V/A: The Virgin Suicides: Music From The Motion Picture (soundtrack) [RYKO]

Why you'll love it

This LP gathers the AM-radio songs from Sofia Coppola's 1999 debut, plus the vibraphone version of Air's "Playground Love" and "Ce Matin La." Its 12 tracks run from Heart's "Magic Man" to Styx's "Come Sail Away."

This edition

• Soundtrack compilation
• Includes Air's "Playground Love (Vibraphone Version)"

About the album

Grosse Pointe, Michigan, 1975, as played by Toronto. Sofia Coppola shot her first feature here in 1998, telling the story of the five Lisbon sisters through the eyes of the neighbourhood boys who never quite understood them, with Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, James Woods and Kathleen Turner in the cast.

The songs are the boys' memories set to music. Heart's "Crazy On You" and "Magic Man" bring the swagger, Todd Rundgren's "Hello It's Me" and "A Dream Goes On Forever" bring the ache, and 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" hangs in the air like perfume. Gilbert O'Sullivan, The Hollies and Al Green add to the mood, Halifax's Sloan sneaks in with "Everything You've Done Wrong," and French duo Air, who wrote the film's score, close the circle. The songs drift in and out of the film the way radio hits drift through a summer, and the album keeps that hazy, late-afternoon glow from start to finish.

The film became a cult classic and started Coppola's long run of working with Dunst. Some of us were teenagers in the suburbs too; sadly nobody thought to score it.

Also at Kops: more The Virgin Suicides on vinyl · browse Soundtracks

Tracklist

Listen

On Rhino (cat# RCVI 317029), a reissue of the 2000 soundtrack.