Empire Records has to be one of my favorite movies ever. I could literally rewatch this movie a million times and not get bored with it in the least. It’s your typical early-90’s teen movie, the feel of it borderlining between your classic, The Breakfast Club and your cult favorite, Dazed & Confused. I have an affinity with both of those movies (not to mention I’m a huge John Hughes fan, as well as a big fan of 80s teen movies). What I think makes Empire Records so great though, is its soundtrack.
And I don’t mean the 16-track soundtrack that was officially released as the “Official Soundtrack,” I mean the 40+ songs used throughout the entire film. This movie is pure ear candy. Granted, the premise of the film does surround the collapse of independent record stores in lieu of the establishment of giant music-chain megastores, so music is very important to the story’s backdrop. But this soundtrack goes above and beyond just being the film’s background music. In my opinion, it’s one of the greatest compilation of music ever.
A few years ago, when I first finished watching the movie, I made a Google search to see if I could find all the songs used in the movie. Of course, I downloaded the original soundtrack, which only contained 16 title songs, but I wanted the whole soundtrack. I was lucky enough to find a forum where this one guy listed all the songs (to his knowledge) that was in the film. He even attached a .zip file of all the listed songs. It was pure gold. Of course, not every song that was used in the film was on that list and in the .zip file. So over the years, I periodically searched the web for an updated list of songs in Empire Records. Today, I’ve got about 42 songs that were in the movie, though I know there are a few more songs that I am missing to complete this compilation.
Either way, I made a playlist of all the songs in order of appearance in the movie. Enjoy!