Memories of movie songs.

I was watching an 80’s music show on VH1 Classic, the other night, when the theme song from St Elmo’s Fire came on, “St Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) sung by John Parr.
I started to recall movie’s which had popular songs in them which made the charts, Ghostbusters, Dirty Dancing, Pretty In Pink and Footloose to name but a few.

Come to think of it during the 80’s and early 90’s the charts had a fair amount of movie songs in them, and quite a few made the Number 1 spot. We all remember Bryan Adams and Whitney Houston hogging the top spot for weeks upon weeks with their film songs!

So where’s the music gone, nowadays we get the odd one or 2, a year, nothing in the quantity or even quality of what we had back then, and I miss it. Some of my most listened to CD’s are film soundtracks, The Lost Boys, Dream a Little Dream, Top Gun and Blaze of Glory.

Even trying to think of good closing or opening credit songs over the past 5 years and I’m drawing a blank. I have to go back further than that. One’s which I do remember are “Lose Yourself” from 8 Mile, “Take a look around” from Mission Impossible 2. Elevation from Tombraider and the James Bond themes but even they are getting sub-standard. Casino Royale’s has grown on me though over time. “Hero” from Spiderman 2, now I’m starting to struggle, I know there must be more, but I can’t remember any of them they must have been instantly forgettable, or I never hung around after a film long enough to listen to the credit song. But then again I can’t recall that many in the charts either.

And to remind you of what we had back then, here are some I remember from the charts!

“Don’t forget about me” – Simple Minds (The Breakfast Club) 1985
“Eye of the tiger” – Survivor (Rocky 3) 1982
“I will always love you” – Whitney Houston (The Body Guard) 1992
“Take my breath away” – Berlin (Top Gun) 1986
“The time of my life” – Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley (Dirty Dancing) 1987
“Everything I do I do for you” – Bryan Adams (Robin Hood) 1991
“What a wonderful World” – Louis Armstrong (Good Morning Vietnam) 1987
“Footloose” – Kenny Loggins (Footloose) 1984
“9 to 5” – Dolly Parton (9 to 5) 1980
“Power of Love” Huey Lewis (Back to the Future) 1985
“Into the Groove” – Madonna (Desperately seeking Susan) 1985
“It must’ve been love” – Roxette (Pretty Woman) 1990
“We don’t need another hero” – Tina Turner (Mad Max 3) – 1985
“Up where we belong” – Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes (Officer and a Gentleman) 1982

Am I not paying attention, are they slipping by unnoticed, or have the film companies given up on them, I’m not sure which, but what I do know is I miss a good movie song!