The movie turns up its nose a bit at the pop-driven hits Ally’s character takes to performing later in the film Jackson mocks the line “Why do you look so good in those jeans” from the track “Why Did You Do That?” during one of his drunker, meaner moments.īut listening to the soundtrack comes with no such baggage, which means listeners are free to revel in just how enjoyable each song is in its own right. It may also come as a relief to listen to the soundtrack without the movie’s critical judgments. In the UK, The Greatest Showman and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again soundtracks have spent a combined 26 weeks at number one in 2018, and A Star is Born looks set to add to that total.īut streaming has given us an overwhelming amount of choice over the music we listen to, and in the age of Spotify, people are less likely to listen to albums as holistic entities, preferring instead to defer to the algorithm. And so it sometimes seems as if soundtracks don’t have quite the cultural sway they used to possess. In the last two years alone, the soundtracks to La La Land, Black Panther, and The Greatest Showman have become chart hits in their own right. That’s not to say that great movie soundtracks have failed to find appreciation in our current era. About five years later, Titanic‘s soundtrack spent 16 weeks in the number-one spot in the US in 1998, and notably stopping behemoths like Shania Twain Come On Over and Madonna’s Ray of Light from reaching the top spot. Twenty-six years later, it still holds the title for the biggest-selling movie soundtrack ever, according to Billboard. The soundtrack to Whitney Houston’s movie mega-hit The Bodyguard broke records around the world in 1992, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all-time. In this way, it’s reminiscent of the musical soundtracks of yesteryear that managed to transcend trips to the movie theater and become cultural touchstones in their own right.