Soundtracks. My Rushmore

Used to enjoy soundtracks because they allowed you get a bunch of good music from a specific genre or era. American Graffitti, Forrest Gump, Dirty Dancing, The Big Chill, Saturday Night Fever, O Brother Where Art Thou? Tarantino gets a lot of credit for his soundtracks, but Paul Thomas Anderson is right there. Boogie Nights has a really underrated soundtrack.
And then you have the kind that began in the '80s stacked with singles, Flashdance, Fame, Footloose, (See Dean Pitchford) The Bodyguard, Top Gun.
Not sure where Broadway/Musicals soundtracks fit in - Grease, Rent, Wicked, Music Man, Guys and Dolls. The Disney stuff.
Also a fan of the soundtrack to Gettysburg and Hoosiers. Pure Country is George Strait's biggest selling album.
And you have to talk about Adam Schlesinger's work on That Thing You Do! The song is the key to the entire movie and it still works. The album was entirely composed of original material to mimic the era - Tom Hanks even wrote a couple of them.
Schlesinger's other credits include "the song" for Music and Lyrics, and Colbert's Christmas.

 

Danny Elfman's soundtrack for Batman is pretty damn good. Very gothicky and atmospheric. It's obviously all one artist, though.
There was a Batman: The Ride rollercoaster at Six Flags when I worked there as a teenager. You started by walking through a park in the first part of the queue, went to a hellish cityscape for the second part, and then got into the Batcave for the final part. They had no music or maybe soft twinkly stuff in the park, the Prince soundtrack playing in the second part, and Elfman's theme music right before you got on the ride. Always felt like I was ready to kick some ass when I heard the Elfman theme playing.

 

Elfman is a magician when you think about the movies he's done (not to mention his work with Oingo Boingo).Good Will Hunting, Big Fish etc. Loved Midnight Run's soundtrack. How he hasn't won an Oscar by now considering he's worked on over 100 films (o-4 on the noms) is surprising.

 

Tom Petty may not have set out for a Hollywood career, but there's no question that his music has made an impact on the movies. And if you're familiar with his songs, that's no surprise.

Tom Petty was a movie soundtrack staple. Here are 5 essential uses of his work

Tom Petty was a movie soundtrack staple. Here are 5 essential uses of his work

 

Singles
Trainspotting
Reservoir Dogs
Natural Born Killers
Pulp Fiction
Pretty in Pink
Eight Mile

A lot of Saturday Nighr Fever nods. God damn you mofos are old

best one artist soundtrack for me is Into the Wild or maybe Flash Gordon

 

Great call on That Thing You Do, saw it again maybe a year ago and that song is awesome, like something out of a time machine back to that era. One hell of an accomplishment to come up with that.

 

Easy Rider (2004 with second disk)

 

Also wrote The Simpsons' theme song and did Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
There are several albums he's put out with just his movie music on it.

 

Silence of the Lambs killed American Girl for me. Not sure if it made it onto the movie soundtrack...

 

What? No votes for "Eddie and the Cruisers?"

Cross-threading: The "Eddie Lives" sequel was truly awful.

 

The Harder They Come
Singles
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Valley Girl

 

Valley Girl is definitely up there and especially thanks to this song.