various artists - Repo Man (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Tomorrow is the Iggster's 79th birthday, and to celebrate this audacious occasion a day early, I present the soundtrack to Alex Cox's 1984 classic "Repo Man". Iggy provided the eponymous title track to this soundtrack, which my cursory research tells me came in between the release of "Zombie Birdhouse" and "Blah Blah Blah", the latter of which I bought on cassette sometime in the early 90s because a girl put "Real Wild Child" on a mixtape she gave me. That was my second exposure to Iggy Pop, the first being the 10 minutes of "Repo Man" I watched on HBO when I was 10 or 11 before my mom switched it off "because punk rockers are violent." Well, I showed her; I grew up a punk.

This rip comes from the copy I found a few weeks ago in a nearby thrift store for one American dollar. That's right; I paid less than a quarter of what I would for a gallon of gasoline. Pretty sweet deal. Pretty rad movie. Pretty great soundtrack.

Discogs

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various artists - Pump Up The Volume (Complete Soundtrack & Score)

I'll own up, on this Day of our Lord, Saturday, January 16, 2021, that I wanted to grow up to be Hard Harry.

What right minded pre-teen/post-adolescent wouldn't be drawn to Christian Slater in the 1990 cult film "Pump Up The Volume"? By day, a meek, withdrawn student; by night, a foul-mouthed, truth slinging, chronically masturbating pirate radio DJ. AND he ends up getting with Samantha Mathis. Hey, when you're 14 and you've switched schools three times in as many years, there's not much about Mark Hunter's life that you can't relate to. All that pent up frustration and hormonal imbalance gets filtered into music fandom and diving into Beat poetry and maybe, just maybe, you'll meet a girl who doesn't find you repellent and will drive around town listening to They Might Be Giants and the Clash and actually be into it.

But I digress.

I haven't the faintest remembrance where I initially downloaded this version, but I've owned, in some form, the official soundtrack to "Pump Up The Volume" since I saw it on VHS sometime in early 1991. I definitely remember it being part of the first purchase I made at Record & Tape Traders in Roanoke, along with a Pink Floyd CD and Soundgarden's "Ultramega OK". I was always bummed that there was no Leonard Cohen on that tape. Nor were the Beastie Boys or Descendents present, or that "Hi, dad, I'm in jail" jam. What the shit, MCA Records? BUT it was my first exposure to the Pixies (via a superior version of "Wave of Mutilation"), Henry Rollins, Bad Brains, and the MC5 (a still fun cover of "Kick Out The Jams"). I even got to sneak some Dr. Dre beats into the house; the likes of NWA wasn't exactly allowed at home at that point.

I found this expanded version, which has never been officially released, on the internet sometime around 2009. As I stated above, I can't recall the website I initially downloaded it from, but [sgm] did their own writeup a few years back. So I'm in fine company, I suppose. This includes every song that appeared in the film and on the soundtrack, as well as the entirety of Cliff Martinez's excellent score, which never got a release of its own. This, along with his score to "Sex, Lies, And Videotape", are an amazing first and second recordings for the former Weirdo/Dickie turned film composer.

It's worth downloading because you get "Everybody Knows", "Love Comes In Spurts", and "The Scenario" all in one place. Respect to Kathy Nelson, who served as music supervisor here, and whose credits include "Repo Man", "Pulp Fiction", "Grosse Point Blank", and approximately 200 more movies whose soundtracks you bought at the mall in the 90s and 00s.

Click here to download.