Empire Records - The Soundtrack

The film flopped in 1995 and then found its audience on video, but the soundtrack never needed rescuing. Fifteen tracks that work as a near-perfect core sample of what alternative radio actually sounded like that year, back when a record store was a plausible setting for a teen movie because record stores were where teenagers went.

Gin Blossoms' "Til I Hear It From You," written with Marshall Crenshaw, opens it and remains one of the best songs the band ever recorded. The Cranberries' "Liar" follows. Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You" sits in the middle of side one and is still one of the great one-off singles of the decade, a fuzz-and-vibraphone oddity that came out of nowhere and went everywhere. Better Than Ezra's "Circle Of Friends," Toad The Wet Sprocket's "Crazy Life," The Innocence Mission's "Bright As Yellow" and Cracker fill out the running order, and Coyote Shivers' "Sugarhigh" closes it in exactly the place the movie leaves you. Evan Dando's Big Star cover is the sleeper, and the one people tend to rediscover last.

There is no filler and no obvious label-mandated padding, which is rarer for a nineties soundtrack than you would think. Play it end to end and 1995 comes back whole.

Double LP reissue on black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with white paper inners. On A&M Records.