Tom Cruise: a Top Gun on the top 80s soundtrack.
Sure, there were movie soundtracks before the dawn of the 1980s - who can forget the enduring image of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper roaring along on Harley choppers to the sound of Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild in Easy Rider, or young Benjamin Braddock about to be seduced by the wily Mrs Robinson to the dulcet tones of Messrs Simon & Garfunkel in The Graduate? But more often than not, the soundtrack to a film often seemed like something of an afterthought.
In the 80s, however, everything changed. The movies got bigger, brasher and more bombastic. And so did their scores. It was a time for specially commissioned and written songs that fulfilled the remit of encapsulating the film in a three- or four-minute blast. Kenny Loggins seemed to develop a real knack for this and found a renewed sense of purpose during the 80s, writing the main rock themes for both Top Gun and Footloose.