50 Worst Movie Soundtracks

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The Midnight Hour (1985)

I Am Sam (2001)

The Soundtrack: American artists like Sheryl Crow, Eddie Vedder and Sarah McLachlan cover Beatles songs – 20 in total.

Worst Song: So many to choose from. ‘Golden Slumbers’ by Ben Folds sounds wrong with an American accent, while Paul Westerberg drawls ‘Nowhere Man’ so nasally it’s almost impossible to remember what the original sounded like.

Love Story (1970)

The Soundtrack: A relatively classy (pretentious?) compilation of Mozart, Bach and Handel that attempts to pluck at the heart strings.

Worst Song: Francis Lai’s title track ‘Love Story’ won an Oscar, but has now been parodied so much that it’s turned into an irritating shadow of its former self.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001)

The Soundtrack: Lots of generic American soft-rock, which is sort of the point considering this is a spoof of American sex comedies.

Worst Song: Marilyn Mansion’s ‘Tainted Love’. Anybody attempts to cover Soft Cell, they’re setting themselves up for a fall.

Godzilla (1998)

The Soundtrack: Jamiroquai’s ‘Deeper Underground’ isn’t bad, while Rage Against The Machine donate ‘No Shelter'.

Worst Song: It all goes wrong when P. Diddy and Jimmy Page get in on the action with their track ‘Come With Me’, mostly thanks to the horribly inept lyrics: “Break the faith / Fall from grace / Tell me lies / Time flies / Close your eyes.”

Cool As Ice (1991)

The Soundtrack: Contains four new tracks from Vanilla Ice. What? That’s not tempting enough for you?

Worst Song: ‘Cool As Ice (Everybody Get Loose)’ by the one and only Vanilla Ice, a synth-reliant rap song that features vocals by Naomi Campbell. Which is all you really need to know.

Xanadu (1980)

The Soundtrack: Olivia Newton-John collaborates with Electric Light Orchestra for a twinkly musical experience that’ll leave you feeling like somebody popped something in your drink when you weren’t looking.

Worst Song: Newton-John’s uncharacteristically shrill on title track ‘Xanadu’, which sounds like a poor man’s Abba track. And nobody messes with Abba.

The Monster Squad (1987)

The Soundtrack: Michael Sembello provides a little foot-tapping in ‘Rock Until You Drop’, while the Monster Squad themselves variously howl and drone the title song.

Worst Song: Unimaginatively titled track ‘The Monster Squad’, which pairs terrible rhyme with migraine-inducing rap. They couldn’t even rope in an A-list singer to give it a little punch, meaning the Squad themselves had to provide vocals.

Short Circuit (1986)

The Soundtrack: A ridiculously of-its-time ‘80s concoction to accompany the equally ridiculously of-its-time Short Circui t. Lovably tacky, but tacky nonetheless.

Worst Song: Max Carl & Marcy Levy’s painfully sentimental ‘Come And Follow Me’, replete with dramatic drum beats and vibrating guitar strings. Pass the bucket.

Die Another Day (2002)

The Soundtrack: Consists mostly of David Arnold’s action-flavoured score (courtesy a little team-up with Paul Oakenfold), though The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ also makes an appearance.

Worst Song: Madonna’s ‘Die Another Day’, nominated both for a Golden Globe and a Golden Raspberry. It deserved the latter.

Joshua Winning

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.