I was watching Urban Cowboy earlier this week on VH1 Classic, and was thinking about how great the soundtrack to that movie was. Now granted, it was slightly before my time but my mom owned it, and played it about eleven gajillion times, so now it’s stuck in my memory.

The obvious choices (Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Purple Rain, Footloose, Dirty Dancing) aside, what other soundtracks have received the Snarkwife Seal of Approval?

• Urban Cowboy - I can’t hear Boz Scaggs’s “Look What You’ve Done to Me” without thinking of Bud cheating on Sissy with that oil baron’s daughter: “Daddy’s in oil. And all that implies.”
• That Thing You Do! - I loved everything on this soundtrack except for that insipid Diane Dane song…she was such a tart, flirting with Jimmy the way she did! For shame!
• Singles - Was there a defining soundtrack for my generation? If it wasn’t this one, it’s the one below.
• Reality Bites - Goodness gracious, whatever happened to The Juliana Hatfield 3?
• The Bodyguard - I think I literally, wore this CD out…and the cassette tape I dubbed it to so I could listen to it in my car.
• Sideways - Technically a score versus a soundtrack, but you can’t tell me the music in that movie isn’t great.
• The Commitments - I just rediscovered this one, and downloaded all the songs from iTunes. I had the CD back from when the movie originally came out, but didn’t seem to have it anymore. Regardless, remember when Andrew Strong was dubbed The Next Big Thing?
• When Harry Met Sally - “Harry who? I don’t know who he is, but he sure is hot!“
• Tin Cup - This wasn’t exactly a great movie, but it was definitely a movie which was saved by its soundtrack - which always makes me smile. If only there had been a song titled, “The One Where Don Johnson Gets That Smug Smirked Wiped Off His Face.”
• Hope Floats - Another one of those “average movie, great soundtrack” entries…Trisha Yearwood’s “To Make You Feel My Love” hooked me, and the rest of the songs kept me coming back.
• The Little Mermaid - I know just enough French from “Les Poissons” to probably get me laughed out of Paris…thanks, Disney!
• Almost Famous - Have you seen this movie? Seriously…you need to. It’s one of Capt. UberHusband’s all-time faves, and the soundtrack is a fantastic compilation of early 70s classic rock. I didn’t know all the words to “Tiny Dancer” until I saw this movie.
• Say Anything - If you were a young woman in 1989, you had this cassette tape. If you were a young man in 1989, if you were smart, you blared it from your boombox in front of your girlfriend’s house.

It was tough to narrow this one down to just 13. Juno barely missed the cut…but the movie and soundtrack just came out, and I really can’t with good faith put it on my list of all-time fave soundtracks just because I’m enjoying it right this second. Honorable mentions go to Elizabethtown, American Graffiti (again, a little before my time), and St. Elmo’s Fire.

Which soundtracks pop into your head?