Welcome to a way out, Walkman-melting, battery-sucking hit parade of teen comedy soundtrack cuts assembled by Mike “McBeardo” McPadden, author of TEEN MOVIE HELL: A Crucible of Coming-of-Age Comedies from Animal House to Zapped! This is your Teen Movie Hell mixtape, crank it for use extremely unwisely!
The Valley Girl soundtrack is appropriately applauded as one of the decade’s essentials, and the movie generated two touchstone tunes that will be perpetually connected to the film: “I Melt With You” by UK tech-wavers Modern English and “A Million Miles Away” by Cali power-popsters the Plimsouls. Each of those permanent culture fixtures does what it does without flaw.
One barb against Valley Girl that sticks is that for all of Nicolas Cage’s punk-rock bravado on-screen, no actual punk songs made it into the movie. Well, for shock value, even without buzzsaw guitars, Josie Cotton’s “Johnny, Are You Queer?” is the rawest song in the valley. This spiky retro-’60s send-up fit just swell on big-city new-wave stations between “The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight” by Dominatrix and “Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage” by Killer Pussy. Life used to be fun, you know?
Are you feeling the summer heat yet? When you’re walking in L.A., be sure blast the Teen Music Hell playlist and keep your sunblocked nose in the book TEEN MOVIE HELL:
I love this song, and the entire Valley Girl soundtrack, with such a passion. The movie is mandatory viewing for me every summer (Thanks for the new Blu-ray, Shout!), and I happily own Rhino’s 1994 CD plus the More Music companion CD from 1995.
That clip is from LAUGH TRAX, a show only I seem to remember.
Nora Cee