After spending an entire month looking back at the 80’s, I realized one thing. I need more. Luckily, a couple of fellow music fans on Twitter came up with the brilliant idea to highlight #30DaysOf80sMovieSongs during the month of April. I couldn’t resist at the opportunity to keep going, to keep listening, and to keep celebrating the decade that has meant more to me than any other from a musical standpoint. Each day I’m playing a different soundtrack favorite on the Mental Jukebox.
Movie: Ghostbusters
“Hold Me Now”. “Doctor! Doctor!”. “Lies”. “Lay Your Hands On Me”. “Love On Your Side”. “In The Name Of Love”. These are the songs of The Thompson Twins. The songs that made us move. Above all things, the trio knew how to do one thing exceptionally well: get us to dance. It didn’t matter where you were – club, party, car, bedroom, shower. Thompson Twins songs used every tool in their arsenal to this end, and they often did it with mid-tempo tracks, relying less on speed and more on substance.
I remember playing “In The Name Of Love ‘88” over and over again when I first got my Best of Thompson Twins Remix CD. Nearly obsessed with it, I peeled it apart like an onion. Every element on the track gives it a danceability. The church organ-esque chords. The vocal echoes. The squirmy synth sequences. The John Lydon-like exclamations. It was a proven party track that instantly elevated the Ghostbusters soundtrack and gave it added dimension beyond the Ray Parker Jr. classic.
“Well it's fun to think that I'm having the time of my life. And it's true if all this around us is paradise.”