Now Hear This - Guardians of the Galaxy Soundtrack

I forgot to mention in yesterday's Guardians post that as of right now the movie has a 97% rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 33 reviews. Yesterday it had 25 reviews and 100% rating. Not sure if that one person voted it rotten just to bring it down (because you know how the internet is!) or if they really hated it. I'm not reading any reviews to find out!

After the full trailer debut back in February, it seemed like everyone was "Hooked on a Feeling." The following day, the track's sales were up 700%! The song choice for the trailer was spot on as it helped set the tone for what audiences might expect from a movie with an anthropomorphic talking raccoon. After the "Awesome Mix Vol 1." track list was announced by James Gunn at the start of July, fan made playlists started popping up all over Spotify.

Both the soundtrack and the score are landing in stores today along with a deluxe edition that includes both. I only wish the score album had been released earlier. I grabbed the Tron: Legacy soundtrack day of release which was well in advance of the movie. I had plenty of time to listen and get to know it. When I finally saw the movie, I felt like I had more of a connection to it by knowing the score so well. It added another layer to the experience because I was able to better contextualize the scenes with the music.

I've listened to the score a couple times now and I think it's pretty good! There's plenty of action-y sounding tracks and a few others that sound pretty epic and big in scope. As usually happens, it seems like the bad guys have all the good songs!

It will be interesting to see/hear how the tunes of the 70s will fit into the modern space-faring movie, even if Star Lord himself is a little tired of some of the tracks. Using music that most people are familiar with will give them something to connect to out among the alien worlds. I'm personally thrilled to see "Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways on the soundtrack. I've been a Joan Jett fan since "I Love Rock n Roll" came out. It wasn't until later on that I discovered The Runaways and they quickly became one of my favorite bands. It's pretty cool that a new generation will have a chance to discover them.

I heard people wondering why Quill would have a mix tape from before the time he was likely born. While this will be explained in the movie, I'd say it's not any different than me liking the music of the 50s/60s or 20-somethings digging music from the 80s. I think it's something in most people's DNA that latches on to the "oldies", whether it's ironic or not.

Here are links to listen via Spotify if you have it.

Fan made Soundtrack playlist

Original Film Score by Tyler Bates

And if you like what you hear, you can click on any of the above album covers to order them from Amazon. The deluxe version will also have a vinyl release in September.