Last week, Mr. Celebrity Hot Tub and I spent some time talking about our favorite songs from movies. We opened the floor to the Twittersphere and as we learned quickly, people have some hot takes on movie songs. Which led us to thinking: what if we made our own list?
Everything is sports: The best movie songs of all time
There have been some pretty great songs to come out of movie soundtracks, but which ones take the cake? We asked some Twitter friends to help us out so we can all argue about it.
USA TODAY Sports
Obviously it’s not comprehensive and we would like you to add to it, but we did make sure to establish some ground rules. These rules are in place for a reason and if you would like to talk about it I am more than willing to. I’ve also made a Spotify playlist of all the songs so you can follow along (there are some bonus ones on there too, and a couple unfortunate karaoke-type versions of songs that weren’t on there so sorry please don’t blame me).
- Only one song per artist and/or movie
- No songs from Space Jam (Danger Guerrero has already written everything you need to know about Space Jam) or Purple Rain because other movies deserve a chance to make the list
- No Disney movies or animated movies; these can get their own list and if you want to make it we will read it (mostly to see if you put “At The Beginning” by Richard Marx and Donna Lewis from Anastasia on there)
- No musicals
- No songs from James Bond movies, which are basically just musicals with rocket launchers
- No scores, instrumentals or orchestral arrangements (sorry John Williams you’re out bro, and that means no dice on “Axel F”)
- Song must have been written for or had its first release on the film soundtrack and this includes no covers (unfortunately, “Kiss From A Rose” is out since Batman Forever kicked the tires on an old Seal track, and so is “If I Had Words” from Babe since it’s an old song despite a great suggestion from Spencer Hall, and that knocks Whitney’s “I Will Always Love You” out since it’s a Dolly Parton cover)
“Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr. from Ghostbusters
Nominated by Bobby Big Wheel
Robert Wheel: As an expert on music (see here), I’m more than qualified to weigh in on this discussion. So I’d like to make a few points about the Ghostbusters theme:
- If you hate Ghostbusters the movie, you hate America.
- The Ghostbusters song reminds you of the movie within the first 3 bars. That’s good hustle, Ray Parker, Jr.
- The song hit number one on the charts. It might have even been the song of the summer. I would have an opinion on the matter but I was too busy being born that August.
“Act A Fool” by Ludacris, from 2 Fast 2 Furious
Nominated by Matt_T
Hottub: There’s a certain cognitive dissonance to the opening of this song, in which Ludacris reminds the listener that he is too fast, too furious, too fast for you, man, but then does not proceed to rap with any particularly impressive speed. Yet, in its own brilliant way, that’s entirely consistent with Acting A Fool. This is about destroying expectations, making you think that you’re two steps ahead when you’re really three behind. Why else would Ludacris reference John Q., a movie he’s not even in and that has nothing to do with Fast and Furious canon?
Exactly. Exaaaaactly.
“Holiday Road” by Lindsey Buckingham from National Lampoon’s Vacation
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: Holiday Rooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Holiday Roooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Holiday Roooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddddddd. Holiday Roooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaddddddddd.
“Big Trouble In Little China” by John Carpenter’s Coupe de Villes from Big Trouble In Little China
Nominated by Ashley Burns
Ashley: I’ve made no secret of my belief that Big Trouble in Little China is the greatest film ever made, but what people often overlook about this masterpiece is that not only did John Carpenter direct the film, but he also wrote and performed the title track, “Big Trouble in Little China,” with his band, The Coupe de Villes*, as well. Oscar count - 0. Grammy count - 0. Straight up awesomeness count - Infinity x Infinity.
*One of his bandmates was Nick Castle, the guy who played grown up, scary-ass Michael Myers in the original Halloween. Suck on that, Kenny Loggins.
"She's Like The Wind" by Patrick Swayze from Dirty Dancing
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: It would have been easy to include "Hungry Eyes" in here (and it made the honorable mentions), but PSwayze singing a power ballad is too much to pass up. The whole Dirty Dancing soundtrack is great, honestly, but the original songs give it an extra push.
"We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Nominated by Celebrity Hot Tub
Hottub: Look, just throw the verses out altogether. They are like the time in between heats of the 100 meter dash -- necessary without any intrinsic value apart from the greatness they bookend. You are here for the chorus. A chorus that features Tina Turner belting. A chorus that features Tina Turner wearing chain mail heels and belting. A chorus that features Tina Turner wearing chain mail heels and belting about THUNDERDOME. The term sui generis was invented just for a chorus like this one.
"Try Again" by Aaliyah from Romeo Must Die
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: There was a string of movies where artists tried their hand at acting (here's looking at you DMX) and used their role in the movie to create a hit single to go along with it. Aaliyah would have probably done this for 20 years if her life wasn't tragically taken from us in a 2001 plane crash. "Try Again" is a catchy song I can never turn off if it is on, plus it won a Grammy, which is neat.
"Flash" by Queen from Flash Gordon
Nominated by Rick Muscles
Muscles: On December 5, 1980, society reached the epoch of disco-stained rock and roll movie soundtracks. Xanadu was released the previous summer and Olivia Newton-John and Michael Beck (of The Warriors) roller skated into our hearts thanks to synthesized musical arrangements from prog rock gods, ELO. In response to this, Brian May and Freddie Mercury only had 1 choice -- TO MAKE THE MOST BIZARRE SOUNDTRACK IN MOVIE HISTORY! The Flash Gordon theme is a mashup of 70s porn music and Bohemian Rhapsody. This makes sense because Flash Gordon is a mashup of Sci Fi comics and troubling soft core pornography. CLEARLY QUEEN KNEW THEIR AUDIENCE! A lot of bros out there might argue for Space Jam but they just want to justify wearing a Charlotte Hornets snapback. So make all the "I'm Gonna Piss On You" jokes you want, R. Kelly hipster, because you know Flash Gordon is the greatest movie song ever!
"On The Dark Side" by Eddie and the Cruisers (John Cafferty) from Eddie and the Cruisers
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: All those John Cafferty songs from the Eddie and the Cruisers movie basically sound like a dead-on Bruce Springsteen cover band. What's great is classic rock stations will queue up "On The Dark Side", and I've heard people request it as a Bruce song. I love that.
"Save Me" by Aimee Mann from Magnolia
Nominated by Matthew Leach
Martin: That Magnolia soundtrack is beautiful, haunting and depressing, so it's perfect for bloggers. While "Wise Up" is the more well-known song (thanks in part to the scene where everyone is singing it), it was originally on the Jerry Maguire soundtrack, and "Save Me" did win an Academy Award.
"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship from Mannequin
Nominated by Celebrity Hot Tub
Hottub: It's easy to assume that this song is about the feeling of indomitability one draws from love; after all, Mannequin is about a love that transcends time and space and the fact that the female lead is actually, you know, a fucking mannequin. But that's not really the subject of this classic. What "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" really signifies is that, if you believe hard enough, you can cast the most important secondary character from Golden Girls AND the most important secondary character from Designing Women in the same movie. IN THE SAME MOVIE. Let 'em say we're crazy indeed, Grace Slick.
"Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: Just try making a list of best movie soundtrack songs and keep this off there, and I'll cut you.
"Fight To Survive" by Stan Bush from Bloodsport
Nominated by Grimey
Grimey: It's another Stan Bush banger, brought to you by the same guy who did "The Touch" from Transformers. "Fight to Survive" hits all the marks of great 80s movie montage music: it's upbeat, vaguely relevant to the plot of the film, and overly enthusiastic. Okay buddy, you fight to survive, we get it, calm down.
"Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor from Rocky III
Nominated by no one but it probably should be on here
Martin: It may seem cheesy now, but this song was huge. Just because a track was supremely overplayed doesn't discount its inclusion.
"I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith from Armageddon
Nominated by BurritoBrosShits
BBS: Unbelievably released in 1998, "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith was the lead single off of the Armageddon soundtrack. It is only fitting that one of the most bombastic American rock and roll bands wrote an over-the-top, saccharine love ballad for a movie in which 'MERICA saves the world from an asteroid that was not only directed by Michael Bay, but produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Here's a top tip: watch this kind of movie in a foreign country, preferably a very poor one. It's quite the experience. Also, the chances are high that you slow-danced in a gymnasium awkwardly to this song and the opening orchestral notes probably trigger PTSD flashbacks.
"Somebody's Baby" by Jackson Browne from Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: This song pulls the double duty of being written for the movie and being included in a pretty important scene. A lot of the time, you'll get a "theme" song or something that gets rolled during the end credits, but this Jackson Browne song slips right in when Stacy is losing it in the baseball dugout.
"If You Leave" by OMD from Pretty In Pink
Nominated by #KatyMitchell
Hottub: It is an inexplicable truth that every human being, across every nation that has seen its banner rise or fall, throughout every era in history past and those yet to come, has at some point fallen very deeply and very sincerely in love with 1980s Molly Ringwald. Knowledge that 1980s Molly Ringwald even existed is not a prerequisite; many frontiersmen in the American West were mistakenly diagnosed with quinsy when, in fact, they were simply smitten with a woman who would not exist for decades. Little wonder, then, "If You Leave" contains these lyrics:
I need you now
Like I need you then
You always said
We’d meet again
Someday
“But,” you protest, “I have never been entranced by 1980s Molly Ringwald.” You still have time. Sooner or later, we all wind up with the quinsy.
“Shake Ya Tailfeather” by Nelly, Diddy and Murphy Lee from Bad Boys II
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: This song has everything. The kings of late 90s, early 2000s easily digestible hip hop. Police sirens. A chorus that kind of samples the Tomahawk Chop. Multiple references to the movie this song is from. Thundercats and Voltron allusions. What else could you possibly need?
“The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News from Back To The Future
Nominated by Ethan Booker
Martin: Back to the Future rules. Huey Lewis rules. No brainer.
Hottub: Money? Fame? Credit? You need none of these to ride Huey Lewis’s train, and oh wait no that’s gross ugh come on it’s a family movie Huey.
"Rhythm of the Night" by DeBarge from The Last Dragon
Nominated by Peter Berkes
Peter: The Last Dragon and DeBarge's "Rhythm of the Night" both perfectly capture the oh-hell-let's-dress-weird-and-do-drugs mindset of the mid-1980s. It's all bright colors, sharp angles, and pants that can be classified as performance art. This song is, in a word, perfect.
"Push It To The Limit" by Giorgio Moroder from Scarface
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: This is my personal favorite movie song. It is clearly not intended to be a single or a song that would make it any further than just being the montage music, but Giorgio blows this thing out and finds a way to put the same synth noises he uses in a bunch of his other songs in there. And if the song can be sampled by Rick Ross someday, that's a bonus.
"Ninja Rap (Go Ninja Go)" by Vanilla Ice from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
Nominated by Rob Nugent
Hottub: Let us first agree that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have seen some shit. Let us secondly agree that, given their intense training at the hands (paws?) of Master Splinter, they have discipline the likes of which most of us will never even approach. Consider, then, the dopeness of the beat it must take to convince these martial arts masters, in the midst of a climactic battle with a host of deadly enemies, to dance. Do you think Leonardo is busting a move for Cypress Hill? For Ini Kamoze? Leonardo wouldn't even straighten his mask for Ini Kamoze, man.
Fun Fact! If you listened to this song in its entirety in 1991, you lost whatever Book It! points you had at the time.
"Partyman" by Prince from Batman
Nominated by Prince (probably)
Martin: This scene has stuck with me for almost my entire life, and I love that when I went on the Batman ride at Six Flags as a kid, all they did was blast Prince songs in line. "Partyman" is great.
"Whoop That Trick" by Three 6 Mafia from Hustle and Flow
Nominated by Spencer Hall
Spencer: By the time the song really kicks in every single person in this room is seconds away from beating the shit out of the first person they see. Why? IT DOESN'T MATTER. But whyyy--stop. There is hell to pay because it is really hot in that studio, and it is Memphis, and nothing has gone right in life for anyone in the room for a lot of reasons. Someone is going to get their ass beat, and tricks will be whooped until satisfaction is achieved, and then perhaps for a while afterwards if they feel like it.
I love any song and scene that are, by themselves, their own argument. This is one of them*
P.S. Whoop that trick
P.P.S. (Get ‘em.)
P.P.P.S. You now have this stuck in your head, and will beat someone mercilessly in the next 24 hours. You’re welcome.
"Can I Get A" by Jay-Z ft. Ja Rule and Amil from Rush Hour
Nominated by your baaabbyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Martin: If you didn't know this song was from Rush Hour, don't worry, the video will let you know with its carefully placed magazine article in the first shot. "Can I Get A" was a staple at my middle school dances, and pretty much made every rap mix cd I made for a few years (yeah, I was really cool). Coincidentally, I own Rush Hour on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray.
"St Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" by John Parr from St. Elmo's Fire
Nominated by Holly Anderson
Holly: I am just super-attached to the era of movies that saw extremely literal hair rock songs laid over montages. And I think that when filmmakers moved away from that device, we moved away from ourselves. That is all.
"You're The Best" by Joe Esposito from The Karate Kid
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: What I love about this song can be explained in two things: (1) they yell "You're the best!" at Daniel, which sets off the montage. It's like if you yelled "Play Ball" before a baseball game then watched three minutes of baseball overdubbed by a song called "Play Ball." (2) Apparently Joe Esposito tried sending this song off for other movies to be used in montages, but no one thought it was good enough. Eventually it made its way in The Karate Kid. So maybe Esposito wasn't the best around, but he was the most persistent around.
"How Do I Live" by Trisha Yearwood from Con Air
Nominated by Nic Cage
Martin: Nic Cage's accent in this movie makes me laugh for two straight hours. Then this awkward scene happens and Trisha Yearwood starts tearing the club up. 90s-era Nic Cage was a work of art.
"Stay" by Lisa Loeb from Reality Bites
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: I've sang this song in karaoke in I believe four or five different states in America. I love this song with every fiber of my being. I also love that Lisa Loeb wasn't famous, but was friends with Ethan Hawke, so he just had them put the song in the movie and there we are.
"Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins from Top Gun
Nominated by CJ Fogler
CJ: Should Danger Zone be on this list? Does Lane Kiffin's two-point conversion chart say "yes" in every box? Top Gun was a badass fighter pilot movie loaded with testosterone and sex, and so was the song. Women loved it, and thanks to the guitar work, even metal heads could get into it without being emasculated for listening to Kenny Loggins.
"Wild Wild West" by Will Smith from Wild Wild West
Nominated by Martin Rickman
Martin: "Big Will. Dru Hill."
“What? Why are you you yelling at me?”
“Big Will. Dru Hill.”
“Alright man, whatever.”
“HA HA!”
Honorable mentions: "Exit Music (For A Film)" by Radiohead from Romeo + Juliet, "I'm Alright" by Kenny Loggins from Caddyshack, "One Vision" by Queen from Iron Eagle, "Lose Yourself" by Eminem from 8 Mile, "My Heart Will Go On (Theme from Titanic)" by Celine Dion from Titanic, "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin from Top Gun, "Independent Women" by Destiny's Child from Charlie's Angels, "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins from Footloose, "Are You That Somebody?" by Aaliyah from Dr. Dolittle, "The Neverending Story" by Limahl from The Neverending Story, "State of Love and Trust" by Pearl Jam from Singles, "The Touch" by Stan Bush from Cobra (and Transformers and Boogie Nights kind of), "Flashdance...What A Feeling" by Irene Cara from Flashdance, "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel from The Graduate, "Hungry Eyes" by Eric Carmen from Dirty Dancing
And the worst movie song award goes to:
"Hear The Engines Roll Now" from Pod People
Nominated by Matt Sussman
Matt: I don’t think I’ve watched an episode of MST3K more than Pod People, so naturally that was my first thought. The song served no purpose other than to confirm the characters were, in fact, rock stars, or perhaps to add justification for the alien killing them off one by one. Also there seems to be no tangible evidence of the song existing outside of the movie. But more the the point, why is it the worst song? Simply because [AOK hand sign]: It stinks.
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