The iconic ’80s movies of John Hughes wouldn’t have been the same without their equally iconic soundtracks. Now, you can get musical highlights from the films in a box set called Life Moves Pretty Fast: The John Hughes Mixtapes, out November 11th via Demon/Edsel.
Billed as “the first official compilation of music from the movies of legendary filmmaker John Hughes,” the box set covers his heyday from 1983 to 1989 and contains selections from the soundtracks to the films Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Some Kind of Wonderful, She’s Having a Baby, The Great Outdoors and Uncle Buck, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It was curated by Hughes’ music supervisor Tarquin Gotch.
Life Moves Pretty Fast is available as a 74-track 4xCD with a bonus 7-inch and cassette, a limited edition 73-track 6xLP red vinyl, and a 25-track 2xLP. Both the deluxe CD set and limited edition vinyl collection contain a booklet with memories from Matthew Broderick, James Hughes, and Tarquin Gotch along with track by track sleeve notes.
All versions of the box set include Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” as well as songs by Kate Bush, Oingo Boingo, OMD, Big Audio Dynamite, the Psychedelic Furs, and more.
“Back when we were working on these movie soundtracks, the best way to send music around the world was the cassette, by Fedex,” Gotch remembered in a statement. “We sent John cassettes of newly released music, of demos, of just finished mixes (and in return he would send VHS videos of the scenes that needed music).”
Hughes’ son James Hughes, who worked with Demon Music Group on the release, added, “It serves as a reminder not just to the musicians [John Hughes] championed in the 1980s, but to how intensely his search for music expanded beyond this era. Until his final days, he was still collecting outrageous amounts of music from around the world, galaxies removed from the New Romantic and new wave sounds that, to many, still define him.”
Pre-orders for the box set are ongoing.
Life Moves Pretty Fast: The John Hughes Mixtape Artwork:
Life Moves Pretty Fast: The John Hughes Mixtape Tracklist:
