Late-Night Audio: A tribute to John Hughes

Filmmaker John Hughes passed away this Thursday. Noted as the architect behind such odes to eighties adolescence as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Ferris Bueller's Day Of, it's important to remember how deft his soundtrack choices were. Make no mistake, John Hughes had an active part in selecting the songs that backed the suburban travails of Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. While the characters in John Hughes movies came from all adolescent cliques, the soundtracks were more often than not dictated by the sort of tastes held by the kids with the big hair and eyeliner that listened to college radio. John Hughes soundtracks were loaded to the gills with the sounds of that over-reverbed beast known as "modern rock": an 1980s American radio programmer's cross-section of post-punk, New Wave, and alternative rock that was on the "cutting edge" (in actuality, often the most commerical cuts from this sort of music and overwhemingly British, hampered by a production style that would date them horribly).

You know I just noticed the other day that in Ferris Bueller's Day Off that the protagonist has Flesh For Lulu and Killing Joke posters in his bedroom? In the case of the former, Ferris doesn't strike me as the sort to be into shitty second rate goth. As for the latter, well, hey Killing Joke is cool, but also an unlikely choice.

Anyway, let's focus on the cream of the crop of music from the John Hughes filmography. First up is the hit anthem of The Breakfast Club, "Don't You forget About Me" by Simple Minds.



In my humble opinion, this is the only decent song Simple Minds ever made. I wouldn't recommend delving into their catalog, unless you have a hankering for ham-handed U2-esque arena rock without the talent. And if you don't like U2 in the first place, imagine all the things you hate about U2 except blander and with a ginger Scotsman out front instead of Bono.

One of the more bizarre soundtrack choices was when "Eighties" by Killing Joke appeared during a party scene in the latter half of Weird Science. You may have heard that Nirvana was sued by Killing Joke because of similarities between the main riff in "Eighties" and that in "Come As You Are". I for one don't think they're all that close. Really, it's not as if it's as big stretch for two bands to play an A note followed by an F# note in in two separate songs.

Yello's "Oh Yeah" is a bit overfamiliar due to its brilliant use in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so it's easy to miss how avant-garde the song and the band that made it actually are. Take a look at the video: accompanied by the song's ominous riff, rumbling rhythms, and bassy vocals, it's almost discomforting in its low-budget surrealism.



Probably the definitive John Hughes soundtrack was the one for the 1986 monument to teen ennui Pretty in Pink, which featured the likes of Psychedelic Furs, INXS, Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, and The Smiths. It's like a KROQ DJ's wet dream. The re-recorded version of Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty in Pink" is not a patch on the original recording, which is one of the great post-punk tracks of all time. Psychedelic Furs are odd in that back in the 1980s they were a wee bit overrated (two decent albums followed by a lot of mediocre material that sold mainly on inertia) but are unduly ignored now. The original "Pretty in Pink" is the best case for their talents:



Echo & the Bunnymen's "Bring on the Dancing Horses" was originally released as a single to promote the band's compilation Songs to Learn and Sing. Accompanied by a fantastic Anton Corbijn music video, "Bring on the Dancing Horses" is a strong contender for the best single ever released as a new bonus track from a compilation record. Too bad the video is no longer on Youtube, due to Warner Bros. pulling its wares from the site due to royalties disputes. So here's a live clip on Japanese television. Ian McCulloch looks confused as hell while the presenters converse in Japanese:



My personal favorite John Hughes film tune is "If You Leave" by Liverpudlian synthpop fops Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, from the end of Pretty in Pink. Yes, it's overwrought and kind of cheesy, but it's gloriously so. I will never deny the power of a great pop song. C'mon, they fucking nail the execution and emotion of that song. The chorus has been my cellphone ringtone for years, and I'm quite disappointed that I can't transfer it to my new phone.