Welcome back to 35000 Watts: The Podcast. My name is Michael Millard. I’m the director of a film called 35000 Watts: The Story of College Radio, a feature documentary about college radio. It’s available now at 35000watts.com if you’d like to go download a copy right after you finish listening to this very episode where we are going to be talking with my cohost, Lisa. Hi.Great to be back.
And our resident music guru, Keith Borderfield. Always a pleasure.
Lisa, what is on tap for this episode? We are gonna talk about soundtracks and how influential they are.
So, Keith, let’s start off with you. What’s your favorite soundtrack?
Well, today, I picked one that’s maybe a little more off the beaten track, but, one that’s near and dear to my heart. And kinda funny because when we first mentioned doing a soundtrack show, I didn’t even think about this one until Lisa mentioned it, and then it was like a, you know, white bulb going off my head. I was like, oh, yeah.
That’s a that’s a great one. But today, I would like to talk about, Pump Up the Volume. It was a movie that had Christian Slater in it. It came out in 1990. And it’s interesting because it’s, about a kid that moves, away from his hometown, and his folks buy him a shortwave radio set.
And so he’s, trying to contact his friends back home, but he can’t get anyone. So he just starts kinda broadcasting into the night, playing music, you know, talking, going on rants about this, that, and the other thing. And he doesn’t think anybody’s listening to him, but it turns out, like, he ends up having a really big following at the high school, and, people consider him to be a subversive. The FCC gets involved. And so it’s not the greatest movie ever, but it’s a fun movie and one of a couple of pop culture, reference points for me for wanting to get into radio that really kind of made me think about radio when I was a kid, the other being, WKRP in Cincinnati, the classic sitcom.
And while my dalliance with commercial radio was not anything at all like WKRP, my time at KTXT certainly was. So I’m gonna go ahead and consider that to be a childhood dream fulfilled. Tons of great songs on this soundtrack. We played several of them at KTXT. We played the concrete blonde cover of Everybody Knows, which is a Leonard Cohen song.
We played the, Peter Murphy song, I’ve Got a Secret Miniature Camera. And then we also played the, cowboy junkie song, Me and the Devil Blues. Everybody knows the Concrete Blonde song was a cover. That was a Leonard Cohen cover. There were several covers on this album.
The Cowboy Junkie song, also a cover from a Robert Johnson song. And then there was another song that we didn’t play at the station, but it was another good one, by a band called Liquid Jesus. They did a a cover of A Sly and the Family Stone, a song called Stand. That one’s also really good too. And, yeah, they’re like I said, above and beyond the ones we actually played at KTXT.
They’re, my favorite one of my favorite Soundgarden songs, Heretic, is on this, album. One of my favorite Sonic Youth songs, Titanium expose, is on this soundtrack. There is a slower version of the Pixy song, Wave of Mutilation, which turns out works just as good as a slow ballad as it does as a sped up rocker that’s on this album. So, yeah, there was a lot a lot of great songs on this one. I don’t know that this is one that you immediately think of when you think about 90 soundtracks, but man, it’s a good one and it’s got a lot of great stuff on it.
Yeah. I had the same experience in terms of the movie, opening my eyes a little bit to the idea of, like, pirate radio and, like, more subversive uses of of radio. So I share that with you. I think maybe in my head, I think of it as a Samantha Mathis movie instead of a Christian Slater movie just because I think I had a pretty huge crush on Samantha Mathis after watching that film. I also think, you know, given that it came out in 1990, probably was a lot of people’s introduction to to several of those bands and and what would become alternative music.
I bet a lot of people heard the Pixies or Sonic Youth or maybe all of the above for the first time because that the movie was relatively popular. I mean, it wasn’t a huge massive blockbuster, but certainly big among people our age. I was roughly, what, 16, 17 when it came out. So, I mean, it was pretty squarely aimed at our demographic. So, yeah, I think a gateway drug to alternative rock probably would be a good way to describe this one.
That’s exactly what I was gonna say is, if we think about it, I mean, soundtracks were nothing new. We were just coming out of the eighties. The John Hughes films all had great soundtracks. But, you know, I think a lot of those bands hit it big on commercial radio, and it feels like pump up the volume was a really great gateway into some bands that were more likely to fit on college radio. What do you think, Keith?
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, where else are you gonna hear, Bad Brains and Henry Rollins team up to cover an MC 5 song? That’s not probably gonna be on your top 40 station. So, yeah, it was an interesting soundtrack and, definitely a good introduction, to a lot of those those bands for sure.
Okay. Michael, what do you got? I’m gonna choose one that I I think maybe in retrospect feels I don’t know. Controversial is not the right word. It was kind of a landmark soundtrack for me and a landmark movie really, and that is Singles.
It’s one of those where you if you look back and don’t think about it in context, it’s like, Cameron Crowe went and, like, ripped off the Seattle scene and, you know, threw this thing together to, like, ride the backs of of the, you know, the popularity of Seattle music. And that really, really wasn’t the case. You know, the song the the movie went into production in March of 91, so it would have been in preproduction even before that. That is pre-Neverminde. That’s pre-Ten.
That’s, you know, Nirvana had bleach out at that point. So the Seattle scene had started to bubble up, but it would certainly was not in the national consciousness. By the time the movie came out in August of 92, everything had changed. And it seemed like this movie that was riding the coattails of this huge, you know, new movement in music and and this new city scene that popped up, and and that really wasn’t what was happening. So the soundtrack also put together in in 91 features Alice in Chains, my first time hearing Soundgarden.
Not my first time hearing Pearl Jam. That was the one band that I was pretty familiar with. I I had bought 10 by the time this soundtrack came out. Certainly one of the best Pearl Jam songs of all time, State of Love and Trust is on the single soundtrack. It is not on a Pearl Jam album.
And then also Smashing Pumpkins, definitely my first exposure to them as well. Famously for a Seattle movie does not feature a Nirvana song. And I think it’s one of the this is gonna be a controversial opinion that I’m gonna have to dig into in another episode, but it plays into something that needs to be talked about more, which is that I I have never thought of Nirvana as being, like, the reason that Grunge took over or that Seattle scene took off or that the story that Nirvana killed hair metal or whatever has always ring false for me, and it’s because I was not really a particularly big Nirvana fan, but I was certainly in that demographic of kids who started high school listening to Poison and Def Leppard and Motley Crue and graduated from high school listening to Pearl Jam and Soundgarden or whatever. Like, I went through that transition right, you know, around this time. The single soundtrack came out, like, a month or 2 after I graduated from high school.
So, I mean, I was so squarely in that demographic. Like, I don’t think I could possibly be more in the demographic that that was aimed at. But it, to me, represented the much larger thing that was happening and the much larger thing that ended up happening to music, which was Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, all of these bands, Mother Love Bone even, you know, some of the pre Pearl Jam bands. There was so much more than Nirvana. It always kinda just gets in my crawl a little bit that people talk about Nirvana as though they were the the reason that all these things happen.
And so I think one of the reasons I love the single soundtrack so much beyond the fact that it’s got the great music and I haven’t even mentioned the the first appearance of Paul Westerberg as a solo artist. Like, it it was a snapshot in time that very specifically excludes Nirvana, and I think that I really like that about that soundtrack. I think with the the single soundtrack, when we first started talking about doing an episode about soundtracks, to me, this was the one that immediately leaped into my head. You know, to me, it’s kind of the elephant in the room. You can’t really talk about 90 soundtracks without talking about Singles.
And I definitely think it’s a a example of a situation where the soundtrack far outlived the movie. I mean, it’s not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s also not Cameron Crowe’s best movie at all. And I think that the legs that this soundtrack had, you know, kinda give credence to the fact that, that the music on it, you know, really even kinda transcended what he was doing with the film. And I’m very glad that you mentioned Paul Westerberg because everybody who knows me knows I’m a huge replacement, Paul Westerberg fan. And, I hate to say it about Paul Westerberg’s solo career, but these songs on the soundtrack might actually have been the peak of his solo career, and then it was kinda downhill from there.
Although, I apologize, Paul. That’s that’s a cruel thing to say. But there are some good Paul Westerberg albums out there. But, man, yeah, his two songs on this soundtrack are a couple of my favorites from his solo career. I didn’t know who Paul Westerberg was, didn’t know who the replacements were until, you know, a year or 2 after this when I started really starting to started my music education at KTXT and digging through, you know, the boxes, meeting people like you.
And you were like, hey, man. This is, like, my favorite band. You know what I mean? Like, that’s how you learn. Right?
But, man, great. Like, both Paul Westerberg songs are just out of the box fantastic. Alice in Chainsong was the one single from the soundtrack, did fantastic and led right into them releasing dirt, which took them into the next stratosphere. Smashing Pumpkins song is kind of an afterthought, but is still probably in their top 20 songs, I think. It’s certainly a great representative example of, like, what they’re about with the quiet loud and his for his vocals and everything.
So just everything about that soundtrack was the perfect introduction for me into that world that I was just starting to kinda dip my toes in. I agree. This album, still, I think I listen to it once a week. Tracks from it, not the entire album, of course. But sometimes, yeah, the entire album.
Well, Michael, we obviously know your favorite song. So what’s your favorite song off the album, Keith? Well, it’s gotta be Dyslexic Heart from Paul Westerberg. He’s one of my all time favorites, and that’s one of his all time best, solo songs. So, yeah, gotta stick with my boy.
I love the lyrics of that song. It’s just great songwriting. Man, I don’t know if I could pick a favorite track. I love the fact that Lovemongers, which is, you know, Anne and Nancy Wilson apart, do Battle of Evermore. That’s a great track.
I would have to say it is a close tie between breath by Pearl Jam and seasons by Chris Cornell. I’d probably have to take seasons, like, one point above breath, but, oh, man. That album is just it’s written on my dyslexic heart for sure. For sure. And I have to say, I love the movie too.
Like, I know people see it now as like a caricature of what was going on in Seattle. And, again, I you know, camera crew wasn’t riding the coattails of that scene. He was just a little ahead of his time realizing that that scene was about to happen. And I think maybe it it hurt his his movie a little bit that Seattle blew up as big as it did. I don’t think he foresaw what was gonna happen, but he saw something happening.
He wanted to capture it, and he did a great job of it. I mean, I again, that movie came out, September 18, 1992. So it came out, like, 2 weeks after I started college. So, I mean, I could not have been more enamored. And college in Lubbock, Texas, and let’s admit, like, the difference between the Seattle, Washington vibe and what was happening in Lubbock’s a little.
You know? So I was very enamored by that idea of what was going on and, like, sitting in a coffee shop and talking with your friends about music and, you know, all the stuff that was happening. Like, that sounded really cool to me and just it just looked like, god, those people are so cool and they’re so, you know, whatever. I’m sure now it’s hard for for kids that maybe see it now, like like your kids, Lisa, who are in their teens or, like, around the same age as I was when it came out. I’m sure it seems like a caricature or like a, you know, like, not a real portrait of what was happening.
And and it and it wasn’t a real portrait of what was happening, but I think it was more true than than we realized in terms of of him kind of Cameron Crowe that is seeing what was happening and being able to make it into, you know, a a story that was engaging and all the things you have to do to make a movie sellable. But, yeah, I I don’t think it was a caricature. I think it was a really loving portrait of something that he truly kind of was into. You know? He saw this this, marriage of of the music scene of a of a kind of a culture that was unique that was happening in this city.
Seattle’s a very, if you’ve ever been to the Pacific Northwest or lived up there, you know, I lived in Portland for a long time. It’s very isolated up there. So and and this is pre Internet, so it’s even more isolated. You didn’t have this kind of homogenous culture. So there really was a very specific thing that was happening that that wasn’t happening anywhere else but soon would be because suddenly everybody was gonna be wearing flannel and tuning their guitars down and and doing the grunge thing.
But, Yeah. I don’t think the movie gets enough credit because I think it suffered from Seattle the Seattle scene blowing up right as it came out. But, I still I I watched it a few months ago. I watched it again. I I really I really love it.
It’s got little pieces of music in it too that that are on the soundtrack that are interesting. There’s an acoustic tiny little acoustic clip of what would become Spoonman, which ended up being a Soundgarden track from, like, 2 years after that. Paul Westerberg actually does, you know, acoustic versions of several of his songs and does a little, like, interstitial music. So there’s a little more Paul Westerberg stuff mixed in. I forget.
There’s a couple more. So if you watch the movie, you see and I think now there’s a deluxe edition of the soundtrack where you can hear some of that extra stuff that that was in the film. So there’s more than you than you get on the original soundtrack. That’s that’s pretty cool as well. I also love that Pearl Jam’s in the movie.
Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Ament and, Eddie Vedder make an appearance, the whole, I guess, the whole band at one point. Jeff Ament was asked to come up with the name of the fictional band, which he ended up choosing, if you remember, Citizen Dick. He was asked to come up with a track list, and one of those fake tracks was spoon man with a space in it.
Chris Cornell took that as a challenge to, like, actually write a song about spoon man called spoon man. There really was a spoon man in Seattle who played the spoons. He was like a street musician. His name was Artis that played spoons, and so the song is actually about him. And he did it as just an acoustic number.
Again, a little clip of it appears in the film, and then they ended up fleshing it out, and it became one of the bigger songs on super unknown, which came out, I guess, about 2 years later. 70, it came out in 94. Yeah. It’s just a really cool look at at a nascent music scene that was about to become as big as music scenes get really all within the space of, what, 12, 18 months, you know, from the time that the movie went into production to the time that it came out and everything that happened in between the production and the movie coming out was, I mean, it could not have been anticipated by anybody involved with that. You know, none of the bands, I don’t think, saw that coming.
Cameron Crowe certainly didn’t come see it coming. I doubt anybody that was in the film saw it coming. For better or for worse, I I don’t know if it helped the film in that people were aware of the Seattle scene and thought, oh, cool. I can go see a movie about it. Or it hurt the film in that people again saw it as like a riding the coattails or like a caricature of something.
I think it’s a little of both depending on who you were. You know, if you were from Seattle, you probably saw it as impeding on your your little scene that, you know, you felt very protective of. If you were a kid like me in Lubbock, Texas. It was aspirational to see that movie, and, you know, I wanted to be those people and live in that apartment complex. I think it was probably right around when that movie came out that I went and bought my first pair of Doc Martens that I still have and cherish.
Yeah. Keith, you’ve got a pick that’s, right on the coattails of this one. Tell us. Yeah. The next one I wanted to talk about, is the soundtrack to the movie The Crow, which came out in 1994.
And before we started about talking about this soundtrack, you know, obviously, we’ve gotta address the elephant in the room with that movie, which was the the death of Brandon Lee. The movie is a a comic book adaptation. I believe it’s James O’Barr, maybe, who wrote the the original comic about a a guy that is killed and then rises from the dead, to go exact revenge on the the people that that murdered him and his girlfriend. But, yeah, Riddon Lee was obviously, was killed by, you know, by Prop Gun during the filming of it. And so they kinda had to rework the way the film came together.
And all things considered, turned out to be a pretty good movie. You know, they did a lot of sequels of it. And I know they actually did a remake of it recently, which I haven’t seen yet. The sequels are not really worth your time. I don’t know about the new version of it.
But the original was a really, to me, was a good entertaining movie. As far as the soundtrack goes, kind of a lot of dark music. It’s a very dark, heavy film as you might expect, and it’s got a lot of great songs on it. We played several of them, and you guys can maybe help me remember with this because the copy of the old master playlist that I had was before this movie actually came out. I know for a fact we played Burn by the Cure.
Still every night I burn. Every night I scream, you’re dead. I know we played The Big MT by Stone Temple Pilots. I know we played the Joy Division cover of Dead Souls by 9 Inch Nails. And I know we played Time Baby 3 by Medicine.
I think we might have played, the Rollins Band song and maybe even the Thrill Kill Cult song that are on there. You guys maybe remember that a little bit better than I do, but all of those songs are great. And again, much like with pump up the volume earlier, there are other great songs on that soundtrack too that didn’t make it, you know, onto our airwaves at KTXT. But, yeah, it’s got a lot of good stuff on it. A lot of covers again.
I don’t know if all of the soundtracks we looked at are you know, have a bunch of covers on them, but this one, just like Pump Up the Volume did. The, like I said, Dead Souls is a Joy Division cover. The Rage Against the Machine song and the Thrill Kill Cult song are reworked versions of earlier songs that they had done, that they rerecorded for this, particular soundtrack. The Rollins Band song that’s on it, Ghost Rider, is also a cover of a Suicide song. The Cure song, Burn, was not only an original song, but was actually written specifically for this movie.
And so it fit fits in really well. Obviously, the the tone of the song fits with the movie perfectly, and it was kinda one of the songs that was one of the main drivers in the movie, like, couple of the big scenes. I’ve got that song playing in the background. So, yeah, just another one that’s got a lot of great, lot of great songs on it. Again, a tragic story with the movie itself, but a a good testament, for, you know, a lasting testament, I guess, you might say to Brandon Lee after that because it really is a pretty good movie, and the soundtrack, is impeccable.
Just a really great one. Like you said, great movie, really dark. Just a just dark dark dark dark dark movie, but in a good way. Like, I’m not I’m not a huge fan of of super dark movies, but I do I did like The Crow, and I remember there being, like, an anticipation for the the soundtrack coming out. To my memory, like, The Cure was probably the biggest deal.
And you’re a big Cure fan, Keith, so you might be able to answer this. But I it feels to me, like, part of the reason it was so big is because The Cure just they they weren’t putting out an album, like, every year. So, like, for a brand new non album track to come out from The Cure is kind of a bigger deal than just the average band. Is that how you remember it being kinda like a a bigger deal that you were gonna get to hear a new Cure song in between albums? Yeah.
Absolutely. This would have come out between Wish in 92 and Wild Mood Swings in 96, pretty much right in the middle between those 2 albums. So, yeah, there was a big 4 year gap between albums back then. And so getting a brand new song in that, you know, time period between albums. For a Cure fan, it was in fact a big deal.
And, you know, they actually still play Burn during the live set. It’s a, not in every show, but it’s one that they play on a fairly regular basis. As well they should. It’s a great track. And then I remember, you know, Stone Triple Pilots was coming off of their first album.
I think, the second album was on its way. But I think The Big Empty, which is on the soundtrack, was the first single and was released off the soundtrack. I think that helped kinda build the anticipation. And then, of course, like, all the story about Brandon Lee and and everything that went on with the production of the film, it was just it was just building and building and building. So when it came out, I I just remember it being a really big deal.
I think an important part about this soundtrack is it was another one of those pivotal moments where the soundtrack almost overtook the film. You know, again, looking back at the eighties movies and the soundtracks that came out of those, the movie people went to the movie and then bought the soundtrack. Whereas when The Crow came out, it was almost like equal attention paid to the film and the soundtrack. It wasn’t an afterthought. It was a co thought, I would say.
The dynamic groups on The Crow soundtrack were also something to know. I mean, we’ve got the cure against Pantera. We’ve got stone temple pilots against the Jesus and Mary chain. Like, there was a lot of black and white completely different tracks, but it all came together really well, and it complemented the movie. The movie was dark.
It had a lot of attention paid to it because of the tragedy with Brandon Lee. But, man, that soundtrack is another one of those that just puts you right in a time and place. You can name your favorite track off of it. My favorite track was Dead Souls by 9 inch nails. Again, Nine Inch Nails was this heavy techno industrial band, but that song on that album was completely not that.
And, again, like the cure, perfect example, creating a track specifically for this film in between albums. I mean, it was just seminal. It was amazing. And songs that were integrated into the movie, if I remember right. You know, a lot of times you have soundtracks where maybe 1 or 2 of the songs are in the movie briefly, but, like, the scene where they they use my life with the thrill of the cult after the flesh, and it’s just like this murderama, you know, type thing.
Like, it it it really fit, but it it’s always something that kinda bugs me about so, like, when it’s soundtrack, you have a soundtrack of a movie and the and the songs really aren’t even in the movie and maybe they’re tangentially related or whatever. The Crow definitely felt like most of those songs are not only they don’t just play, like, over the credits or whatever, but they were integral parts of the vibe of the movie, the mood of the movie. Certainly, most of those songs feel like they’re exactly I mean, Burned by the Cured. Like, that feels like it should be in The Crow. Like, I I don’t know that you can even you could not separate those 2 now.
So that’s another thing I liked about that too is that they were they were able to really use the music in the film and and in some very memorable scenes. Yeah. There’s nothing worse than the phrase music inspired by the film rather than music that’s in the film. But it’s funny also in this one, just like Pearl Jam was actually in singles. You mentioned the Thrill Kill Cult, in the club scene where it’s only briefly on there, but the band on stage at that time actually is the Thrill Kill Cult, so they actually appeared in the movie.
I did not know that. Yeah. I don’t know if I remember that. Well, I I mean, I guess maybe I knew at one point, but, that makes me like it even more. Because what a random band.
Like, that’s not a band that, you know, ever got any mainstream notice at all. I actually I like there’s several Thrill Kill Kult songs that I love, because I I definitely went through an industrial phase around that time. Yeah. To actually put them in the movie is that’s genius. I love it.
Well, Lisa, we have not heard from you yet. I am sure you have at least one soundtrack that you wanna talk about before we wrap it up. So what is on your plate? Man, this soundtrack question to me was a tough one. I first, of course, went to Singles because I’ve already expressed how much I love that soundtrack.
But I guess my easy second choice was the most campy movie of ever of this time frame, Escape from LA 1996, starring Kurt Russell and Steve Buscemi. Oh, my God. This movie was so bad. So bad. But the soundtrack was so great.
So when I was at KTXT, I co hosted a show called snap radio. And it was s n a p stuff or shiz or whatever you wanna say. Not always played. So that was our specialty show, and we really focused on, like, industrial music. And this was an album that we could literally put the album in the CD player and go away for 63 minutes.
I mean, every track on that album would be applicable to our industrial show. We’ve talked a lot about favorite tracks on our soundtracks. I wanna talk about my least favorite track, which was the track by Tory Amos. It’s called Professional Widow. And every time I listen to this album, I’m like, god.
Why did they put that on here? I just hate it. But I’ve never been a Tory Amethyst fan to begin with, but I it just doesn’t fit. And it’s like her trying to fit this movie. I just can’t stand it.
So the movie came out in 1996. It’s a John Carpenter film. You know, John Carpenter was famous for films like, you know, Starman, which was more contemporary sci fi. But, like, he wrote Halloween. He wrote the Stephen King thriller, Christine.
He did Escape from New York, and Escape from LA was supposed to be like a, you know, the sequel to Escape from New York. Village of the Damned, he did They Live with that which had Rowdy Roddy Piper in it, another campy. You know, John Carpenter was really like a dystopian, apocalyptic, campy horror writer. And so a lot of these songs just flow right into that. It came out in 1996, and Toole was featured on this album.
They had just, you know, really hit the scene in 1993, so it was a great track from them, Sweat. I think another thing I love about this album is it had a toadies track on it. And the toadies are in our film. You know? They were some regional favorites of ours, and it had cut me out.
Yeah. I again, I don’t think I have a favorite track on the song, on the album, but I guess I would have to pick Escape from the Prison Planet by Clutch. Get up. Get up. Escape from the prison planet.
That was my introduction to Clutch. Still love Clutch. I really like older Clutch more than newer Clutch. But, you know, again, one of those bands where if I was in a room of people and I could mention a lyric from this song, you know, hey, Bob Lazar is coming over and just kinda gauge what’s going on. Yeah.
And, again, another one of those moments where you’re in the DJ booth with your friends having a great time, and that song just it’s great. The whole album is great. I don’t think there’s anything about it that I don’t like. The movie was campy, and I will have to say that this was the first time ever and maybe the only time, to be honest, that I had the soundtrack first and then went to see the movie because I love the soundtrack so much that the movie must be legit. It wasn’t, but, you know, but yeah.
So definitely went to the movie after hearing the great soundtrack. Wow. Like, Tory Amos just catching strays on that one, but otherwise so I have to so one thing about that song, I will say, I agree. I I don’t particularly love the studio version of of that song Professional Widow. However, Armand Van Helden did a a remix of Professional Widow that blew up in the dance scene.
That song got played. It was easily a top five track of 96 in terms of dance club play. Easily top 5, possibly top 3. I mean, it was a huge massive hit as a 12 inch single. Not one of those we and we talked about this on our earlier episode of, remixes that stay really true to the original song, and you can still kinda hear.
This one is one where they just he just took the, like, the one line out and kinda laid it over his own track. So it’s not super related to the original. But that’s kind of a funny aside that I I agree that the studio version is not great, but the dance remix is is fantastic. Also, just another conversation that I think would be fun to have sometime is the distance in quality from the soundtrack to the actual movie. Escape from LA, pretty big gap.
And then another one that we’ve talked about or that I think was on your list, the judgment night. Uh-huh. One of the best soundtracks and possibly one of the worst movies to ever, like, you know, be joined together. There may be a couple more that you guys can think of, but I think that’s a funny thing to think about is soundtracks that were fantastic for movies that just absolutely were not. It’s funny that you bring up Judgment Night, just because when we this topic first came up, I was 100% certain that you were gonna pick Judgment Night for your soundtrack that you wanted to talk about.
So while we’re talking about well, let me just mention that the, the Teenage Fan Club and De La Soul song on, judgment night soundtrack is one of the greatest songs ever recorded. And if you don’t listen to that soundtrack for any other reason, go get it just for that one. It is it is incredible. Yeah. Judgment night is known for kind of being beyond, the the Aerosmith Run DMC collaboration, which happened early you know, much earlier in the eighties.
The the collision of rap and rock and the idea of a of a rock group and a rap group coming together and kind of starting to create this new new sound, which ended up becoming its own thing, and bands kinda took it and and ran with it. Judgment night was was a big, big part of that. Personally, I hit or miss, I think, a little bit. But it it what rap rock should have been is the teenage fan club, they lost soul song. That’s where rap rock should have gone.
If if people had followed that route instead of some of the other routes that they followed with rap rock in the late nineties where it kinda just became, you know, a Limp Bizkit type situation where you just like, what the hell are these people doing? Man, if they had followed the the blueprint that was laid down by teenage fan club and De La Soul, we would have an entire genre of music that we would all still be listening to and loving. They knocked it out of the park. And, unfortunately, people that listen to Judgment Night took completely the wrong lessons from that soundtrack and went in the wrong direction after that. But Teenage Fan Club is great, and De La Soul can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.
Excellent. Excellent. The collaboration. I was either going to do Judgment Night or Escape from LA, and I listened to both soundtracks, and I thought the exact same thing, Michael. But then I felt more familiar with the backstory and my experience with Escape from LA than I did with Judgment Night.
And so I chose Escape From LA. It’s always been one of my favorites especially because it has a todies track on it. As I say, it’s got the todies who again appear in in the film, 35000 Watts: The Story of College Radio (available for download now at 35000watts.com). And it’s got tool, and it’s got Butthole Surfers. The whole lineup is is college radio to a t.
There’s not a song on there that you would ever find on mainstream radio. None of those bands. Maybe the deaf tones a little bit when they really hit their peak. They were kind of a little bit mainstream, maybe, like, on rock radio. But Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, everybody else on there is a is yeah. Oh, yeah. And Tool. Tool’s a weird example of, like, are they are they mainstream?
I mean, they definitely were on commercial radio in, like, 97 with enema and and some of those tracks. So I guess so. But, yeah, Escape from LA is is another just absolute front to back college radio Banger. Banger. Yeah.
Fantastic. Another thing I love about that is it’s got Sugar Ray on there before Sugar Ray sold out, and I think that there should be another podcast we explore someday. You know, Sugar Ray started off as a really heavy band, and then they did this complete 180 flip and turned into bubblegum sugar pop. I love Sugar Ray before they went the other direction. But, yeah, that was another like, their album lemonade and brownies, I could play front to back anytime, you know, bleeping out the few cuss words here and there because of our, you know, rules we had in place.
But, yeah, great Great album. Alright. I think that wraps it up for today’s episode. I wanna thank my guest, Keith Porterfield, and, of course, my co host, Lisa. We have a film out.
It’s called 35000 Watt: The Story of College Radio. It is a feature film about, you guessed it, college radio, and it is available for download right now at 35000watts.com. We also have a feedback form there if you would like to let us know a story that you remember from college radio. Did we miss a soundtrack? That was super influential to you.
Let us know. Fill out that form. We’ll take your feedback. And we’re also on all the socials, so you can find us on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and we’ll take your feedback there too or your ideas. And as we said at KTXT, keep it locked to the left, and we’ll see you on the next episode.