movie music anthem thing down to a science, as he was also responsible for Officer and a Gentleman (Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong) and White Knights (Say You, Say Me).

9. Meet Me Half Way, Kenny Loggins. The second of the 80s movie music triumvirate. How many other singers in the 80s owe their entire career to movie soundtracks? Name one Kenny Loggins hit song from the 80s that wasn’t from a movie. Did he even put put an album out? But of all of them, this one is the most obscure from an obscure Sly Stallone movie about arm wrestling that cemented his reputation as the Flop King of Hollywood. Congrats all around. If the movie weren’t so effing rewatchable for sheer unintentional comedy, it would stand as one of the worst in history.

8. Live to Tell, Madonna. And the 80s movie triumvirate is complete, but no one does it like Madonna. She’s had so many hits, it’s almost impossible to discern one from the other, let alone remember which ones were from movies. The fact that she was one of the original storytellers in her videos makes it even harder. That’s right, Papa Don’t Preach is not from a movie. But of all her hit soundtrack songs — and I can think of about 8 off the top of my head — this one from At Close Range is the most out there for three reasons: 1. It’s in her top 5 songs, regardless of movie tie-ins, 2. it’s how she met Sean Penn, star of the movie and 3. not a person on the planet saw this movie until IFC started rerunning it a couple years ago.

7. Hearts On Fire, John Cafferty. How can you possibly choose any of the unreleased-yet-ultimately-loveable songs from the Rocky 4 soundtrack over the other? It’s nearly impossible, but if you need a tie-breaker, then go with the guy who had another obscure movie song earlier in his career: Cafferty, who with the Beaver Brown Band, gave us the theme from the unrecognizable movie Eddie and the Cruisers (On the Dark Side).

6. Love Changes Everything, Climie Fisher. If there was a King of the Obscure Movie Soundtracks Songs of the 80s, it was director Savage Steve Holland (Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer). This is his best from his most obscure movie, How I Got Into College, starring a post-Top Gun, pre-Dr. Green Anthony Edwards, a pre-Twin Peaks Lara Flynn Boyle and classic in-every-movie guys like Charles Rocket and Philip Baker Hall. It’s a typical 80s song in every way — that’s what makes it great. The most disturbing thing is that there actually is a video for this song.

5. I’m Falling, the CS Angels. Until I tell you in the next sentence, 99.99999 percent of the people reading this have no idea what movie this is from — and that’s what makes it obscure. This bad boy from the 1985 Val-Kilmer-is-the-Next-Big-Thing-in-Hollywood vehicle Real Genius never was released — at least I can’t imagine it was — but it’s a very good song from one of the woefully forgotten comedies of the 80s. It would be higher if I weren’t the only person on the planet who still can sing all the words.

4. I Can Dream About You, Dan Hartman. The little-known Streets of Fire — which tried to capitalize on the short-lived but thoroughly enjoyable Michael Pare Era — produced some equally enjoyable tunes, but none like this one. Another of the video-is-a-movie-trailer releases, you still know every word today.

3. Curel Summer, Bananarama. It wasn’t on the Karate Kid soundtrack — the girls wouldn’t allow it. But go ahead and try to picture this song with thinking about Daniel-San riding to school on his BMX bike with a black eye. If that doesn’t scream 80s, I don’t know what does. It didn’t become a hit in the US until after the movie came out.

2. You’re the Best (Around), Joe Esposito: Two from Karate Kid? Or course! If it weren’t for a recent pop culture infusion of this song from the immortal and unintentially hysterical final 15 minutes of Karate Kid, barely anyone would remember it. But it’s been on South Park and King of Kong in the last few years, so it can’t be #1 just because it’s now too recognizable. But it would be a shoo-in otherwise.

1. Send Me and Angel, Real Life. I know what you’re saying: Huh? The new wave Australian band came out with this song for the soundtrack to the soooooooo-bad-it’s-good BMX movie Rad, but it was never released in the U.S. I distinctly remember watching Rad as a 10-year-old on HBO while my 14-year-old cousin commented on how bad the music was for it, and he sarcasticaly joked about how none of it ever got released. Then, randomly and incomprehensibly, Send Me Angel was released in 1989 as a dance remix and hit #26! If you needed to define 80s obscure movie music, that’s it.

I’m sure I’m missing some of your favorites, feel free to post them or email msadowski@sharpmag.com to let me know.