MUSIC AND THE MOVIES: PART ONE

I heard the theme song from "Flashdance...What A Feeling" on the radio a little while ago and it made me wonder:

"When was the last time a song from a film became a hit and made it on the pop charts?"

I was struggling to come up with something and I think it might have been Eminem and his rap song, "Lose Yourself" from his film, "8 Mile" (which actually won the Oscar for Best Original Song) but that was eight years ago.

The right piece of music could be an important part of a film that helped create the perfect mood or feeling as well as being just a great song you want to listen to. There is an obvious hunger for this type of music considering the success of the television shows like, "High School Musical" and "Glee" and their multiple soundtracks.

Unfortunately, there is no longer much thought put into creating a distinguishable song for a movie anymore and the songs that are used today tend to be something you would never want to listen to again. It's too bad but maybe this will make a comeback.

For this post, I'm going to focus on movie songs from the 1960's and 1970's. I think this was the golden age of songs created specifically for a film and a time when people actually loved the music enough to buy the movie's soundtrack. These songs were played regularly on the radio and became pop hits.

Let's go back and enjoy a few of the tunes that became just as memorable as the films they were used in:

Alfie - Dionne Warwick (1966)

Theme From "Valley Of The Dolls" -  Dionne Warwick (1967)

Mrs. Robinson - Simon & Garfunkel (1967)

Theme From "Mahogany" (Do You Know Where You're Going To?) - Diana Ross (1975)

Night Fever - Bee Gees (1977)

"You're The One That I Want" - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John (1978)

And here is a selection of the theme songs from the James Bond, agent 007 films:

Diamonds Are Forever - Shirley Bassey (1971)

Live And Let Die - Paul McCartney & Wings (1973)

Nobody Does It Better - Carly Simon (1977)