Top 5 Retro Movie Soundtrack Songs
/by Dave
Welcome dear reader to a new Banzai Retro Club crossover collaboration. This month we are looking at our top 5 retro soundtrack songs. I am lucky enough to provide 10 this month as I had an entirely different set of picks on our podcast and you will just need to check that out to hear about those choices.
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)
Pure Imagination sung by Gene Wilder
For a young kid of the 1970s this song signals when this movie actually got really good. Charlie had a tough life and the movie sets that up really well, but the movie wasn't fun until Gene Wilder, playing Mr. Willy Wonka appears on screen. The movie gets fun and goofy from that point on. "Pure Imagination" is sung by Gene Wilder as the kids and their guardians explore the first actual candy room in which everything is edible. "If you want to view paradise. Simply look around and view it." Sage advice Mr. Wonka and thank you for the scrumdillyumptious bars of chocolate.
Karate Kid (1984)
Young Hearts sung by Commuter
In my adult life I have been paying a bit closer attention to the movies of my youth and the Karate Kid is no different. What I have noticed is there are some real musical gems peppered in our great 80s movies that should have been way more popular that they ever became. The song Young Hearts starts as Daniel goes to the Golf N' Stuff to get his beloved Allie back in his life. We learned a beat earlier from Mr. Myagi that karate and life are about balance and what better way than a song about young love dying if we are all alone.
Electric Dreams (1984)
Together in Electric Dreams by Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder
Ok, this list needed a good happy montage song, didn't it? Together in Electric Dreams snappy beat comes on during the movie as a final sequence as the computer artificial intelligence sends himself away before initiating a self destruction. Boy gets girl in the end and they go away for a vacation with no technology, on the drive there a familiar friendly computer automated voice (Edgar the computer) comes over the radio and reminds us that we will always be "Together in Electric Dreams". Cue the end credits.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Girl You'll be a Woman Soon by Neil Diamond
Enter Mrs. Mia Wallace as she expertly stops a reel to reel tape player at the exact spot to play this kick ass song. She dances and enjoys the music as Vince is in the bathroom talking to himself. The scene continues as Mia finds heroine in Vince's jacket and assume it is a little nose candy. While the song plays out we are at the start of a dark journey to see how Vince will deal with this new emergency in his life. Don't tell Marsellus.
Wayne's World (1992)
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Thanks to this song in this movie I think a ton of people start head banging at the appropriate moment to this awesome song. This movie was a wonderful mish mash of random stuff much like a podcast that I am a proud member of. Even before this movie, the song was a fantastic piece of musical art by Queen, but Wayne and Garth was able to take it to the next level with the right blend of mirth and sarcasm. Party on Wayne. Party on Garth.
