The 1990s were such a great era for movies and movie soundtracks.
You can’t deny the sheer force of those such as The Bodyguard and Armageddon. But then there’s a convoy of dump trucks right behind them, full of movie soundtracks equally as high-quality. Let’s talk about a few.
‘Boyz N The Hood’ (1991)
It’s always been wildly ironic that the soundtrack for John Singleton’s Boyz N The Hood doesn’t actually feature the Eazy-E song with which it shares a name. Even still, the movie has one of the best soundtracks from that era.
Kicking off with one of the film’s stars, Ice Cube, the Boyz N The Hood soundtrack comes out swinging with “How to Survive in South Central”. We also get tunes from hip-hop legends like 2 LIVE CREW, Too $hort, and Run-DMC. There are also tracks from R&B all-stars like Tevin Campbell, Tony! Toni! Toné!, and the iconic Quincy Jones.
If any 90s soundtrack is a perfect time machine, it’s this one.
‘The Crow’ (1994)
Any soundtrack that’s so bold it’ll place The Cure at the very start is a soundtrack worth your attention. The Crow is a bold movie.
The punches just keep coming, too, as this goth epic also features Nine Inch Nails, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Violent Femmes. There’s plenty of heavy jams as well, with Pantera, Helmet, and Rage Against The Machine also appearing.
It’s understood that The Crow was a formidable film for the rise of goth culture in the mainstream. But we have to also acknowledge that this brilliant soundtrack was a huge part of that success.
‘Batman Forever’ (1995)
When I tell you that, for me, this was one of the most important movie soundtracks of the 90s, that is not an exaggeration. In fact, this was one of the very first non-Christian music albums I ever owned (we’ve been over this), and it exposed me to a lot of sounds that would go on to shape my passion for music. (This is getting unnecessarily sappy, and I apologize.)
First off, Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” is, to this day, one of the biggest songs ever produced in the 1990s, soundtrack or not. Then you have acts like U2, Lenny Kravitz, and Brandy really holding it down.
The real winners for me, though, are the tracks by Sunny Day Real Estate and Nick Cave. This was the first time I ever heard either, and it completely changed my direction in terms of what I sought out of music.
Maybe my favorite track on the whole album is “The Riddler” by Method Man. It’s a perfect song. No notes. The beat, his flow, the layered production… it remains a flawless example of hip-hop.
The Matrix (1999)
Jumping to the end of the 90s, we cannot forget the alluring cyber-goth masterpiece: The Matrix. The film remains one of the most innovative cinematic achievements of all-time, and then you have that delicacy duel-pilled soundtrack.
I mean, come the f*** on… It starts with Marilyn Manson—who was in his best musical era at the time—then goes on to give us tracks from Ministry, The Prodigy, and Rob Zombie. And it doesn’t stop there. The Prodigy, Deftones, Monster Magnet, RATM, Rammstein… this soundtrack was a who’s who of 90s industrial and nu-metal.
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